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CompuLab Rolls out Fanless, High-End PCs With Unique Design (phoronix.com)

Posted by yaelk on from the fanless-computer dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Israeli PC maker CompuLab has begun shipping the Airtop PC that allows assembling high-end PC components into a completely fanless design. Phoronix's initial testing of the Airtop PC showed that it has a Core i7 5775C Broadwell processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and GeForce GTX 950 all while being fan-less thanks to the innovative design. The early results are quite positive for this uniquely designed PC but it comes at a cost premium of a fully-loaded system costing more than $2,200 USD.

3 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Re:lol by whipslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    $0

  2. Interesting, but not that impressive by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been building silent, often fanless systems since 2003, so I'm always interested at these rare occasions when a commercial offering actually cares about noise. However, I'm somewhat worried about the peak temperatures of 80 C, and frankly it doesn't surprise me. Passive cooling is hard, and it's almost always better to aim for the low hum of large, slow fans. I'm running high end GPUs fully loaded all the time, and they stay around 50...60 C with aftermarket coolers (not water) in open cases, with 140 mm fans running at 7..10 V. The same goes for CPUs, though I'm not sure if they count as high end. Anyway, quiet and cool is easily done with aftermarket coolers that cost around 50 euros apiece. I live in a single-room apartment, so the lack of noise is pretty important.

    I always wonder why proper cooling seems like an afterthought in components such as motherboards and cases, and why you always need aftermarket solutions if you don't want your machine to sound like a jet engine. For example, if the CPU were at the backside of the mobo, there would be no limit to the size of the heatsink. Yet the default is always a very crowded place in the middle of everything, where the "solution" is a small and whiny fan.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. Think again. by westlake · · Score: 1, Informative

    No one buys $2,200 PCs anymore, unless they are Apple. Come to think of it, no one buys desktop PC's for home anymore.

    Best Sellers in Desktop Computers

    #57 CybertronPC Thallium X99 Red Gaming Desktop-Intel i7-5960X, 64GB DDR4,3x NVIDIA GTX980 Ti, Microsoft Windows 10 $6000.

    #286 Alienware Steam Machine ASM100-6980BLK Desktop Console (Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU $679.

    [12:15 AM EDT March 1]