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The be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420 is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand you get a nice blend of quiet operation – even at maximum fan speed – and subtle looks with a hint of ARGB lighting. But on the other hand, for its huge radiator size and triple 140mm fans, it's not producing blistering thermal performance. In fact it's only on par with its smaller and older sibling, the be quiet! Light Loop 360. Some 360mm units from other vendors are even ahead in terms of thermal performance, especially when looking at the 40 dBA noise normalised data.
Don’t get me wrong, the thermal performance is OK, there's no sign of our AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU thermal throttling or anything like that… but it's only OK, and I would expect a brand new 420mm AIO to perform a little better. The noise output is quite impressive though, even with three 140mm fans running at 1900RPM the cooler only outputs 45dBA which is excellent for this size cooler with fans running at high speed.
Build quality seems fine, the satin finish coating on the radiator looks smooth, tubing length is good at around 400mm, the rubber tubing is flexible and covered with a high quality braided sleeving. Installation is also pretty simple and all power and RGB connections use standard 4-pin PWM and 3-pin 5V ARGB so they can connect directly to motherboard headers, with no need for additional control hubs or software.
420mm and 360mm versions of the Silent Loop 3 also support high-end desktop AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, which is a bonus. The ARGB lighting effects look nice and bright and the LEDs diffusion is good. However the warranty is a little poor, only 3 years is offered by be quiet! compared with the competition – including some much cheaper units – offering up to 6 years. But the price seems reasonably competitive for a 420mm unit at £125 in the UK.
the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420 is available to purchase from Scan priced at £124.99 HERE.
Pros:
- Quiet even at high fan speed.
- Subtle looks should fit any system style.
- Easy to install and setup – no hubs or software required to work.
Cons:
- Only middling performance for the size.
- 420mm radiator won't fit all ATX cases.
- Wiring can be tricky to manage – daisy chained or interlinked fans would help.
KitGuru says: If low noise is what you look for in an AIO then the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 might be ideal for you, but you are losing thermal performance versus some of the competition.
