Thank you be quiet! for sending us this CPU cooler to review!

I have been running the DeepCool Castle 240R AIO on my PC. I say a long time, because it has been at least 3-4 years now. So far, it has been doing an admirable job keeping my CPU cool, even under stress when running AAA games. My current PC is an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core processor, with an AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT with 12Gb of GDDR6 memory. My main monitor is an ASUS 34” ultra widescreen running at 3440x1440 with AMD-Freesync at 75 Hz refresh.

I usually run games at High to Ultra-High settings at 1440p resolution. So needless to say, I usually put a lot of load on my pc when I am gaming. When I was running the DeepCool AIO, my CPU usually never got above 95º Celsius, but at times the fans would be spinning so fast that there was a noticeable increase in sound level of about 10dB or so when playing games. The sound level increase generated by my Gigabyte Radeon GPU would be negligeable, so the sound level increase was definitely from my CPU AIO, because the sound levels would jump from 35dB to 50dB when starting a game.  The sound readings for fans on the DeepCool AIO, using Gigabyte's System Information Viewer app:

Quiet Mode – 30.2 dB RPM – 2100
Standard Mode – 33.5 dB RPM – 2300
Performance Mode – 36.5 dB RPM – 2312
Full Speed Mode – 42.5 dB RPM – 2872

The sound readings are for the cooler fans only, and are pretty accurate because when my PC is running just Windows... the GPU fans are not spinning at all.

Then I got a call from Jason, who asked me if I would test and review a new AIO from 'be quiet!' … I said I would love to, since I was not doing anything at the time and I greatly enjoy taking apart and putting back together my computer.

So I shut down my PC and started to take it apart. I took out the old AIO from DeepCool, and I actually found that the thermal compound on the CPU was dried out and actually not covering the entire CPU. I was very surprised that my CPU did not overheat during daily usage over the last 3 or 4 years.

The old DeepCool AIO is a 240mm cooler with two 120mm fans on it, so I could install it on either the top or the front of my case. I had the cooler installed on the top of the case with the fans on top blowing out the top of the case. According the the specifications of my PC case, which is a Corsair 4000D, the case can handle either a 240mm or 360mm cooler on either the top or front of the case, so I removed all the fans from the case so I could figure out the best place to install the new 360mm AIO from be quiet! I measured the top of the case and the front of the case, and found the measurements to be 16 inches long by 17 inches tall. Then I measured the radiator on the be quiet! All-in-one cooler to be 16 inches long, so I started to install the cooler on the top of my case. I then found that the cooler would not fit on the top of my case if I put the fans under the radiator, because the case's IO and power and reset buttons are on the top of the case, taking up almost 2 inches of the top of the case.

The components inside the box of the be quiet! Light Loop 360mm AIO cooler consisted of the radiator with the hoses and base plate all attached. The cooling pump in this model of AIO cooler is installed on the CPU base plate. 'be quiet!' does have AIO coolers that has the pump located on the radiator, but this Light Loop AIO has the pump on the base plate. Also included was the installation hardware for AMD and Intel motherboards, and also an “ARGB” controller for the three 120mm cooling fans on the radiator.

Current motherboards offer two different kinds of connectors: 12V RGB header and 5V ARGB header. Depending on the brand of motherboard, they may be named differently. MSI for example names their 5V ARGB headers JRAINBOW, while ASUS often refers to them as ADD GEN2. These connectors can be visually distinguished by the fact that RGB headers have four pins, while ARGB headers have only three. Luminous components can be connected to both types, but the range of functions are different. With 5V ARGB headers, the individual LEDs of the connected device can be addressed (which is why the "A" stands for "addressable"), via 12V RGB headers all LEDs are synchronized. An LED strip that has an RGB connector thus only lights up in one color at a time. An ARGB header can also be used to display advanced effects, such as the popular rainbow effect.

Very important: RGB and ARGB are incompatible. In addition to the voltage, the difference is mainly in the control: The color is regulated via three channels ("R", "G" and "B") for RGB connections, and only via one channel ("Data") for ARGB connections. RGB lighting like my Corsair case fans require an RGB header. Modern ARGB fans, such as the 'be quiet!' Light Wings, require an ARGB header. I believe the ARGB lighting effects are more popular because of their versatility, even though they currently cost more to produce and are higher priced at the stores.

All that being said, I then installed the AIO on the front of the case with the fans on the inside pulling air into the case thru the radiator. Most AIO coolers can be installed with the fans on either side of the radiator, and usually there is a small to no difference in temperature change wherever the AIO cooler is installed in the case, so it comes down to where the cooler can be installed and if the user wants the fans installed on the inside or outside of the cooler. The instructions that come with the 'be quiet!' AIO cooler recommends the fans be installed in a push configuration with the fans mounted on the hose side of the radiator. However, that is if the cooler is being mounted on the top of the case, and since my case does not have the room for the 360mm radiator on the top, I had to install it on the front of the case. Actually, I found that if you install the fans on the outside of the radiator, you would not be able to see the RGB colors of the fans from the inside of the case. I could actually make the 'be quiet!' cooler fit in the top of my Corsair 4000D case with the fans on the top of the cooler, and then install a few more fans on the bottom of the cooler in a pull/push configuration, but I think that would be overkill with RGB fans, and I would not be able to accurately test the cooling ability and sound levels of the cooler. Also, it would not be an accurate test of the AIO cooler in the configuration that came in the box from the manufacturer.

All that to say that the be quiet! AIO cooler is installed on my PC, and after running my PC for about 2 weeks with different games running while monitoring the PC temperatures, I have to say that the be quiet! AIO cooler is incredibly quiet and maintains CPU temperature at a frosty 50ºC up to 66ºC. During testing, I ran Cinebench 2024, Furmark and Prime95, and the highest temperature I received was 85.6ºC, and believe me, running all 3 of those test programs really bogged down my PC to a crawl. I think the best part is truly how quiet it is. Even with the glass side off my case off, I get sound levels that are within a decibel of the same as a quiet library, with sounds levels barely above 30dBs. And loading any of my games barely makes a difference in sound volume, except for the fact that the fans do spin faster on the GPU, but not the be quiet! AIO cooler fans.  I did find that the Corsair fans were running at sound levels of about 36dBs, so only about 6dB difference, which you would wouldn't think that's a lot of difference, but it really is a noticeable difference in sound levels.