14 ms·

Compulab Airtop – Natural Airflow Desktop

200 points by icefox 10y ago

thaumaturgy 10y ago
Funny, I was looking at these guys' latest offerings just earlier today, before the HP announcement. This is built by the same guys that built the FitPC (http://www.fit-pc.com/ http://www.fit-pc.com/). I've had one of their little 5-watt fanless systems running 24/7 in my home for a couple of years now. I love it. Never had a problem with it. It's easily one of my favorite pieces of computing equipment. I was looking at their stuff earlier because I'm considering getting some more from them.
usaphp 10y ago
Reminds me of this company: http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/ http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/
princeb 10y ago
interesting. the whole case is a heat sink directly applied to the cpu. although, 100W cooling does nothing for the r9 390 which is something like 275W TDP. i have a veritable wind tunnel below my table, blowing really hot air up my shorts.
MiguelHudnandez 10y ago
Looks like a much beefier alternative to a NUC, which I was already impressed with.
linuxkerneldev 10y ago
My fear with these designs is that because the chassis is the heatsink, there is the issue of the continuous deformation (expansion and contraction) of the chassis body/heatsink, and you get mechanical stresses on the mobo that eventually cause internal vias to break. So yes, it may work fine for 12 months, but the overall lifespan of the product might be significantly shortened.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  As long as there's enough distributional area (if it's only warm to the touch), there shouldn't be enough heat build up to cause it to wear faster, right?
- commentzorro 10y ago
  I've own and have built a number of these and not not seen this ever. The cases are much thicker and rigid than you'd expect. 5+ years for a few of them now.
- IshKebab 10y ago
  Not going to happen. They're too small to expand much. Aluminium is 22 microstrain per degree apparently. Say it raises to 60C and is 30cm long, that gives you're looking at 0.26 mm. Easily accommodated by flex in the mountings.
sliken 10y ago
I was hoping for something like this with the skylake iris 550. Top of the line perf/watt (for a cpu+gpu). GPU fast enough for light gaming/webGL, or older games. There's an intel NUC that's close (M2 slot + iris 540), but it's a little pricey at $340 and uses 15 watt version (that throttles very quickly), instead of the 28 watt version that can actually sustain a decent level of performance. Fast, quiet, decent CPU+GPU shouldn't really be that hard. Seems like GPUs are getting their with the gtx 1050/60/70 having tiny half length cards available, but I've seen very few cases designed for them.
- trengrj 10y ago
  I've owned a couple NUCs. One that was fanless (Gigabyte BACE-3000), but a bit slow. I upgraded to an Gigabyte Intel i5 NUC, it has a fan but I can't hear it at all. Brilliant machine. I think the "quiet pc issue" is a solved problem provided you aren't building a massive gaming machine.
bosdev 10y ago
The site is currently reporting an "Error establishing a database connection." If at all possible, please try to make simple content sites like this static using a tool like Netlify or http://stout.is http://stout.is. Static sites are faster, more reliable and cheaper to operate.
- ta834939874 10y ago
  Agreed. Google Cache for those who want it: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EHdeB5iXYekJ:airtop-pc.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EHdeB5i...
- bo1024 10y ago
  Knowing nothing about web hosting - could a static site hosted on a basic hosting plan survive a hacker news front page? Or what would be required?
  - will_hughes 10y ago
    It'd depend on the shared hosting provider and your site. Having hundreds of MB of content that people are going to want to load, even if it's all served statically, will probably still have you in a bad way with the cheapest of hosting providers. But it'll have a much better chance of surviving than someone running wordpress or something that's got zero caching and needs to do a ton of calls to a shared MySQL host.
    - bo1024 10y ago
      Right sure, I was just picturing a static HTML page measured in KB.
      - PuffinBlue 10y ago
        Then yes, it would probably be fine, within reason. When running a static site at very high traffic loads it becomes about how many connections the webserver can handle and how much bandwidth you have to serve the site itself, rather than pure power of the server to process all the requests a dynamic site would generate. You can start to chew through bandwidth allocations pretty quickly when you get a couple thousand concurrent visitors, so a shared hosting plan might run out pretty quickly if the cap is small, even with a fairly small site. And something like Apache would need tweaking a fair bit to handle that number of connections without eating all the RAM. Nginx is better in that regard and could pretty easily handle thousands of concurrents. So a small DigitalOcean VPS can easily handle millions of 'hits' per day if set up with a little care, and more than that if setup well, but you just have to watch you don't saturate the connection. I mirrored a few sites that had faced the reddit hug of death (just to see what the load was like) and I found you can easily hit 200mbps* sustained connection requirement with all the visitors it brings just from the comment thread, which people don't enter as much as the list posting. *(depending on the size of the page obviously, the bigger the page the more mbps it'll need to serve, average was around 20-50mbps).
BuckRogers 10y ago
Looks like we took the site down. I have an Intel Skull Canyon NUC and love it, will be using these from here on out. Be nice to see more companies offer fanless cases.
EugeneOZ 10y ago
200 W for gaming card? Just ridiculous. Even gtx 1050 need 300 W PSU. And modern quiet fans in quiet cases are really quiet - below 20db, so it's difficult to hear it at all. My son have such with Gtx 1080 - it's the gaming card.
- sliken 10y ago
