That passive upgrade adds a lot of size to a NUC which might run counter to the intent of obtaining a small computing platform. I'm not saying the idea of a passively cooled computer is a bad one, but targeting the NUC with a physically bulky cooling product seems like a confluence of poorly thought out decisionmaking.
This makes total sense. If you want relatively high performance in silent form factor in an attractive package a NUC plus one of these cases will provide that. If you want the ultimate in compactness where low noise isn't the priority then this is obviously not something you are looking at anyway.
More to the point these types of high-end passive cases are meant to be show pieces not hidden away. It dosn't look like its excessively large for its intended use cases (HTPCs and silent desktop setups).
Thats an awful lot of ribbed alu profiles loosely connected to the cpu. Most of them have no part in cooling. Radiating heat is about surface,not mass. Then its just a heatsink. I file it under styling execercise
The thermal resistance is directly related to the thickness of the blades, so you need some (not too much) to transfere the heat when the plates are pasively cooled.
Also, does it take that much metal to passively dissipate 30W? Unless if Akasa has unlocked the CPU, Intel usually set rather conservative limits on their NUCs.
Even so, I remember having a passively cooled HD4650 and GTX750Ti (both in open air builds - no CPU fan either!) either of which have to dissipate a lot more then 30W.
Those GPUs were likely run out of spec then. :D When I was looking at this sort of thing, the manufacuteres mandated that you have sufficient case ventilation. This Akasa case has to run like this guaranteed in all kinds of environments. Better safe than sorry is their approach.
It really doesn't require anything close to that much metal. I've had lots of laptops powered by 35W TDP mobile processors over the years and most of them run at least partly passive on much smaller heat pipe and radiator combinations in an airflow constrained laptop chassis. That's part of the reason why I question the size increase. a 28W TDP CPU like the one this is meant to cool could be passively cooled by a properly designed heatsink that is approximately the same size as the original NUC casing it replaces.
This can be useful for someone who wants an off the shelf solution to a totally silent, maintanence free system with a bit of power and does not mind the larger size. Or for hazardous environments with lots of dirty, dust and whatever buildup where no moving parts can survive long.
How much noise does a NUC usually make? I have an old 35W Ivy Bridge USFF computer from HP and it's really quiet. I assume NUC's would be even quieter since they are a lot newer and tend to use lower TDP CPUs.
Still, I love the idea of a completely passively cooled system with no moving parts.
That's fair. It fits nicely under my TV, so I don't need it to be any smaller. I guess you couldn't bolt it onto the back of a monitor like a NUC, though.
"chassis make Intel’s NUC systems considerably larger than they originally are..." Yo, how about putting some dimensions in the article, or even ONE photo with something in the frame to compare it to?
Look at the last couple of pictures. You can see in each one a plate in the middle containing the I/O. That plate's roughly the size of the NUC itself.
Hopefully the additional size means this one might actually work. Got two of the previous ones (thin-itx and 7th gen NUC) and both are hopelessly inadequate when the CPUs are anything above middling. I'm sure they work in the air-conditioned offices they test them in, but in a cool room in northern europe they get ridiculously hot when worked in anyway.
@dontlistentome Actually, I have a Pentium G4600T running full throttle well below 60 °C iin a passive Akasa Euler TX case for Thin-Mini-ITX And it sure looks nicer than this Bean Canyon monolith.
Yeah, you are right. Got his comment mixed up with one from another poster earlier about pentiums being too much for fanless cases from Akasa. My take: using more than peak 35w in a cpu/igpu is usually not wise in small and even medium fanless cases, gaming or not. Above that you need massive heatsinks and some form of vertical heat dissipation. Maybe people are expecting too much and would be better of with a few well-placed, slow-moving and noise reduced fans for their gaming rigs.
With the new i9 and metal-themed Xeon naming scheme and everything else they're doing lately I honestly wondered for a sec if "i8" had become a thing, haha.
The TDP doesn't change with the addition of a large heatsink. A heavily loaded mobile CPU in the NUC won't really contribute much to the temperature of even a small room regardless of whether there's a stock HSF or a passive metal block attached to it.
If you're looking for PCs doubling as a source of heat, you're better off going for a high TDP desktop processor and one or more mid- to high-end GPUs. You'll approach 400W TDP from those collective parts and possibly feel more of a difference in said man cave.
I've got the X8 case and the Galactico and there is a big difference between the two. With galactico you get the heat-pipes(those in the picture) with which my older nuc on full load the temp averages ~50C. The X8 with the new nuc generation is no where near that(perhaps cuz of the new design pipe-less) and the cpu on full load is skyrocketing ~85C. I will try to re-paste the thermal cream but I doubt that will bring a big change. Does anyone know if the Turing is also pipe-less ?
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PeachNCream - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
That passive upgrade adds a lot of size to a NUC which might run counter to the intent of obtaining a small computing platform. I'm not saying the idea of a passively cooled computer is a bad one, but targeting the NUC with a physically bulky cooling product seems like a confluence of poorly thought out decisionmaking.Operandi - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
This makes total sense. If you want relatively high performance in silent form factor in an attractive package a NUC plus one of these cases will provide that. If you want the ultimate in compactness where low noise isn't the priority then this is obviously not something you are looking at anyway.More to the point these types of high-end passive cases are meant to be show pieces not hidden away. It dosn't look like its excessively large for its intended use cases (HTPCs and silent desktop setups).
