I feel compelled to mention that this space has existed as a niche community for many years now.
I've personally been using a NoFan CR-80EH in my workstations for over 10 years. I think it's subjectively the most beautiful heatsink I've ever seen.
You do need to plan your build to accomodate such a cooler though.
- Open Air case to allow free movement of air in and out of your case
- 65W TDP CPU
While a lot of people feel like 65 watt TDP is limiting, there are some impressive chips you can use under that threshold that don't feel like a compromise. Eg the Ryzen 9 7900 (not-X).
And if the rest of your office is quiet, eliminating ambient background noise is a delightful improvement.
>this space has existed as a niche community for many years now
Yes, I also remember the passive cooling community has existed for a long time, with it being a very big thing when PCs were loud monstrosities, but I feel it has peaked sometime in the mid to late '00s and has been slowly loosing momentum since active cooling solutions became much quieter and better at ramping up/down with load, with most CPUs, GPUs, PSUs coolers nowadays even turning fully off when idling or under low load, along with the shift from PCs to mobile devices, making the need for passive-only PC cooling solutions a small and expensive niche that not many venture into.
Interestingly, the 7900 currently costs more than the 7900x (quick Amazon search). And my understanding is the 7900 is just the 7900x that has its TDP defaulted to 65 watts. So you could buy the cheaper 7900x and just go into BIOS and limit the TDP to make it a 7900.
I would bet that the 7900X chips are binned for higher quality Silicon though. Makes you wonder if an underpowered 7900X outperforms a 7900 and by how much.
I always wanted to do such a project and decided to go for it. I ended up hating it because it made me realize how much I hate coil whine. I mean: it looks so friggin cool, and placing it on your desk will probably give much better air circulation than under it. No fans spinning just made me realize how much noise most computers make that is hidden under fan noise.
I did have dedicated graphics card though, but a passively cooled one. None of my friends found it bothersome, so maybe I'm just sensitive.
Some more tips from a recent install of a Noctua NH-P1:
* If AMD, make sure you have the
backplate or contact Noctua support for
assistance
* The backplate will slide under the
space between the case and motherboard,
with just a slight bit of anguished
bending
* Had to move the top-mounted power
supply (PSU) out of the way completely.
* 2mm is about the size of a crayon tip,
when applying the thermal paste
* Had to move a (Scythe) fan out too, but
the provided clips let me put it on top
The stock CPU cooler on the old AM3 was a source of coil whine, but not anymore :)
A Thinkpad T30 idling nearby also helps mask further sounds.
This is a simple me too. I have had a Xeon (65W TDP) cooled with NoFan 24/7 for some 5 years. It began as my main developer machine and is now a proxmox server. It just works.
This cooler itself doesn't have a fan, but it looks like the test system has at least 4 large case fans, including 2 directly inline with the cooler. And sounds from the text like the fans were spinning.
I love Noctua, but a totally fanless system would be a more interesting test.
> Noctua has a compatibility guide where they list
Of course they do. Noctua is an excellent company. Hard to imagine how they might improve. And some credit to PC builders is deserved as well; they've supported this company and its products and paid the requisite price for years, despite a literal horde of cheaper competition.
I appreciate how little regard they have for the RGB blinkenlights crowd.
In order for this to work the case has to be designed for this type of cooler or there has to be airflow in the case.
With the right case (Fractal Define) and 3 case fans dialed down it's possible to make the system basically silent. Then replace HDDs with SSDs and a passively cooled gpu.
Well, that is.. unlikely. With a bigger CPU, you'll need to add a fan to the cooler, as well. And your mainboard/ram/gpu/ssds generate a lot of unwanted heat, too.
Might work for extremely energy efficient systems, though.
The case fans are larger and spin much more slowly, plus they are running them at 35% speed. This should be practically silent compared to any CPU fan.
Is there a good aggregation of cooler performance somewhere? I've recently completed a build for the first time in a decade and was pleasantly surprised by tools like PC Part Picker, the assembly was a breeze (many micro improvements by everyone), and everything 'just worked'.
Literally the only question I was out cold for was which cooler is good enough? With some coolers rivaling RAM costs and cases having fixings for radiators... it really leaves you thinking. Then again, I left it on stock and have hooked temps into prometheus and everything seems fine so far...
Yeah, the ad-funded model and how that supports reviewers seems to have damaged well structured and comprehensive independent review sites. It's all in videos or really low-effort stuff nowadays, and that makes it hard to draw conclusions without significant effort - and even then, considerable risk of drawing the wrong conclusions.