  GTX 1050 is just 75 watts, nvidia is just being conservative because many people have crappy power supplies or tons of power consuming extras. Assuming an intel cpu (mostly 65 watts or less), a SSD (few watts), some dims, and the normal overhead for usb/power conversion, etc. you can get away with quite a bit less than 300.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    card: 75w, cpu when gaming: 80w, memory: 6w, 2 ssd drives: 6w. Total 167 W. 200 W pcu with 80% efficiency: 160 W. PCU with 95% efficiency: 190 W. Step left - step right (any gaming hard moment) and bye bye. Looks like nvidia recommendation is not so dumb. And it's for a low-level gaming card.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > 200 W pcu with 80% efficiency: 160 W. PCU with 95% efficiency: 190 W That's not how efficiency is computed (in general, but especially in PSU). The power rating (200W in your example) is what the PSU can provide to the system as DC power, the efficiency is the difference between AC input (wall-draw) and DC output. An 80%-efficient 200W PSU will provide 200W internally but draw 250W from the wall-plug (and waste the extra 50W as heat). If your 200W PSU maxes out at 160W it's not because it has 80% efficiency it's because it's a worthless piece of shit. You should throw it away as there's significant risk it will blow up (figuratively or literally) and/or catch on fire. Here's an article (in french but you can look at the pictures) checking out garbage PSU exhibiting that sort of behaviour: http://www.x86-secret.com/dossier-36-3000-Alimentation_Noname.html http://www.x86-secret.com/dossier-36-3000-Alimentation_Nonam... spoiler: shitty components, detonations and burnt smells.
monssoen 10y ago
Streacom has fanless cases that look way better. They're not as small though.
- Flenser 10y ago
  They're much harder to open though.
m-i-l 10y ago
I've been putting together fanless PCs for my own use for a few years now, also disliking the aircraft-taking-off sound of many desktop PCs when they are switched on. I started with the Zalman Reserator[0] water cooling tower, then moved to the Zalman TNN 500-AF[1] where the case was a giant heatsink (it was an amazing piece of kit), although more recently have been using ready-made fanless PCs (which are more widespread now most of the components run much cooler). The site at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ http://www.silentpcreview.com/ used to have useful information for people building quiet PCs, and https://www.quietpc.com/ https://www.quietpc.com/ still has some good components (and ready-made machines) too. [0] https://www.quietpc.com/reserator1-v2 https://www.quietpc.com/reserator1-v2 [1] https://www.quietpc.com/tnn500af https://www.quietpc.com/tnn500af
- hubert123 10y ago
  I use an integrated graphics chip and a noctua cpu cooler, it's practically completely silent. I sleep right next to my PC often.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    Different people have different noise threshold, and different ability to filter out noise. I couldn't sleep next to a running computer even using large low-speed fans until I built one using a Reserator. I have friends who can sleep next to what are essentially heli turbines. The big annoyance of the Reserator is it's a pain in the ass to carry around.
  - commentzorro 10y ago
    +1 for the Noctua fans and coolers too. When I need a full tower I always swap out the stock fans and coolers for Noctua.
- Already__Taken 10y ago
  I'd love to get just that water block back-plate to bond to my steel boat hull. How do you get components like in the TNN case?
TekMol 10y ago
I have the following approach to fanless computing: 1) I buy any desktop I like for its form factor 2) I either use the onboard graphic or a fanless graphics card 3) I set the threshold for all fans that are accessible via fancontrol to a level that keeps them permanently off 4) I pull or cut the cables of any fans that remain spinning People always tell me I am "insane" to do so. But I have been doing this for years now and never had a problem.
- detaro 10y ago
  It works in the sense that the hardware will survive quite a while, but you are likely giving away a lot of performance to thermal throttling (at least if you have a mini-PC, it can be factor 5 - 10 or so)
- djsumdog 10y ago
  Modern CPUs will just downclock themselves. I mean it's not insane; you won't damage the components, but you will be running A LOT slower than you could be. Do you run tools to see how far down your CPUs frequency scaling is taking it?
  - pktgen 10y ago
    I was about to write the same thing. The CPU won't be damaged, but it may underperform. The bigger concern would be other components, especially motherboard VRMs which seemingly tend not to have any thermal failsafe (on occasion, there are reports of them catching on fire).
  - TekMol 10y ago
    I would be surprised if any downscaling takes place. I run some heavy computation software from time to time and compare the performance to other computers. Many of them in datacenters. I would probably notice if a machine suddenly downscales. That said, I would be happy to measure it and post the results. Running the computations now. According to "top" it saturates 2 of my 8 CPUs. So far, "lscpu" reports the CPU at 1600 MHz. "sensors" reports the CPU Temperature is slowly rising. Was 48°C at IDLE. Is 50°C now. 15 minutes later. CPU temp was raising so slow that I stopped it now. Don't think it will get to anything critical ever. It was at 52°C. CPU speed was still at 1600MHz.
pbowyer 10y ago
Last PC I built I looked very hard at fanless, but eventually decided to choose my fans well and run them as slowly as I could get away with to keep the computer cool. It works well - the swoosh of the 120mm on the back is just audible when the computer is working hard (with the computer 4ft away from me). Otherwise I don't hear it. Oh - and when I game occasionally I hear the graphics card fan, but that was expected. The fan only runs when needed (ASUS Strix) so is silent in normal use.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  Yup, large (100+mm) and slow (<1000) RPM fans are the way to go. Put it under the desk (desktop to deskunder?), use SSDs and a noise insulated case, and that's a fairly quiet machine. And that's before going overboard with liquid cooling. Gaming has lots of sound to mask any kind of noise from the case, unless there's something quiet and emotional. I have 1000w 7.1 speakers, and never notice case noise. I have a four year old GTX 680 with the blower reference cooler (fairly quiet). I've blown air into the outside vents to get the dust out, but a few weeks ago, I took off the shroud for the first time, and was amazed that there were no dust bunnies anywhere, even though I hadn't blown the dust out for at least a year.
luxpir 10y ago
