be quiet! Pure Loop 2 FX RGB 240mm AIO

It was only a matter of time until every main cooling company will adopt and alt least offer an RGB variant of their main products. This is by no means a bad thing but then the focus is directed on how this feature was implemented. Thus we are looking at the Pure Loop 2 FX ARGB 240mm AIO from be quiet!. These particular AIOs are easy to recognize since it they have the decoupled pump feature.

Be Quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies and cooling solutions for your desktop PC. With numerous awards under their belt and considered the best German power supply manufacturer from Germany since 2006 – was awarded nine times in a row as “Manufacturer of the Year” in the power supply category by the readers of the well-known German hardware magazine PC Games Hardware. In the category “fans”, be quiet! earned the first rank for five consecutive times and belongs to the Top 3 CPU cooler brands for more than three years in a row. The community of Hardwareluxx also voted be quiet! as “Manufacturer of the Year” in the PSU category for four consecutive years.

Prices and Availability

It retails for around $130 on Amazon.com which is fair value but it has plenty of competition from other brands which sit at around the $100 mark like this one or this one.

Highlights and Specification

*Courtesy of their website.

Impressive lighting, superior cooling – Pure Loop 2 FX 240mm is the very high-performing and silent All-in-One water cooling unit with impressive ARGB illumination.

* Very high cooling performance for all mainstream CPUs
* 2 Light Wings 120mm PWM high-speed fans offer equally high air pressure and vibrant ARGB illumination
* Doubly decoupled PWM pump for quiet operation and minimal vibration
* ARGB-PWM-Hub enables synchronization of up to 6 ARGB components and PWM fans
* Combination of ARGB illumination, all-black design and aluminum-style for unmistakable and stylish look
* Easy-to-access refill port and included coolant bottle guarantee a long lifespan
* 3-year manufacturer’s warranty

Visual Inspection

Branding and packaging is typical be quiet!, with an all dark background and all the main specs and highlights on all sides of the box. Thus it’s easy to recognize the fact that this is the RGB variant.

We really like that be quiet! offer the radiator with its own cardboard sleeve, for greater protection.

Besides the usual mounting hardware, which resides in labeled zip-lock bags, let’s focus on the unique additions from this AIO.

As far as we are aware, be quiet! ships all of thier AIOs with an extra bottle of coolant. They recommend to top up the system every 2 years or so.

Now this is something that most companies should take notice since be quiet! is offering a separate hub for illumination and power to the fans. It’s a 6-way 4-pin PWM and 5V RGB SATA-powered unit that will fit in an SSD tray or anywhere you desire in the case, since it comes 3M tape as well. Furthermore it’s a critical item if your case doesn’t have a built hub or your motherboard hasn’t enough free 5V plugs.

These are the Light Wings 120mm PWM fans in the High-Speed trim and thus rated up to 2500 RPM. They use a 4-pole rifle bearing rotor and should push up to 88.86 m3/h of airflow with a static pressure of 2.6mm H2O, while not going over 31 dB(A) of sound output.

The Pure Loop FX 2 AIO has a minimalist overall design. The tubes are fully sleeved and are 400mm long, which is pretty standard.

Its radiator measures 27mm thick and has this nice branding in direct line of sight when installed.

Notice the top refill coolant port which is a welcomed serviceability feature.

Now here is the decoupled reverse-flow pump. The idea here was to separate the pump from the heatsink (obviously, where all of the heat is coming from). Sounds good in theory and it should help in overall cooling but it created this new problem of hiding the power cable from it, since it comes out in such a direct angle.

Another result of this external pump is that the heatsink will have a minimal footprint. Of course, now it has ARGB as well in its casing.

Regarding the cotact plate, we have the standard nickel plating with a slight convex profile and almost-mirror polish to it.

Installation

The process is typically easier on the AMD sockets since there are less parts involved. The following steps are valid for both AM4 and AM5 sockets since they posses the same spacing. Thus the first thing to do is to remove the stock plastic AMD brackets while retaining the motherboard backplate.

Attach the black plastic spacers.

Secure the metal brackets in this exact orientation.

Now it’s a good time to attach the fans while making sure that the wires are exiting through the south of the radiator.