I think this affects far more than just coolers; it's simply that for categories that have few options (say, CPUs) it's easier to slog through all the youtube videos, and there still exist a few text-based reviewers.
But cases, ram, motherboard AIB versions, GPU AIB versions... even power supplies often - reviews are suprisingly sparse and hard to compare and rarely comprehensive.
YouTube is almost completely useless for reviews. You can't scroll the video, meaning you have to watch almost all of it to realize they're actually not evaluating the metrics you are interested in. One would think a video would make it harder for a reviewer to just parrot official PR, but alas...
The only time I ever find a YouTube review of interest is when e.g you are actually showing some physical characteristic of the product, which is almost never the case for PC components, but maybe the case in some portable devices (tablet PCs come to mind). Notice that on these types of physical aspect reviews the reviewer himself doesn't appear at all on the video. In most PC components "video reviews" you are simply staring at the face of the reviewer. They could literally do without the video at all (save for a couple of still images where tables are presented) and would still be as informative, if not more. Some could even do without the audio...
Have you actually looked at the GN reviews or are you just assuming this...
I agree that text would be nicer to have but man. Also there's chapters now at least, so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers.
> so if you don't care about the analysis you can just jump to the numbers.
I really disagree. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM . Does he measure idle power consumption ? It's impossible to tell from the chapter names. (Spoiler: he doesn't). Also whether he compares the performance of the 7900 sans X with the 7900X at similar power levels (Spoiler: he does, albeit only for 7950X and a minority of the benchmarks.) This is a video which is supposed to be about power efficiency, so it catches my attention; but most of it is about runtime benchmarks with only a couple power/efficiency comparisons early on. And after watching the full video, I cannot think of anything about the visuals that helped made his point clearer. A simple plain page with a couple of tables would have been at least as much helpful, or even more helpful, since it would have been searchable. If you disagree, can you elaborate what did you feel the video/audio provided over a static HTML page ?
No you're right that text would be better, especially when you're looking for specific things. I have a feeling though that we're in the minority with that unfortunately. What's sad, and what I had assumed was still the case, is that GN no longer uploads transcripts to their website.
I had the same gripe learning firebase with pretty great official tutorials, which would have taken half the time if I could just read them.
The automatic transcripts work fairly well which is how I cope with it.
I can think of a few others, including an offshoot of [H] called thefpsreviews.com but I've seen a lot of crappy, low effort "reviews" just in time for the "video cards are finally cheap" manufactured craze last year, which was last straw for me.
They have degraded significantly over the last few years. Up to around 2015 it was about my #1 reference source. It's how I found out about the fact many GPUs used to triple or quadruple their power consumption just because of an extra monitor being connected, and that AMD's HBM-based GPUs were at that point a surprising exception (when otherwise AMDs GPUs are usually the worst at it). These days however I have to take everything they measure with a grain of salt, and at some point I even had a discussion with a member of staff on the merits of having idle power consumption measurements at all. Something has definitely changed on their side.
Now, these guys used to deliver some quality stuff, including the big frame pacing thing that finally convinced the masses that no, fps number is not everything. One of the owners joined AMD and yeah, it's been dead for several years.
Can you really blame reviewers? Doing a comprehensive thorough review is hard work that has to meet a very aggressive deadline to maximize utility. Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content. Obviously you'd rather do that.
I'm not blaming anyone; it's just an observation that it's harder to find comprehensive reviews than it used to be.
I mean, stuff like https://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU-2020/2758 still exists, but I get the impression they no longer have the resources they once did to really fill it the way they used to; and similar things goes for other sites. I think the best option I know about that remains is https://www.techpowerup.com/review/, but they're much less in depth than what used to be available. It's still great to have such a broad set of reviews, mind you, and they're doing a great job. I get the impression there's much less funding for stuff like this, making the last few survivors all the more impressive.
> Meanwhile youtube channels like LTT are printing money on low quality low effort content.
I find this statement rather snarky and it is imho quite close to being against the HN Guidelines.
Anyway I also think it is wrong. Sure not all videos from LTT are high-quality well researched and contain thorough testing but when they are really reviewing a product they put a lot of effort into it. They are even in the process of building a decked out lab to facilitate proper testing.
An example of this is their review of the recently released Ryzen 7000 non-X CPUs. They tested 11 different CPUs in 9 different games and 14 productivity benchmarks and further testing with regards to thermals and power consumption. The whole 18 minute video is basically Linus explaining result charts for these various tests.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB
I encourage you to watch this or any of the other hardware review videos and think about reevaluating your opinion. I don’t want to come across as a fanboy but it think your under a quite outdated impression and I think it’s unfair with regards the investment and change LTT is undergoing as of late.