Checked this out last night when it was linked to in the HP post. I like the direction these fanless PCs are going in, but as others have said, it's more or less a solved problem. Fanless laptops are where I'm now looking. The UX360CA Zenbook is fanless, low-power, and very reasonably priced (at least in the USA - still waiting on price to 'settle' over here). Silence would be very welcome for night reading and viewing.
- exDM69 10y ago
  > Fanless laptops are where I'm now looking. The UX360CA Zenbook is fanless, low-power, and very reasonably priced The fanless Zenbooks are fantastic. But they're also really low power with the Core-M CPUs with a TDP of 4.5 Watts [0]. That's in a power budget that could fit in a tablet. The Airtop-D has a Core i7 CPU, which has a TDP of 65 Watts (can downtuned to 37W) [1]. You can roughly expect it to have 10x+ more computational power. It's just a whole different category of devices. [0] http://ark.intel.com/products/88199/Intel-Core-m7-6Y75-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/88199/Intel-Core-m7-6Y75-Proce... [1] http://ark.intel.com/products/88040/Intel-Core-i7-5775C-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/88040/Intel-Core-i7-5775C-Proc...
  - chx 10y ago
    You will be sorely disappointed if you expect those CPUs to have a 10x difference. First, you have a 2.75x clockspeed difference and then a double core count so 5.5 times is what you could expect if they were the same architecture but the 6Y75 is Skylake (don't be mislead by the "Core M" moniker, these the same architecture as their larger wattage brethen just with a lower TDP, they used to mark them with an Y postfix like i3-4220Y and the Y is still in the moniker) and the 5775C is Broadwell but it has eDRAM so the difference is negligible here http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700.... So in real world, you can expect to see a 3-5x speedup.
    - luxpir 10y ago
SimonPStevens 10y ago
I find the hum of lots of computer fans comforting. I did a lot of my work at uni very late at night in the computer labs when it was empty, just the constant noise of a hundred or so desktop machines. It's my ideal working environment.
- vijucat 10y ago
  We've got you covered, mate. Here we have retro computer fan and server room sounds in the age of these pesky-quiet, small form factor fanless PCs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeESf9aCZHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeESf9aCZHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_RHdE7zsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_RHdE7zsc :-)
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    If you like those you might also like the star ship Enterprise idling, for 24hrs... for a more futuristic spin (haha!) on things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA
    - swozey 10y ago
      That's awesome. http://mynoise.net http://mynoise.net has similar ambient sounds, they have a section on "Transports" that contains (just a few); Spaceship, Railroads, Sailboat, Aircraft cabin, Flying Fortress.. etc It's awesome when I'm writing short stories, they've also got stuff like; RPG Dark Forest, Dungeon, Battlefield that helps me get in the mood if I'm writing a fantasy story. IIRC it's a sound engineers hobby side project. I've got nothing to do with the project, just been a happy user for years.
      - vijucat 10y ago
        Brilliant site, thanks for the recommendation.
thenormal 10y ago
Site is down for me
imperialdrive 10y ago
What is the use-case for this? It seems pricey for entry level, but has a lot of nifty options for power-users.. but, then why would I risk having no airflow or extra power (200watt PS) for when I get cookin' with storage or fast video?
- hibbelig 10y ago
  It's silent. Maybe to you it makes no difference, but for me it's really important.
  - imperialdrive 10y ago
    I'm a 'fan' of silence, but a Silencio ATX case is <100 and I never notice my computer, ever. I also spent a lot of time finding just the right keyboard and mouse, a sweet-spot of solid action without too much click... us techies sure are picky now that I think about it, and for a good reason, tools of the trade.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > I'm a 'fan' of silence, but a Silencio ATX case is <100 and I never notice my computer, ever. Sounds like you have a pretty high "silence" threshold. I have a Define R4 with undervolted front fans, and while it's good enough when awake I couldn't sleep next to it.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Reliability of quietness of course. I love the fans in my PC, the way they make almost no noise. But they make noise. And worse, they are a marvel of engineering. If some accident of dust or bumping were to upset their balance I fear will I be back to the loud old days. Worst of all, they are moving parts that might simply fail. Having a thing that is fanless from the start is much less likely to suddenly find its assumptions about heat dissipation violated.
- CPLX 10y ago
  For starters there are presumably use cases for which silence is of critical importance. The computer at the production desk in a broadcast or recording studio, church, or theatre comes to mind as one example.
bnegreve 10y ago
I have been using a laptop and a docking station for a while now. I think this is the optimal configuration. - no / very little noise - no need to synchronize between work / home (Given that I also have a docking station at home, I essentially use my laptop as a portable hard drive with a screen) - I can take my current work to meeting rooms anytime. - ...
- stinos 10y ago
  > no / very little noise Doesn't that heavily depend on usage? At least I've never had a laptop which wouldn't turn into a noise generator once you start compiling, computing or heavy imaging/editing. But yes a single machine + docking station at home and one on the job isn't a bad solution
  - hocuspocus 10y ago
    > Doesn't that heavily depend on usage? At least I've never had a laptop which wouldn't turn into a noise generator once you start compiling, computing or heavy imaging/editing. Exactly. For the past decade I've built desktop computers that are silent no matter the load (I don't do any GPU heavy work). I really cannot say that for my work laptops.
  - bnegreve 10y ago
    True, still it fits me because I run most of the stuff on remote machines. But I this can be a problem indeed.
  - mrkgnao 10y ago
    I've never heard my Chromebook (Asus, I think a C7[24]0) make any noise, although I do always have a fan running in my room.
dpfu 10y ago
