Go Silent With Massive Fanless CPU Heatsinks
There is always an endless selection of accessories at Computex, it's sometimes difficult to weed through all the devices.
We did however stumble onto a selection of heatsinks that were passive but still impressive. Thermalright took the spotlight in terms of silent cooling this year--we think they did this last year too. The company showed off several big--literally--passive CPU heatsinks that we found were quite impressive.
Initially we felt that passive heatsinks were definitely not the right solution for those wanting to overclocking their CPUs. This makes sense because overclocking will demand something active if cooling by air, and liquid cooling for better results. Despite this, representatives from Thermalright claim that its heatsinks are so efficient, you can still overclock your processor. While we think this claim is true, the overclocking results you can get from a passive air cooling solution will be much more limited than what an active solution can deliver.
The heatsinks themselves are massive and quite heavy. If you plan to use these solutions in a tower case, make sure the heatsinks are secured tightly. At this point, the usual retention mechanism already applies a great deal of pressure to the motherboard, and so having the heatsinks essentially hanging on their side in a tower case, makes even for a more risky scenario.
Where do we see these working out best? In HTPCs that lay horizontally--and most do. This way, you'll get a silent cooling solution that won't put strain on your motherboard.






Not quite. Most HTPC cases are slim (at least the nice ones that look like an entertainment center component). These sinks look waaaay too tall to fit in an HTPC case.
Not quite. Most HTPC cases are slim (at least the nice ones that look like an entertainment center component). These sinks look waaaay too tall to fit in an HTPC case.
And here I was thinking it had to do with the specific heat of water being 4.19 joules / g where as the specific heat of air (according to wolframalpha) is .717 joules / g. That means water can absorb almost 6 times the energy that air can. Surface area be damned!
Since my main desktop also has a 4870 in it the passive CPU cooler is more of a curiosity than anything else. Let me know when I can cool the 4870 passively and I will be really interested
Btw, thumb down my previous comment, it was incomplete.
I agree with you Zirb. Whats the heat capacity of copper? Has to be more than water, meaning those copper heat pipes carry more heat away from the CPU than a liquid cooling system. In the end, any cooling system comes down to the efficiency of the radiator, which is why the water-cooler in this Tom's Hardware article did so poorly.
Doesn't matter how big these passive heat sinks are if there's nothing to remove the heat from the sinks and out of the case.
That's a lot of metal, thus being pricey.
They seem heavy, adding to shipping costs.
I'd rather have a water cooling loop traveling all the way to my fridge or freezer. Keep the pumps in a noise insulated area to cancel the noise.
Passive is nice, but a 200mm fan is more to my liking. ^_^
Seriously, you need to be insane to buy something like this.
Seriously, you need to be insane to buy something like this.
But, I totally agree most people should look at something in the 40-80$ range with a good low rpm fan. Like me, I've actually been carrying my Thermalright XP120 and my zalman VF700-cu for a while!