be quiet Light Loop IO LCD 360mm Liquid Cooler Review
LCD Screen and Software
be quiet IO Center and IO Center Web
be quiet’s IO Center is available as a standalone app and as a web app. The web app allows IO Center to be used on Windows, MacOS, and Linux using Chromium-based browsers. The standalone IO Center app is only available on Windows and contains some features that the web app lacks.
IO Center
IO Center can be used to detect your liquid cooler (or other compatible be quiet hardware) and to adjust your cooler’s RGB lighting, fan speeds, and LCD screen. It can also be used to update the firmware of your be quiet hardware.
be quiet’s LCD screen can be used to showcase time, system information, play media (show what song is currently playing on your PC, etc), and display static images or colours. The screen can display separate backgrounds and overlays, giving users a lot of customisability. GIPHY support is integrated, allowing users to quickly find animated GIFs to display on their screens.
IO Center can also be used to define fan and cooling block RGB lighting. Users can make their coolers single-colour, multi-colour, or showcase various patterns or effects.
Fan control – An annoying issue
IO Centre can be used to control your cooler’s fan and pump speeds. In-app control is available, though support for control through external applications is available through PWM mode. However, we will note that PWM mode sets all fans and the cooler’s pump to the same percentage value in PWM mode. In other words, if you set this thing to 75% speeds in an external app, both its fans and pump will run at 75%. Controlling both separately with an external app is not possible, at least right now on our test system.
Thankfully, all of these options are configurable separately using the IO Center app. Furthermore, this is only an issue for tinkerers. If you plan to use this cooler with its pre-defined performance profiles, this will be a non-issue for you. Additionally, it is worth remembering that users of this cooler will need to use IO Center for screen control. In this sense, using IO Center is unavoidable.
With IO Center, users are free to create their own performance profiles, or use be quiet’s quiet, balanced, performance and full speed profiles. The IO Center app offers a great level of customisability. That said, this cooler has limited usability with 3rd party fan control apps, which is a shame.
IO Center Web
With IO Center Web, most of IO Center’s features are available online. That said, technical limitations prevent some features from being available. For the most part, these settings are for features that require ongoing monitoring. Cooling Studio is also not available through the web app.
The following features are not available in IO Center | Web due to technical restrictions:
- General:
– Hardware Monitor - Illumination Settings
– Temperature-based lighting
– Screen Sync
– Microsoft Dynamic Lighting - Screen Setup
– Background: Dynamic
– Overlay (without the background service, Light Loop IO LCD shows the liquid temperature in °C or °F, based on the app settings) - Cooling Setup
– Sensor selection (IO Center | Web only supports setting the cooling mode based on liquid temperature)
– Cooling Studio
Overall, the web app is very useful, especially for users who want to avoid installing dedicated control software. Linux users will also be glad that they can control their coolers. Some brands offer no Linux support.
LCD control is available through the web app. That’s a win for Linux gamers.
RGB/illumination control is also available.
Thermal Testing – Cinebench R24
OC3D CPU Cooler Stress Test
We want to push CPU coolers to their limit, and that requires a workload that will place maximum load on our i5-14600K CPU. Why didn’t we choose an i7 or an i9? The simple answer is that we want to test various CPU Cooler options. If we put the hottest CPU we could in our system, only the best of the best CPU coolers would even pass our testing procedures. Since not everyone uses such a power-hungry CPU, we decided to tone the wattage and thermal loads down by using an i5-14600K. Even so, this CPU consumes a lot of power and generates a lot of heat under all-core workloads. Note that our CPU is operated with a fixed voltage to deliver higher levels of thermal consistency between CPU coolers.
For testing, we have used Cinebench R24. This is an all-core workload that places heavy strain on all available CPU cores. This load pushes CPU thermals higher than any other and does so consistently. We use Cinebench R24 for 30 minutes to see how hot our CPU gets over that time. If CPU temperatures rise to 100 degrees Celsius or over, that CPU cooler has failed our testing. This is part of the reason why there are more coolers on our higher fan RPM cooler charts. Some coolers will pass our thermal testing at higher fan RPMs but fail at lower fan RPMs.
1,000 RPM fan speeds
At 1,000 RPM fan speeds, the be quiet Light Loop IO LCD 360mm delivers relatively strong cooling performance. Overall, the results are similar to be quiet’s existing Light Loop series coolers, which makes sense given the similarity of these coolers aside from the LCD-clad nature of the IO LCD model.
1,500 RPM fan speeds
With speeds cranked to 1,500 RPM, we see stronger results. This cooler isn’t the strongest liquid cooler that we have seen, but it delivers strong results that are very competitive. Add on its £179.99 price tag and LCD-clad nature, and we have a strong value product.
Max RPM fan speeds
By maxing out this unit’s fans at 2,200 RPM, we see a further reduction in CPU thermals and strong results against competing liquid coolers. Note that these thermals are very similar to be quiet’s Silent Loop 3 420mm liquid cooler, a much larger liquid cooling solution.