I recently got my parents a fanless desktop computer. There a lot of options, but I went with a cheap Shuttle XPC slim barebone [1]: It is tiny, has a really nice industrial design and two front facing COM ports (!). [1] http://www.shuttle.eu/fileadmin/resources/download/docs/spec/barebones/DS68U_e.pdf http://www.shuttle.eu/fileadmin/resources/download/docs/spec...
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  two front facing COM ports They'll come in handy! But seriously, what's the motivation behind putting those on the machine, or wanting them?
  - spin 10y ago
    I imagine that's for use with POS terminals (ie cash registers). A lot of those still have serial-port barcode scanners or serial-port printers.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure the ports are also commonly used for cash drawers.
  - clarry 10y ago
    They're nice for kernel debugging. Also it's nice to be able to headlessly control a machine without ssh & the entire network stack.
  - sena 10y ago
    From the datasheet: "Two serial ports: Many PCs do not have these legacy ports any longer, since they have been superseded and replaced by USB for most consumer applications, but they are still commonly used for applications such as industrial automation systems, scientific analysis, POS systems and other such fields of application."
  - jajern 10y ago
    These are meant to be industrial computers. To be used for things such as being the brains of an automation system.
noja 10y ago
I worry about dust. With a non-fanless PC, you will notice it needs cleaning because the fan becomes noisy. With a fanless PC you won't get that.
- gambiting 10y ago
  On the other hand, there are no fans pushing dust inside that PC(in fact, the whole inside of this thing can be sealed airtight) and the amount of dust that naturally settles on the radiators outside should be much smaller than on any active-cooled PC.
- commentzorro 10y ago
  These (AirTop, Fit-PC, etc.) are completely sealed machines so no dust enters. It does build up on the case - depending on your environment - but doesn't effect the thermal characteristics at all.
  - clarry 10y ago
    It looks like the airtop has open air pipes that work like chimneys, letting the heated air inside flow up and out of it. These ought to be easy to clean with compressed air though.
misotaur 10y ago
Here`s hoping for a future where desktops are so efficient that they don`t need any active cooling.
- clarry 10y ago
  Arguably they've been around for a while now (I have two fanless shuttle mini PCs running on my desk, and one laptop made fanless by stabbing a screwdriver through the vent holes into the fan). It's just that whenever you want the last three inches of extra performance, you pay a heavy price with respect to thermal power.
tuananh 10y ago
at this price, i would rather buy intel NUC.
- gambiting 10y ago
  Have you ever used one? They can be extremely loud under load. It's like comparing apples to oranges.
  - ZoFreX 10y ago
    There are fanless NUC cases available. I have one from Akasa, it's a beautiful piece of kit. Solid black metal with heatsink ridges on the top, it looks and feels like a hi-fi amplifier. https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-newton-h-aluminium-fanless-case-for-intel-nuc-d34010wyb-and-d54250wyb-with-2-usb30-audio-and-i https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-newton-h-aluminium-fan...
  - sliken 10y ago
    The only NUC that I've heard that's loud under load is the new skull canyon which has the IRIS 580 and looks like a black plastic GPU, and sometimes sounds like a GPU. The "normal" NUCs that are approximately mac mini in size seem quite in a wide range of use cases.
chx 10y ago
I am using this https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q190G4-Celeron-Processor-Barebone/dp/B019Z8T9J0 https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q190G4-Celeron-Processor-Barebo... machine as a Linux router and also as a media player. It's astonishingly cheap for what it is and is not an Atom which CPUs I really dislike because of their incredibly slow single thread performance. This is not fast either but it's about on par with a i3-4020Y so don't be put off by the "Celeron" marking. It's very similar to the Shuttle @dpfu mentions in this thread except a little different in ports and appearance and 20% cheaper. The Shuttle one has two DIMM slots while this only has one.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Qotom boxes are great! I run one as a router with pfSense, and it gives me no trouble. If I ever start using my TV again, I plan to get another for media center use. One note of interest: depending on the shipper, you may need to pick it up in person, as photo ID may be required if it comes through customs. This was no issue for me since the DHL depot at BWI is less than a mile from the light rail stop - I even got to see a couple of 777 and 747 freighters up close! - but may be inconvenient depending on shipper and depot location. Still very much worth it IMO - the price/performance of Qotom hardware is extremely impressive, and nothing I could more easily source compares.
  - chx 10y ago
    Yeah when I looked at the price I was extremely skeptical of getting four Intel Ethernet controllers but there they are... LOL I remember when a four port Ethernet card costed more than this whole machine :D
- _hackerzero_ 10y ago
  I'll second the Qotom boxes. I use it as a firewall and run Sophos UTM Home. It's fanless and the integrated heatsink gets kinda warm to the touch but with some air flowing over it (ceiling fan) it works great.
  - pbowyer 10y ago
d3ckard 10y ago
If this thing can dissipate 200W of heat, that I must say it's truly impressive. I cannot say I want to buy one (I'm not that sensitive about noise), but from technical point of view it seems like a little marvel.
clarry 10y ago
Does anybody understand the copper heatpipes? It mentions virtual vacuum, but my understanding is that heatpipes are typically filled with a liquid that boils and turns to gas as it heats, thus moving up along the pipe and carrying heat further away to allow for a larger contact surface with the heatsink. Are airtop's heatpipes somehow different? What "virtual vacuum" and how does it work?
jfindley 10y ago
This is not all that new of an idea. I had one of these around 2005/2006: https://www.quietpc.com/hfx-mini-metal https://www.quietpc.com/hfx-mini-metal - completely fanless and (virtually) silent - back in those days there were no SSDs, so one had to content onesself with slow spindle speed HDDs mounted on soft rubber to minimise vibrations. Despite the fact that the mfr appears to think it's a "revolutionary" idea, I'm not really seeing any material difference between that and the case above, from over 10 years ago. Perhaps I'm wrong though?
