Noctua Delays Its Fanless CPU Cooler to Q1 2021

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Image: Richard Swinburne



Noctua has released an updated product roadmap that contains bad news for those of you who are interested in the company’s gigantic, fanless CPU cooler. Evidently, the premium hunk of metal has been delayed to Q1 2021 (see “Passive CPU cooler” in the chart below) for unknown reasons. Manufacturing delays stemming from coronavirus? Design screw-up? Who knows, but it’ll be a while before fans of the brown and beige variety can get their hands on one.



Images of Noctua’s fanless CPU cooler were first shared from the show floor of Computex 2019. According to the preliminary spec sheet, this cooler is designed to handle loads of up to 120 watts in fan-less cases, or up to 180 watts in cases with quiet fans (or a fan placed directly on the cooler). It also offers 100 percent RAM compatibility with...
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That looks like a massive beast. Must weigh a ton.

I wonder why they didn't go copper? :p

Might be easier to turn the whole thing upside down and mount the CPU and motherboard to the cooler rather than the other way around...
 
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That would fit right in with Victor Von Frankenstein's "other" gadgets on his "test" bench
 
I really wanted to see this finished and sampled for reviews. Its such a different thought process vs traditional coolers.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
I really wanted to see this finished and sampled for reviews. Its such a different thought process vs traditional coolers.
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They aren't the first to have a fanless heatsink. I don't remember who it was, but someone has made a fanless heatsink in the past. I remember it being circular and about 6" diameter. Might be more than one of those styles.

Also, a lot of server chassis (1u, 2u, etc..) have fanless heatsinks that look similar to the one posted here.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
Also, a lot of server chassis (1u, 2u, etc..) have fanless heatsinks that look similar to the one posted here.
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Yeah but to be fair, the fans are all at the front of the cases that pushes the air across the heatsinks (and everything else). So there are fans, just not directly on the CPU heatsinks. Server chassis are designed specifically with airflow in mind (in recent history anyway). We could do this for PCs as well, but people might not enjoy listening to 25k rpm mini jet engines at home. That reminds me, whatever happened to Delta (fans)?
 
Burticus said:
Yeah but to be fair, the fans are all at the front of the cases that pushes the air across the heatsinks (and everything else). So there are fans, just not directly on the CPU heatsinks.
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No they aren't. They're designed for a complete 100% fanless system. Read the article. It can handle 120W with no fan anywhere in the case and up to 180W with fans in the case.

People who buy these types of heatsinks want a 100% silent system. No case fans, no GPU fans, no CPU fans, no chipset fans, no fans anywhere.

Except for server chassis, which do utilize the front turbo-jet sounding fans to blow air through the system.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
No they aren't. They're designed for a complete 100% fanless system. Read the article. It can handle 120W with no fan anywhere in the case and up to 180W with fans in the case.

People who buy these types of heatsinks want a 100% silent system. No case fans, no GPU fans, no CPU fans, no chipset fans, no fans anywhere.

Except for server chassis, which do utilize the front turbo-jet sounding fans to blow air through the system.
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I was referring to servers
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
They aren't the first to have a fanless heatsink. I don't remember who it was, but someone has made a fanless heatsink in the past. I remember it being circular and about 6" diameter. Might be more than one of those styles.

Also, a lot of server chassis (1u, 2u, etc..) have fanless heatsinks that look similar to the one posted here.
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Oh I know it isn't the first in general but its the first for them.
Also servers a do utilize fanless heat sinks but they often have those 3k RPM industrial tiny fans (often 6 of them) working to push air through.
 
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Paul_Johnson said:
No heatsink or fanless heatsinks used to be the norm.......
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A lot of things were different then too though. The technology in general was simpler.
This is a cooling design for current hardware so its not entirely the same.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
No heatsink or fanless heatsinks used to be the norm.......
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My 486 didn't even have a heatsink much less a fan. My Pentium 100 had a heatsink but it was tiny and probably didn't do much.

Fanless heatsinks in general are nothing new. There have been a number of them over the years. Some were specifically designed as fanless while others were designed to be used with fans but could be used fanless in some situations.

I'm guessing the fanless heatsink someone was referring to above was a Zalman. I don't remember the name of the heatsink but it was a fan or peacock type of design. It weighed a ton and cooled about as well as a midgrade heatsink and fan combo but it was designed to be fanless and would work that way as long as it didn't have to deal with a lot of heat and the ambient temperature wasn't high.
 
Fanless designs can be nice. I for one like being free of distracting fan noise.

Thats why I built my HTPC into a Streacom FC5. Completely silent when watching movies.

Too bad there is nothing that can handle my massive desktop cooling needs without fans. My big water loop will have to do.
 
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