A PC fanatic in China has constructed a customized PC case particularly to suit the substantial Noctua NH-P1 passive cooler — with room for little else. With a self-imposed design constraint of utilizing a Mini-ITX platform, ChipHell’s FreshCool created a customized case measuring simply 30 x 20 x 20 cm (LWH), or roughly 12 x 8 x 8–inches. The consequence, noticed by FanlessTech, is a pleasingly compact passive system. Furthermore, it seems to be very like a contemporary manufactured case, that includes modern design trappings corresponding to a aspect window, a beneficiant quantity of venting, and a vertically barred entrance. Maybe it was Fractal North impressed.
What sort of thermal load will this passive PC system have to deal with? The system’s principal warmth supply would be the Intel Core i7-12700, which after all has the Noctua NH-P1 hooked up. FreshCool says that if the CPU is restricted to 65W, in testing it by no means strayed past the 50 levels Celsius vary. A 100W restrict meant that the processor would run at temperatures within the mid-70s. Lastly, the interpretation isn’t nice but it surely looks like if the facility restrict is totally unlocked (140W), the 12700 will begin to throttle below load after 90 seconds. We don’t have any data about what assessments have been run, ambient temperatures, and so on.
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On the search for a very fanless system, FreshCool selected to put in a Seasonic PX450 (opens in new tab). This can be a absolutely modular 450W PSU, and it affords 80 Plus Platinum effectivity with a pretty 12-year guarantee. Different key elements of the construct embrace a Maxsun H610 ITX motherboard, 32GB of RAM (Kingston 2x16GB), and a WD Blue SN570 M.2 SSD.
In some additional feedback and replies on the ChipHell boards, FreshCool joked with different customers concerning the case trying like a cooking equipment. The PC DIYer additionally revealed that they’d beforehand thought of utilizing a SilverStone Sugo 16, with a comparable dimension however designed for lively cooling. FreshCool didn’t use the Sugo after figuring out that “its air flow effectivity will not be good” for making a passive system. Nonetheless, for builders wanting a discrete GPU the Sugo has room for playing cards as much as 275mm lengthy and 147mm huge.
This practice case clearly will not win any gaming efficiency awards, because it lacks something higher than the built-in Intel UHD Graphics 770. That is sufficient for streaming video or maybe taking part in Minecraft, but it surely falls nicely wanting even the slowest devoted options that we have examined in our GPU benchmarks. In fact, few graphics playing cards provide fanless options as of late, which might defeat the purpose of this construct.