- besselheim 10y ago
  I had a couple of machines from Hush Technologies (long since out of business), also ~10 years ago. They were passively cooled through a finned chassis, connected to the CPU and other hotspots by heat conducting pipes. Like yours, sounds like the same sort of thing as these Airtop machines.
anentropic 10y ago
nice, I want one! preferably as a Hackintosh... is it possible?
- dmayle 10y ago
  Not directly... But with a discrete GPU and the KVM hypervisor on Linux, you could get the same effect
  - anentropic 10y ago
    what does that mean? this airtop has a discrete gpu what does "KVM hypervisor on Linux" have to do with running macOS on it?
    - dmayle 10y ago
      In order to run it as a hackintosh natively, you would need compatible hardware and drivers, which this doesn't have. A niche alternative (starting to be more documented) is to install Linux and run an OSX virtual machine. Traditionally, that gave you terrible performance, and specifically terrible graphics. A hypervisor is a very lightweight wrapper around a virtual machine that either requires a modified virtual machine (not the case here) or hardware support in the CPU so you get to run a VM with a performance hit on the order of 3%. The newest intel CPUs have added hardware virtualization support, so if you have a discrete GPU (like for this box), you can give the integrated graphics to the host Linux system, and dedicate the discrete GPU to the virtual machine (again, performance within a few percent of native). All of this is to say that you can run a virtual OSX system on top of linux, and get almost native performance like running a hackintosh, but without having to have a perfect match of already supported hardware components.
RazrFalcon 10y ago
Too much compromises and too expensive. For this money you can buy a normal i7-k processor with Noctua cooler, Asus Strix video card with DirectCU and PSU by 'be quiet!'. Put all this stuff in a good case and you will get a PC with a great performance and almost no noise.
qplex 10y ago
IMO 120mm+ fans running at low speeds combined with large heatsinks and SSDs pretty much solved noise problems for desktop PCs.
- durzagott 10y ago
  Except for discreet graphic cards, of course.
  - qplex 10y ago
    There are discreet graphic cards with passive cooling available. The power-hungry models fitted with dual 120mm fans and a large heatsink are not too noisy either.
  - synackrst 10y ago
    Some GPUs have fans that spin down entirely under light load (Asus calls it 0db mode), and only spin up the fans when under moderate to heavy loads.
    - qplex 10y ago
      Yes. Also, at least With NVDIA cards, you can specify a temperature target to the driver. I think the defaults usually run the chips at ~70C. I guess the fans are actually mostly 100mm in 2x fan configurations, manufacturers seem to have many custom solutions for blade configuration etc.
- sliken 10y ago
  I used 120mm fans in my previous build, worked fine. However the enthusiasts seem to have moved to 140mm. Fits all the normal size cases and moves either more air for the same RPM, or the same air at less rpm. My favorite thing about them is the pitch of the hum is just a bit lower.
krylon 10y ago
Funny/scary anecdote: I have a PC whose CPU fan has stopped working about 18 months ago. The thing has been running as my home server, reliably, and it is very stable. Of course, the fan sits on top of a huge heat-spreader, which still (passively) works, and the case is open, and the machine has not all that much to do serving me. On hot summer days, the system log tells me frequently that the CPU has throttled itself to prevent overheating, but that's about it. And that's Core2 Quad, so it has not been exactly engineered for this scenario. And still, to my utter surprise, this thing runs along merrily, with an uptime of currently 148 days. If I can create a "fanless"[1] computer by accident that works and is - in face of the rather modest load I put on it - rock-solid stable, building one intentionally should not be that hard. I own two notebooks, for Pete's sake, that are fanless, and they work well. So, yes, the idea that a computer must make some kind of noise to show you it is working is gradually becoming a thing of the past. If sufficient cooling can be achieved without moving parts, that is preferable. OTOH, the sounds devices emit used to be indicators of what was going on inside them. With SSDs, you can no longer hear your hard drive work. When I sit at one of our CAD workstations and watch a designer model something in Autodesk Inventor, more and more fans are spinning faster and faster as the temperature rises - the noise level correlates to the workload of the system. If the computer becomes absolutely silent, we need substitutes for those metrics. Blinkenlights, maybe. [1] Strictly speaking, the power supply still has a fan, and that one is not all that far away from the CPU, which might improve the situation somewhat.
- ethbro 10y ago
  I believe a lot of fans in modern systems are for worse case rather than average case situations. As far as I know, there's nothing in the Dell et al. warranty that prohibits you from running a high-load system in a confined nook in a dust-clogged room with a high ambient temperature. So cooling needs to be designed to be sufficient even in pathologically stupid situations.
  - rahulroy9202 10y ago
    "So cooling needs to be designed to be sufficient even in pathologically stupid situations." sounds like my home.
magoon 10y ago
12" MacBook has no fans, and I hardly ever hear them with 11" MacBook Air (unless I were to switch back to Chrome)
ommunist 10y ago
Read the thread. The main question is still open. Does anyone actually own such a computer?
kogepathic 10y ago
I've got a MintBox 2, which is a fanless PC produced by CompuLab (same manufacturer as the Airtop). From what I can gather, CompuLab's primary market is industrial/embedded PCs. As such, they have extremely long SKU lifetimes. The MintBox 2 for example comes with a 5 year warranty, and the "Long Term Availability" of the Intense PC SKU (released in 2012) is 2019. So they will still be selling 3rd Gen Intel parts in 2019. The MintBox 2 cost $599 US when released, and if you check the price today it's still the same $599 as on release day. So don't expect the models to get any cheaper over time. The only issue I've had thus far with the unit is that it's very picky on memory. You have to install modules from their QVL or you'll end up with memory errors and crashing. Otherwise, if you want a compact fanless PC, you don't want to build it yourself, you want a long warranty, and you're willing to spend Apple-level money, then CompuLab has the product for you!