808Hilo - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
Thats an awful lot of ribbed alu profiles loosely connected to the cpu. Most of them have no part in cooling. Radiating heat is about surface,not mass. Then its just a heatsink. I file it under styling execerciseolde94 - Monday, February 11, 2019 - link
The thermal resistance is directly related to the thickness of the blades, so you need some (not too much) to transfere the heat when the plates are pasively cooled.jeremyshaw - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
Also, does it take that much metal to passively dissipate 30W? Unless if Akasa has unlocked the CPU, Intel usually set rather conservative limits on their NUCs.Even so, I remember having a passively cooled HD4650 and GTX750Ti (both in open air builds - no CPU fan either!) either of which have to dissipate a lot more then 30W.
Death666Angel - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
Those GPUs were likely run out of spec then. :D When I was looking at this sort of thing, the manufacuteres mandated that you have sufficient case ventilation. This Akasa case has to run like this guaranteed in all kinds of environments. Better safe than sorry is their approach.PeachNCream - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
It really doesn't require anything close to that much metal. I've had lots of laptops powered by 35W TDP mobile processors over the years and most of them run at least partly passive on much smaller heat pipe and radiator combinations in an airflow constrained laptop chassis. That's part of the reason why I question the size increase. a 28W TDP CPU like the one this is meant to cool could be passively cooled by a properly designed heatsink that is approximately the same size as the original NUC casing it replaces.Death666Angel - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
This can be useful for someone who wants an off the shelf solution to a totally silent, maintanence free system with a bit of power and does not mind the larger size. Or for hazardous environments with lots of dirty, dust and whatever buildup where no moving parts can survive long.cfenton - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
How much noise does a NUC usually make? I have an old 35W Ivy Bridge USFF computer from HP and it's really quiet. I assume NUC's would be even quieter since they are a lot newer and tend to use lower TDP CPUs.Still, I love the idea of a completely passively cooled system with no moving parts.
wintermute000 - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
USFF form factors is considerably larger than a NUCcfenton - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
That's fair. It fits nicely under my TV, so I don't need it to be any smaller. I guess you couldn't bolt it onto the back of a monitor like a NUC, though.ABR - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
"chassis make Intel’s NUC systems considerably larger than they originally are..." Yo, how about putting some dimensions in the article, or even ONE photo with something in the frame to compare it to?1_rick - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
Look at the last couple of pictures. You can see in each one a plate in the middle containing the I/O. That plate's roughly the size of the NUC itself.dontlistentome - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
Hopefully the additional size means this one might actually work.Got two of the previous ones (thin-itx and 7th gen NUC) and both are hopelessly inadequate when the CPUs are anything above middling.
I'm sure they work in the air-conditioned offices they test them in, but in a cool room in northern europe they get ridiculously hot when worked in anyway.
FreckledTrout - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
I think this is awesome. This would be fun to build for parents PC.dtomsen - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
@dontlistentomeActually, I have a Pentium G4600T running full throttle well below 60 °C iin a passive Akasa Euler TX case for Thin-Mini-ITX
And it sure looks nicer than this Bean Canyon monolith.
zmatt - Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - link
He did say "anything above middling". A Pentium is a low end chip. In the review "gaming" was tossed around. So I expect an i7 to work in this thing.dtomsen - Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - link
Yeah, you are right. Got his comment mixed up with one from another poster earlier about pentiums being too much for fanless cases from Akasa.My take: using more than peak 35w in a cpu/igpu is usually not wise in small and even medium fanless cases, gaming or not. Above that you need massive heatsinks and some form of vertical heat dissipation.
Maybe people are expecting too much and would be better of with a few well-placed, slow-moving and noise reduced fans for their gaming rigs.
Dusk_Star - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
'i3/i5/i8'Unless Intel's snuck in a new product line while I wasn't listening, I think that should probably be i7.
twotwotwo - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
With the new i9 and metal-themed Xeon naming scheme and everything else they're doing lately I honestly wondered for a sec if "i8" had become a thing, haha.Zingam - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
i8 processor I do one! If I've got one I'll rock the world!Jon Tseng - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
On the positive side it can also pull double duty as a heater for your man cave! :-pPeachNCream - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
The TDP doesn't change with the addition of a large heatsink. A heavily loaded mobile CPU in the NUC won't really contribute much to the temperature of even a small room regardless of whether there's a stock HSF or a passive metal block attached to it.If you're looking for PCs doubling as a source of heat, you're better off going for a high TDP desktop processor and one or more mid- to high-end GPUs. You'll approach 400W TDP from those collective parts and possibly feel more of a difference in said man cave.
zmatt - Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - link
I think I have an old P4 Prescott under the stairs in the basement. That should do the trick.zez3 - Sunday, November 17, 2019 - link
I've got the X8 case and the Galactico and there is a big difference between the two. With galactico you get the heat-pipes(those in the picture) with which my older nuc on full load the temp averages ~50C.The X8 with the new nuc generation is no where near that(perhaps cuz of the new design pipe-less) and the cpu on full load is skyrocketing ~85C. I will try to re-paste the thermal cream but I doubt that will bring a big change.
Does anyone know if the Turing is also pipe-less ?