Despite all the effort, benchrmak results are still not consistent. The other day I wanted to check how Ryzen 7600 compares to i13600k in code compilation. Ratio in time between these 2 processors reported by different authors were wildly different:
LTT: 129%
GN: 160%
Techpowerup: 105%
With results fluctuating up to 2 generational differences it is hard to make sense, despite all the authors effort. This leaves that kind of content more of entertainment rather than informational and from that perspective low effort doesn't bother me.
Presumably "compilation" is such a broad basket of activities that they each use a different workload. Have you looked at phoronix? They tend to cover that niche a little better, and will potentially have numerous compilation benchmarks.
I find it ironical that Phoronix used to be considered a rather bad reviewer like a decade ago (just Google around!), while nowadays it is probably one of the best. I mean, Phoronix has definitely improved, but not that much.
e.g. they used to be considered clickbaity, but for today's standards you might as well call them "mild".
The ice giant thermosiphon seems to be the state of the art right now from what I’ve seen. To the point where that’s being used by the world’s top overclocker instead of water cooling loops.
If I were building a system I’d just slap one of those in, buy some Noctuas for quieter fan operation and ignore it, and let the CPU turbo to its hearts content.
At min 26:30 it's shown test results, and the performance seems better with Noctua NH-D15. Less noise (less rpm) for the same temperature dissipation.
Noctua's performance with low noise is among the main reasons why I own one since several years ago ( And also why I choose air-cooling over water-cooling). It would be interesting to know if someone has beaten them (At same performance, less weight would be something for to take in account).
The IceGiant ProSiphon has fittings for 4 x 120mm pwm fans. Fitted on my ThreadRipper, I switched the stock IceGiant fans out for Be Quiet Silent Wings. A significant extra cost to be sure. I'm sure some Noctua fans would fit. Best of both worlds.
Any judgment on thermosiphon technology (where noise is largely not a factor) should not be conflated with a judgment on the quality of attached fans. Sold together as a product, though, I suppose it remains relevant.
Remember to compare any noise savings against the total noise. e.g. I have 8 other fans in the box. If memory serves when I built it, tech websites were reporting that the temperature under load with an IceGiant was lower.
The issue is that heatsinks for quiet operation are better off with larger gaps between fins (smaller number of fins per inch, FPI), and Thermal Siphon goes the other way for best operation with powerful, loud fans.
I did a lot of research for a theadripper, including AIO liquid cooling and all the reviews said noctua fans were as just as effective and as quiet for a fraction of the price and complexity.
The U14 or D15 cost about as much as a 360/420 AIO.
Whilst they can have similar performance you aren’t saving on costs especially when you buy a 2nd fan for the main cooler which is another $25 or so if it’s Noctua.
I switched from a Noctua to a 320mm AIO and was not happy. The cooling capacity with the AIO is slightly higher, but it makes much more sound at idle. The pump never stops and unlike a loafing fan it makes a high-Q tone that is clearly audible in a quiet room. That was very disappointing. All the reviews said the AIO is “silent” which would have been easily disproven by objective measurements, even with free apps on a smartphone.
I'm in similar boat; my current desktop has 360mm aio cooling, and it makes me wonder what is peoples baseline if it can in any way be considered quiet. It feels louder than any my past aircooled builds, I definitely expected more from it.
Author here - Nothing NDA here, the answer is much simpler:
I'm new to hosting my own platform, and it looks like one of the plugins I had installed started causing some problems. (At least, that's what I think it was)
webcache.googleusercontent.com still loads for me. (edit: and web.archive.org loads again now too)
Interesting, the NH-P1 has been out for a while and other comments suggest it's not the 7700X, could it be the ASRock motherboard mentioned? Also no, because there are two links to reviews of it present in the article body.
I noticed that this page published 5 reviews in total, starting just three months ago. I wonder how they convinced the companies to send them hardware to review (even if it's not "free" and they have to return it afterwards). I always thought that these large corporations only care about big reviewers / influencers.
They usually spin off from forum posters on larger sites who have been buying and reviewing their own gear as forum posts and have enough clout from those communities that they start to be sent things.
Author here - while I'm not big by any stretch of the word, I'm not new to cooling reviews. I've published cooling reviews to Tom's Hardware and other platforms.