Patient0 10y ago
The configurations that allow multiple 60Hz 4K monitors appear to depend on either having a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 or NVIDIA Quadro M4000 graphics cards. But the NVidia GeForce GTX says it needs a 350W power supply [0]. The NVidia Quadro says it needs 120W and says it has a "Ultra-quiet active fansink" [1] ... i.e. quiet, but it still needs a fan. Can anyone therefore confirm if the Airtops are completely passively cooled? Is it just the CPU that is passively cooled, or the graphics card too? [0] http://www.evga.com/products/Specs/GPU.aspx?pn=567ece10-ff52-4ebb-b856-6f38e9cde6f2 http://www.evga.com/products/Specs/GPU.aspx?pn=567ece10-ff52... [1] https://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m4000?sku=VCQM4000-PB&type=m https://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m4000?sku=VCQM4000-PB&type...
- dmayle 10y ago
  It is entirely passively cooled. The GTX 950 has a thermal profile (TDP of 90W [0]. The 350W recommendation is for your entire system, it's not asking you to add 350W to the size of your current power supply. The Airtop can passively cool about 200W, so they put in a GPU at 90W TDP, and a CPU at 85W TDP [0] http://www.anandtech.com/show/9547/nvidia-launches-geforce-gtx-950-gm206-the-lesser-for-159 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9547/nvidia-launches-geforce-g...
  - Patient0 10y ago
    Awesome. I bought a NoFan from quietpc.com last year but I struggled to get a completely fanless setup capable of driving 4K at 60Hz (there was exactly one fanless card they offered which had displayPort 1.2).... Now though it looks like Airtop will be my next upgrade!
    - jdietrich 10y ago
      An ordinary GPU can be made fanless with an aftermarket cooler. The Arctic Accelero S3 will handle 135w TDP cards without a fan. That's sufficient to cool a GTX 1060. You will need a large case with plenty of ventilation. https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-s3.html https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-s3.html
    - 10y ago
bikamonki 10y ago
Compare to something like this that you can get for $30: https://www.pine64.org/?product=pine-a64-board-2gb https://www.pine64.org/?product=pine-a64-board-2gb Yes, the airtop will give you 4x-6x the features, yet in these days of cheap electronics, is $1800 really worth it?
- jajern 10y ago
  A fairly powerful, fanless computer with a 6 year warranty that can run multiple 4K displays for less than a well built MBPro is probably worth it to quite a few people. Besides people who just "want" a fanless PC, there are lab applications that require noiseless computers. Noiseless lab computers are VERY expensive. I'm sure there are many other professional use cases where $1800 isn't that much money. Maybe video/audio production?
CPLX 10y ago
Seems to me that if someone could figure out how to create a stable Hackintosh install package that exactly fit one of their builds it would be a thing of major usefulness.
lugus35 10y ago
It reminds me of Amstrad PC1512 in 1986 [1]: > "Whereas IBM's PC (and almost all PC compatibles) had a power supply in a corner of the main case, the PC1512's power supply was integrated with that of its monitor. The monitor had sufficient venting to cool itself by convection, instead of needing a fan. The PC1512 was therefore quieter than other PCs. Rumours circulated that an Amstrad PC would overheat, and while existing owners would note that this did not happen, new buyers were discouraged. As a result, later models had a cooling fan integrated into the main case." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512
PeanutNore 10y ago
I've never had any issue with PC fan noise - I have a fish tank in the room where my desktop lives and the PC can't be heard over the sounds of the aquarium's filter and air pump, which sound quite pleasant to me.
- smrtinsert 10y ago
  My latest build is surprisingly quiet as well. Part of it is using only SSDs. The only fan I hear is the GPU and seldom honestly even while gaming.
brianolson 10y ago
This is awesome but expensive. The base configuration is $800 ($795) for case+motherboard+power_supply. I'm used to $50 case, $200 mobo, $100 ps. $800 is a lot more than $350. Maybe you'll get $450 of enjoyment out of a sweet silent workstation. http://airtop-pc.com/product/airtop-customized/ http://airtop-pc.com/product/airtop-customized/
- dmayle 10y ago
  Well, you should at least compare apples to apples. A fanless power supply will cost your more like $200, a quality small case will cost you $200, a fanless cpu cooler like the NoFan will cost you $100, so you're at about the $700 range, which is not too far off. A $100 permium to get all of this integrated, and able to cool 200W (as opposed to about 100W of cooling in the generic solutions) is a lot less extravagent.
lmm 10y ago
0dB is pretty loud, no? IIRC it's the loudest sound expressible on an audio CD. (Decibels are a log scale - true silence would be minus infinity).
- joelwilliamson 10y ago
  No. 10dB is the volume of calm breathing, 0dB is the threshold for auditory perception of a sound at 1kHz. With regards to a CD, the decibel measures the gain rather than the volume. 0dB in this context simply means "full volume", while -10dB means 10% of full volume, and -20dB means 1% of full volume.
fest 10y ago
On a slightly related note: does anyone have recommendations for embedded PC distributor/manufacturer in EU with online order system? I don't want to waste time talking to sales reps. From time to time I need a PC to stuff inside places a regular desktop wouldn't survive too long (think factory floor). I've ordered from IPC2U but they introduced a minimum order of 10 for their Intel NUC based systems.
joshuak 10y ago
FYI, This page crashes on my iPad Pro in Safari 100% of the time.
bovermyer 10y ago
I am not the target market for this. I'm pretty sure I might be in the minority, but I enjoy the sound of desktop PC fans, especially the larger, noisier ones.
mmagin 10y ago
I'm kind of disappointed that it relies on an external power brick. If I'm spending a premium on a desktop, I don't want another bit of crap cluttering up the desk or floor.
- sliken 10y ago
  Indeed, lame. Just a cheap and silent way to get 10% or so of the heat generation outside the case.

