be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420 AIO CPU Cooler Review

1. be quiet! Silent Loop 3 4202. Test Results3. Closing Thoughts4. View All Pages

Test System Specifications:

• CPU – AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• Motherboard – ASRock Phantom Gaming X870E Nova WiFi
• Memory: 32GB (2 x 16GB Modules) Kingston Fury DDR5-6000
• Graphics card: MSI Radeon RX 6600 XT Gaming X
• Storage: 1TB Corsair MP600 Elite PCIe Gen4x4 NVME M.2 SSD
• Power Supply: Seasonic Prime TX-1000
• Chassis: Open Test Bench
• Thermal Compound: Arctic MX-6
• O/S: Windows 11 Version 24H2

Testing Methodology:

We are primarily focussing on the performance of each cooler at 100% fan speed and also when locked to 40dBA noise output. We will focus on cooling performance using a manual overclock with all-core frequency and VCORE locked to 5.2GHz/1.3v (AMD) and 5.5GHz/1.3v (Intel) and Precision Boost Overdrive performance.

• The test data is logged using HWINFO and the final 10 minutes of the data is calculated to find the average CPU temperature and CPU clock multiplier (AMD PBO Test) and then plotted in the charts.
• For testing, we use a 30-minute looped run of Cinebench R23 and record the steady-state CPU temperature at the end of the test. This ensures that the CPU has had ample time to warm up and reach a steady state under all of the coolers.
• The ambient is maintained at 19-21 degrees Celsius. Where there is variation beyond this temperature range, we add extra repeated tests to ensure consistency. However, this is well controlled now with A/C.
• We also test each cooler with at least two fresh installs (typically three) to mitigate the likelihood of poor mounting spoiling results.
• Ambient temperature and humidity are controlled via a mini split air conditioning system inside the test room. Ambient temperature is maintained between 19-20C, Temperature delta figures are shown in the charts (ambient temperature is deducted from the measured component temperature).

Test Results:

Acoustics

We’ll start by looking at noise output as this will give us a good indication of performance based on noise.

With a 100% PWM speed of almost 1900 RPM , the three 140mm be quiet! Silent Wings 4 fans output just 45dBA noise which makes the Silent Loop 3 420 one of the quietest coolers to be tested on our new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X system, which is impressive since large fans running at high RPM are usually much louder.

Thermal Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

With the fans running at maximum speed at around 1900 RPM, the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420 shows decent thermal performance at 60°C average over ambient. However, it only matches the performance of its smaller and older sibling, the be quiet! Light Loop 360. But performance is within a couple of degrees of the Silverstone Ice Myst 420 and Corsair H170i RGB, however there's a clear gap to the best in the chart.

Restricting all coolers to 40dBA noise limit puts everything on a level playing field and the true performance can be measured.

The Silent Loop 3 420 holds on to performance with fan speed reduced, but it still only matches the Light Loop 360. It’s a couple of degrees better than the Corsair H170i RGB but the Silverstone IcyMyst 420 pulls a few degrees cooler at 40dBA so the Sight Loop 3 performance is a little disappointing as it’s the newer of the 420mm AIOs in our data pool.

Most AMD users will likely be running their CPUs with dynamic clock frequencies, so we run the full fan speed test again with AMD Precision Boost Overdrive enabled in the motherboard BIOS and measure the performance.

In this scenario the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 again does ok with an average clock multiplier of 52.5x at 70°C over ambient, which is a minor improvement over the 420mm Corsair unit but as we saw in the other thermal tests, it's not blistering performance and only on par with other 360mm units.

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