Passive Cooling
Intel introduced the ultra-compact form-factor in 2012 to reinvigorate the PC market. The incredible success of the product line has now resulted in the brand name propagating to other novel system configurations and form factors. The introduction of the mainstream Alder Lake NUCs last year - the NUC 12 Pro (Wall Street Canyon) - marked a decade-long journey for the original design. As part of bringing out the versatility of the form-factor and its evolution over the last ten years, Intel sampled three top-end Wall Street Canyon NUCs targeting different market segments - the NUC12WSKi7 for traditional business and consumer users, the NUC12WSKv7 in a slightly more eye-catching designer chassis for business and enterprise deployments, and the NUC12WSBi70Z in a rugged fanless case for...
CES 2023: Akasa Introduces Fanless Cases for Wall Street Canyon NUCs
Akasa is one of the very few vendors to carry a portfolio of passively-cooled chassis solutions for the Intel NUCs. We had reviewed their Turing solution with the Bean...
1 by Ganesh T S on 1/6/2023Intel NUC11TNBi5 and Akasa Newton TN Fanless Case Review: Silencing the Tiger
Intel's Tiger Lake-based NUCs have been shipping for well over a year now. Supply chain challenges have been impacting availability of different models in different regions, but that has...
18 by Ganesh T S on 7/22/2022Jasper Lake Fanless Showdown: ECS LIVA Z3 and ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano UCFF PCs Review
Intel's Jasper Lake series of products based on the Tremont microarchitecture was launched in early 2021. Since then, we have seen a steady stream of notebooks and motherboards /...
52 by Ganesh T S on 7/8/2022Supermicro SYS-E100-12T-H Review: Fanless Tiger Lake for Embedded Applications
Compact passively-cooled systems find application in a wide variety of market segments including industrial automation, IoT gateways, digital signage, etc. These are meant to be deployed for 24x7 operation...
18 by Ganesh T S on 6/8/2022The Noctua NH-P1 Passive CPU Cooler Review: Silent Giant
In today's review, we are having a look at a truly innovative cooler by Noctua, the NH-P1. The NH-P1 is a CPU cooler of colossal proportions, designed from the...
67 by E. Fylladitakis on 2/7/2022CES 2022: Akasa Introduces Thermal Solutions for PCs and Industrial Applications
Akasa is introducing four new products at the 2022 CES - two fan models under the OTTO series, a 185W TDP CPU cooler, and a fanless case for the...
2 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2022The SilverStone NightJar NJ700 Passive PSU Review: Silent Excellence
In today’s review we are taking a look at a passively cooled power supply, the SilverStone Nightjar NJ700. Despite the lack of active cooling, the NJ700 can continuously output...
46 by E. Fylladitakis on 11/29/2021The OnLogic Helix HX500 Review: A Rugged Fanless 35W mini-PC
The emergence of edge computing as a paradigm has expanded the market for industrial PCs over the last few years. Traditionally an 'industrial PC' was built with a focus...
32 by Ganesh T S on 9/17/2021Noctua NH-P1 Passive CPU Heatsink Spotted at Newegg for $100
Back at Computex 2019, when we visited Noctua at its booth, we saw a concept CPU heatsink, a monolith, with a passive design. In many circles including fans of...
17 by Gavin Bonshor on 6/7/2021Akasa at CES 2021: Turing A50 Chassis for Fanless Ryzen and SOHO Series RGB Lighting Accessories
As part of the lead up to CES 2021, Akasa made a couple of interesting announcements related to its lineup of DIY fanless cases and a second family of...
3 by Ganesh T S on 1/13/2021Zotac ZBOX CI662 nano Fanless mini-PC Review: Second Stab at Silencing Succeeds
Zotac is one of the major players in the SFF PC space, having marketed ultra-compact form-factor machines even before the NUCs took off. The growth in that segment has...
16 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2021Akasa Turing Fanless Case Review: Unrivalled Noiseless NUC
Silent computing systems are preferable for a multitude of use-cases ranging from industrial applications (where dust and fans make for a troublesome configuration) to noiseless HTPCs (particularly for audiophiles)...
28 by Ganesh T S on 10/26/2020CES 2020: ZOTAC ZBOX CA621 Nano With Passive Cooled AMD Ryzen 3 3200U
One of the more interesting announcements from ZOTAC at CES 2020 comes via the ZBOX CA621 Nano. What makes this stand out from ZOTACs other announcements is that it...
8 by Gavin Bonshor on 1/9/2020Noctua Concept Fanless CPU Cooler: Up to 120W Of Cooling Performance
Noctua might have had a small booth showing off its products at Computex, but it had plenty to show for itself. On the booth was a new and conceptual...
35 by Gavin Bonshor on 6/6/2019The Zotac ZBOX CI660 nano Fanless mini-PC Review: A Promising HTPC Platform
Zotac is a major player in the SFF PC space, and the emergence of the ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) NUCs has broadened the available market for ther mini-PCs. The company...
23 by Ganesh T S on 4/16/2019The SilverStone Nightjar NJ450-SXL 450W SFX PSU Review: Passive Excellence
In today's review we are taking a look at a a rather unique SFX PSU, the passively cooled SilverStone Nightjar NJ450. Despite the lack of active cooling, both the...
25 by E. Fylladitakis on 4/4/2019EKWB Begins Selling Heatsink for Intel’s Optane 905P M.2 SSD
EK Water Blocks has started selling its passive heatsink for Intel’s recently-released Optane 905P M.2 SSD. The cooling solution is meant to ensure consistent performance of the drive under...
15 by Anton Shilov on 2/14/2019Akasa's Turing: A Passively-Cooled Chassis for Intel’s Bean Canyon NUC
Akasa is prepping an aftermarket chassis for Intel’s 8th Gen "Bean Canyon: NUC systems. The Turing chassis will allow Intel’s NUC 8 ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) computers to be converted...
32 by Anton Shilov on 2/8/2019Arctic Unveils Alpine AM4 Passive CPU Cooler
Arctic this week added its first passive cooler that is compatible with AMD’s AM4 processors into its lineup of products. The Alpine AM4 was designed for APUs and CPUs...
26 by Anton Shilov on 5/25/2018