200 points by icefox 10y ago

Funny, I was looking at these guys' latest offerings just earlier today, before the HP announcement. This is built by the same guys that built the FitPC (http://www.fit-pc.com/ http://www.fit-pc.com/). I've had one of their little 5-watt fanless systems running 24/7 in my home for a couple of years now. I love it. Never had a problem with it. It's easily one of my favorite pieces of computing equipment. I was looking at their stuff earlier because I'm considering getting some more from them.

usaphp 10y ago

Reminds me of this company: http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/ http://www.calyos-tm.com/calyos-fanless-pc-workstation/

princeb 10y ago

interesting. the whole case is a heat sink directly applied to the cpu. although, 100W cooling does nothing for the r9 390 which is something like 275W TDP. i have a veritable wind tunnel below my table, blowing really hot air up my shorts.

MiguelHudnandez 10y ago

Looks like a much beefier alternative to a NUC, which I was already impressed with.

linuxkerneldev 10y ago

My fear with these designs is that because the chassis is the heatsink, there is the issue of the continuous deformation (expansion and contraction) of the chassis body/heatsink, and you get mechanical stresses on the mobo that eventually cause internal vias to break. So yes, it may work fine for 12 months, but the overall lifespan of the product might be significantly shortened.

djsumdog 10y ago
As long as there's enough distributional area (if it's only warm to the touch), there shouldn't be enough heat build up to cause it to wear faster, right?
commentzorro 10y ago
I've own and have built a number of these and not not seen this ever. The cases are much thicker and rigid than you'd expect. 5+ years for a few of them now.
IshKebab 10y ago
Not going to happen. They're too small to expand much. Aluminium is 22 microstrain per degree apparently. Say it raises to 60C and is 30cm long, that gives you're looking at 0.26 mm. Easily accommodated by flex in the mountings.

sliken 10y ago

I was hoping for something like this with the skylake iris 550. Top of the line perf/watt (for a cpu+gpu). GPU fast enough for light gaming/webGL, or older games. There's an intel NUC that's close (M2 slot + iris 540), but it's a little pricey at $340 and uses 15 watt version (that throttles very quickly), instead of the 28 watt version that can actually sustain a decent level of performance. Fast, quiet, decent CPU+GPU shouldn't really be that hard. Seems like GPUs are getting their with the gtx 1050/60/70 having tiny half length cards available, but I've seen very few cases designed for them.

trengrj 10y ago
I've owned a couple NUCs. One that was fanless (Gigabyte BACE-3000), but a bit slow. I upgraded to an Gigabyte Intel i5 NUC, it has a fan but I can't hear it at all. Brilliant machine. I think the "quiet pc issue" is a solved problem provided you aren't building a massive gaming machine.

bosdev 10y ago

The site is currently reporting an "Error establishing a database connection." If at all possible, please try to make simple content sites like this static using a tool like Netlify or http://stout.is http://stout.is. Static sites are faster, more reliable and cheaper to operate.

ta834939874 10y ago
Agreed. Google Cache for those who want it: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EHdeB5iXYekJ:airtop-pc.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EHdeB5i...
bo1024 10y ago
Knowing nothing about web hosting - could a static site hosted on a basic hosting plan survive a hacker news front page? Or what would be required?
- will_hughes 10y ago
  It'd depend on the shared hosting provider and your site. Having hundreds of MB of content that people are going to want to load, even if it's all served statically, will probably still have you in a bad way with the cheapest of hosting providers. But it'll have a much better chance of surviving than someone running wordpress or something that's got zero caching and needs to do a ton of calls to a shared MySQL host.
  - bo1024 10y ago
    Right sure, I was just picturing a static HTML page measured in KB.
    - PuffinBlue 10y ago
      Then yes, it would probably be fine, within reason. When running a static site at very high traffic loads it becomes about how many connections the webserver can handle and how much bandwidth you have to serve the site itself, rather than pure power of the server to process all the requests a dynamic site would generate. You can start to chew through bandwidth allocations pretty quickly when you get a couple thousand concurrent visitors, so a shared hosting plan might run out pretty quickly if the cap is small, even with a fairly small site. And something like Apache would need tweaking a fair bit to handle that number of connections without eating all the RAM. Nginx is better in that regard and could pretty easily handle thousands of concurrents. So a small DigitalOcean VPS can easily handle millions of 'hits' per day if set up with a little care, and more than that if setup well, but you just have to watch you don't saturate the connection. I mirrored a few sites that had faced the reddit hug of death (just to see what the load was like) and I found you can easily hit 200mbps* sustained connection requirement with all the visitors it brings just from the comment thread, which people don't enter as much as the list posting. *(depending on the size of the page obviously, the bigger the page the more mbps it'll need to serve, average was around 20-50mbps).

BuckRogers 10y ago

Looks like we took the site down. I have an Intel Skull Canyon NUC and love it, will be using these from here on out. Be nice to see more companies offer fanless cases.

