[anthonyryan1]

I feel compelled to mention that this space has existed as a niche community for many years now.

I've personally been using a NoFan CR-80EH in my workstations for over 10 years. I think it's subjectively the most beautiful heatsink I've ever seen.

You do need to plan your build to accomodate such a cooler though. - Open Air case to allow free movement of air in and out of your case - 65W TDP CPU

While a lot of people feel like 65 watt TDP is limiting, there are some impressive chips you can use under that threshold that don't feel like a compromise. Eg the Ryzen 9 7900 (not-X).

And if the rest of your office is quiet, eliminating ambient background noise is a delightful improvement.

[ChuckNorris89]

>this space has existed as a niche community for many years now

Yes, I also remember the passive cooling community has existed for a long time, with it being a very big thing when PCs were loud monstrosities, but I feel it has peaked sometime in the mid to late '00s and has been slowly loosing momentum since active cooling solutions became much quieter and better at ramping up/down with load, with most CPUs, GPUs, PSUs coolers nowadays even turning fully off when idling or under low load, along with the shift from PCs to mobile devices, making the need for passive-only PC cooling solutions a small and expensive niche that not many venture into.

[mjrpes]

Interestingly, the 7900 currently costs more than the 7900x (quick Amazon search). And my understanding is the 7900 is just the 7900x that has its TDP defaulted to 65 watts. So you could buy the cheaper 7900x and just go into BIOS and limit the TDP to make it a 7900.

[korv]

Interestingly, the 7900 currently costs more than the 7900x

7900 comes with a (supposedly decent) fan, 7900X does not.

[fsociety]

I would bet that the 7900X chips are binned for higher quality Silicon though. Makes you wonder if an underpowered 7900X outperforms a 7900 and by how much.

[bjoli]

I always wanted to do such a project and decided to go for it. I ended up hating it because it made me realize how much I hate coil whine. I mean: it looks so friggin cool, and placing it on your desk will probably give much better air circulation than under it. No fans spinning just made me realize how much noise most computers make that is hidden under fan noise.

I did have dedicated graphics card though, but a passively cooled one. None of my friends found it bothersome, so maybe I'm just sensitive.

[dijit]

FWIW Coil Whine affects some machines much more than others.

The sad part is, coil whine is unpredictable, two machines with the same make/models can behave differently.

Coil whine is usually much more noticeable when you fully load a system too.

What I would do is buy components and then fully load them as much as I could, and RMA anything with noticeable whine.

It's not "normal", Dell XPSs for example were notorious for bad coil whine where as my macbook air doesn't have any at all.

[turtleyacht]

> plan your build

Some more tips from a recent install of a Noctua NH-P1:

  * If AMD, make sure you have the
    backplate or contact Noctua support for
    assistance
  * The backplate will slide under the
    space between the case and motherboard,
    with just a slight bit of anguished
    bending
  * Had to move the top-mounted power
    supply (PSU) out of the way completely.
  * 2mm is about the size of a crayon tip,
    when applying the thermal paste
  * Had to move a (Scythe) fan out too, but
    the provided clips let me put it on top

The stock CPU cooler on the old AM3 was a source of coil whine, but not anymore :)

A Thinkpad T30 idling nearby also helps mask further sounds.

[cout]

I do like that design -- it reminds me of the Zalman Flower, which I also find beautiful.

[cfn]

This is a simple me too. I have had a Xeon (65W TDP) cooled with NoFan 24/7 for some 5 years. It began as my main developer machine and is now a proxmox server. It just works.