When it comes to review samples - I'll say this : It depends on the product you're reviewing (and how expensive it is), and the history you have of reviewing similar products. The cheaper an item is, the more likely the companies will send it to smaller reviewers.
Calling this fanless is one of those things that is technically correct but not really accurate. Instead of the HSF having a fan directly on it, you're simply relying on the case's cooling to dissipate heat. Fans usually allow you to put larger fans on and larger fans means more airflow and quieter operation.
You can design the entire system to be passively cooled but this will limit the potential power. This might be fine. Having a high-end GPU means this is almost impossible. For anyone wanting such a system, you'll want to go with an AIO HSF and intake and outtake fans on the case.
Very interesting. The pioneering cooler in this space was the Scythe Ninja which has been shipping with fans for a while now so I am not sure how well it fares in passive mode. Deepcool has the GAMMAXX S40 and the REDHAT both of which mentions passive cooling but it ships with fans. NoFan IMO is gone, Prolimatech doesn't even have AM4 much less AM5 brackets for the Megahalem... Is the space deserted save for this NH-P1??
To my knowledge: Yes. The NH-P1 is the only somewhat recent passive cooler I saw released.
Which is not all that surprising, when Intel cpus regularly use 200W and more and you basically never want a completely passive build. One with only an optionally used fan, sure, but then why not use a cpu cooler where the fan can spin so quietly that is is not noticeable, like with the NH-D15 or many AIOs?
(That said the NH-P1 is definitely on the list for a future build of mine)
Thermalright still seems to sell the HR-02 http://thermalright.com/product/hr-02-plus/ / "Macho" family which still says "fanless" somewhere in their description but it's unclear how much power they can handle when fanless.
I used to run a first gen Mugen with a E7200 and i5 4570 in passive mode, with a 12cm case fan nearby, similar to what OP did. What a great product, I still regret selling it after 12 years of use, but it would not fit into a SFF case.
This is only tangentially related, but I've been using these graphite-based thermal pads instead of thermal paste, and it's been painless. No throttling, and no messy paste!
Hope these catch on. There have been a handful passive coolers for mainstream desktop CPUs that have been released over the past two decades, but they never became very popular.
Noctua brand is magical. You put noctua logo on any radiator and it dissipate heat twice more effective. You put noctua logo on a fan and it twice as silent while pushing twice more air.
Noctua’s aluminium is not your regular aluminium, but much, much more. I heard car with Noctua radiator cooled to -274 once.
Its so big you could fit a large fan on it and just run it at absurdly low speed. No way you are going to hear it unless you are a mouse and i'm sure you'd get a lot more performance.
This does look interesting, PC building has improved by bounds and bounds in recent times, giving me better performance and longevity for my money. This fanless design is worth a consideration, the current go-to for people who want silence is AIO liquid coolers. They aren't terrible but do affect radiator placement. If this NH P1 can be prove viable for gaming setups it might take off.
> Nonetheless, I strapped on Noctua’s NF-A15 fan and tested the NH-P1 again. The added fan increased the total cooling capacity from 150W to 200W in long term cooling scenarios.
That really depends on the AIO. Fractal's Celsius+ coolers have a mode where they run virtually silent, and Arctic's Liquid Freezer coolers run very quietly too.
There can be an arbitrarily large difference between “very quiet” and “silent”, or more precisely, between “still perceptible” and “not perceptible”. This depends on the environment (whether it’s so silent that you could hear a pin drop) and also on the individual hearing threshold and accommodation. AIOs are generally more perceptible than a silent build using fans.
Hm. Sure, silent and "very quiet" can be a different thing and you are right ofc about the subjectivity of perception. However:
> AIOs are generally more perceptible than a silent build using fans.
I'm honestly not so sure about that, but I thought the same before. But then I saw the charts of how well the AIOs can cool, which means the fans and pumps can be ramped down a lot. I know some models are loud, but know also from experience that not all are. Okay, an air cooler that cools mostly passive can't be beaten, but will also need air flow as soon as the TDP is higher - and on low TDPs an AIO can again be ramped down a lot.
I've personally been using a NoFan CR-80EH in my workstations for over 10 years. I think it's subjectively the most beautiful heatsink I've ever seen.
You do need to plan your build to accomodate such a cooler though. - Open Air case to allow free movement of air in and out of your case - 65W TDP CPU
While a lot of people feel like 65 watt TDP is limiting, there are some impressive chips you can use under that threshold that don't feel like a compromise. Eg the Ryzen 9 7900 (not-X).
And if the rest of your office is quiet, eliminating ambient background noise is a delightful improvement.