Next is to attach the radiator in your desired spot in the case.

Finally bolt down the heatsink to the brackets.

To wrap things up, do your wire-management and either use the supplied 6-way hub or use the integrated hub from you case, as shown here.

Perfect fit and no clearance issues to report but as mentioned, the pump wire is hard to hide completly.

The RGB light-show is what you would expect – excellent – and since we have a matching be quiet! with ARGB fans from the same line-up, well, everything is in sync.

Testing methodology

• The CPU cooler will be tested in 2 different scenarios with the help of the AMD Ryzen 7 2700 CPU, first at stock settings and then overclocked at 3.8 GHz for 1.30v
• As the main torture test, we will employ a 2 minute run in AIDA64
• Room temperature was recorded at ~21°C
• For the noise testing, we used our Pyle PSPL01 placed 30 cm away from the setup – all other fans will will be off or set at minimum RPM and a lav mic was places at the same distance for the audio sample
• Thermal paste used Noctua NH-H2
• All of the side panels will be attached, then the case’s fans are set to their lowest setting and finally the be quiet!’s fans will be left on auto % RPM to simulate real life usage or manually adjusted and pointed out accordingly
• Any results over 90°C in any condition are considered a fail

Hardware used:

– CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700
– RAM: 16GB DDR4 Crucial LPX Vengeance 3200 MHz CL16
– Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming II ATX @ BIOS 5102
– Boot SSD: Samung 870 EVO 1TB SATA III SSD
– Video card: MSI GTX 970 4G OC
– PSU: EVGA 600W W1 80+ ATX
– Case: be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX RGX ATX
– Competition AIO 1: SilverStone IceMyst 240mm AIO RGB
– Competition AIO 2: Alpenföhn Glacier Water HS “der8auer” 240mm AIO RGB

Software:

– OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 Version 22H2
– NVIDIA Drivers – 546.17
– CPU-Z v1.95 – To verify the CPU’s and RAM’s statistics
– Core Temp v1.18 & HW Monitor v1.51 – To see the temperatures in real time
– AIDA64 Extreme v6.60 – Memory analysis and Benchmark suite
– MSI Afterburner v4.64 – To record the FPS and load/temperatures
– Cinebench R23 – Great overall CPU benchmark tool
– 3D/Game(s) – Rise of the Tomb Raider, set at 1080p, high quality settings, no V-Sync

Testing, Results and Analysis

The first series of tests come from Cinebench R23 which will put a serious load on the CPU while it renders a specific frame. Thus from left to right we have the stock and OC (3.8 GHz @ 1.30v) scenarios.

Cooling results are great considering the given competition.

The 2 minute long AIDA64 stress test should impose the maximum workload just for the CPU, therefore we should get the highest stress scenario.

If a CPU cooler manages to survive the torture tests, then a benchmark run in a gaming scenario, should be a walk in the park. Games are not as stressful as a synthetic torture tests but are a great indicator of real life usage.

The pump is quiet even at max RPM, which is pretty standard nowadays. There are some extra resonance since it hang freely on the tubes but again, you will never notice them in a fully build system. As for the fans, nothing out of the ordinary to report besides the fact that they become audible above 70-80% RPM, due to their higher RPM threshold.

Conclusion

In the AIO world, pretty much everything out there uses the Asetek design and patent. So this approach from be quiet! is a welcomed alternative in terms of design. Of course, it created its own challenge, albeit more cosmetic in nature, since you have a weird angle exiting cable to hide, but overall, this is just nitpicking, in the great scheme of things. The ARGB is excellent, cooling results and noise output are again great, and to top things off, installation is very easy.

The good:

+ Unique decoupled exterior pump design
+ Great overall cooling performance
+ Inaudible pump operation due to its design and placement
+ Perfect clearance around the socket area
+ Refillable design with the extra bottle of coolant present
+ ARGB is sexy and done right
+ Includes a 6-way hub
+ Easy installation

The bad:

– A lot of wires to handle dues to the decoupled pump and hub implementation
– Fans will be audible around 70-80% RPM
– Has a lot of competition in the cooling department from other brands

Glob3trotters “Recommend!” Award – 4 out of 5

Many thanks to be quiet! for supplying us with this AIO!