EugeneOZ 10y ago

200 W for gaming card? Just ridiculous. Even gtx 1050 need 300 W PSU. And modern quiet fans in quiet cases are really quiet - below 20db, so it's difficult to hear it at all. My son have such with Gtx 1080 - it's the gaming card.

sliken 10y ago
GTX 1050 is just 75 watts, nvidia is just being conservative because many people have crappy power supplies or tons of power consuming extras. Assuming an intel cpu (mostly 65 watts or less), a SSD (few watts), some dims, and the normal overhead for usb/power conversion, etc. you can get away with quite a bit less than 300.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  card: 75w, cpu when gaming: 80w, memory: 6w, 2 ssd drives: 6w. Total 167 W. 200 W pcu with 80% efficiency: 160 W. PCU with 95% efficiency: 190 W. Step left - step right (any gaming hard moment) and bye bye. Looks like nvidia recommendation is not so dumb. And it's for a low-level gaming card.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > 200 W pcu with 80% efficiency: 160 W. PCU with 95% efficiency: 190 W That's not how efficiency is computed (in general, but especially in PSU). The power rating (200W in your example) is what the PSU can provide to the system as DC power, the efficiency is the difference between AC input (wall-draw) and DC output. An 80%-efficient 200W PSU will provide 200W internally but draw 250W from the wall-plug (and waste the extra 50W as heat). If your 200W PSU maxes out at 160W it's not because it has 80% efficiency it's because it's a worthless piece of shit. You should throw it away as there's significant risk it will blow up (figuratively or literally) and/or catch on fire. Here's an article (in french but you can look at the pictures) checking out garbage PSU exhibiting that sort of behaviour: http://www.x86-secret.com/dossier-36-3000-Alimentation_Noname.html http://www.x86-secret.com/dossier-36-3000-Alimentation_Nonam... spoiler: shitty components, detonations and burnt smells.

monssoen 10y ago

Streacom has fanless cases that look way better. They're not as small though.

Flenser 10y ago
They're much harder to open though.

m-i-l 10y ago

I've been putting together fanless PCs for my own use for a few years now, also disliking the aircraft-taking-off sound of many desktop PCs when they are switched on. I started with the Zalman Reserator[0] water cooling tower, then moved to the Zalman TNN 500-AF[1] where the case was a giant heatsink (it was an amazing piece of kit), although more recently have been using ready-made fanless PCs (which are more widespread now most of the components run much cooler). The site at http://www.silentpcreview.com/ http://www.silentpcreview.com/ used to have useful information for people building quiet PCs, and https://www.quietpc.com/ https://www.quietpc.com/ still has some good components (and ready-made machines) too. [0] https://www.quietpc.com/reserator1-v2 https://www.quietpc.com/reserator1-v2 [1] https://www.quietpc.com/tnn500af https://www.quietpc.com/tnn500af

hubert123 10y ago
I use an integrated graphics chip and a noctua cpu cooler, it's practically completely silent. I sleep right next to my PC often.
- masklinn 10y ago
  Different people have different noise threshold, and different ability to filter out noise. I couldn't sleep next to a running computer even using large low-speed fans until I built one using a Reserator. I have friends who can sleep next to what are essentially heli turbines. The big annoyance of the Reserator is it's a pain in the ass to carry around.
- commentzorro 10y ago
  +1 for the Noctua fans and coolers too. When I need a full tower I always swap out the stock fans and coolers for Noctua.
Already__Taken 10y ago
I'd love to get just that water block back-plate to bond to my steel boat hull. How do you get components like in the TNN case?

TekMol 10y ago

I have the following approach to fanless computing: 1) I buy any desktop I like for its form factor 2) I either use the onboard graphic or a fanless graphics card 3) I set the threshold for all fans that are accessible via fancontrol to a level that keeps them permanently off 4) I pull or cut the cables of any fans that remain spinning People always tell me I am "insane" to do so. But I have been doing this for years now and never had a problem.

detaro 10y ago
It works in the sense that the hardware will survive quite a while, but you are likely giving away a lot of performance to thermal throttling (at least if you have a mini-PC, it can be factor 5 - 10 or so)
djsumdog 10y ago
Modern CPUs will just downclock themselves. I mean it's not insane; you won't damage the components, but you will be running A LOT slower than you could be. Do you run tools to see how far down your CPUs frequency scaling is taking it?
- pktgen 10y ago
  I was about to write the same thing. The CPU won't be damaged, but it may underperform. The bigger concern would be other components, especially motherboard VRMs which seemingly tend not to have any thermal failsafe (on occasion, there are reports of them catching on fire).
- TekMol 10y ago
  I would be surprised if any downscaling takes place. I run some heavy computation software from time to time and compare the performance to other computers. Many of them in datacenters. I would probably notice if a machine suddenly downscales. That said, I would be happy to measure it and post the results. Running the computations now. According to "top" it saturates 2 of my 8 CPUs. So far, "lscpu" reports the CPU at 1600 MHz. "sensors" reports the CPU Temperature is slowly rising. Was 48°C at IDLE. Is 50°C now. 15 minutes later. CPU temp was raising so slow that I stopped it now. Don't think it will get to anything critical ever. It was at 52°C. CPU speed was still at 1600MHz.

pbowyer 10y ago

Last PC I built I looked very hard at fanless, but eventually decided to choose my fans well and run them as slowly as I could get away with to keep the computer cool. It works well - the swoosh of the 120mm on the back is just audible when the computer is working hard (with the computer 4ft away from me). Otherwise I don't hear it. Oh - and when I game occasionally I hear the graphics card fan, but that was expected. The fan only runs when needed (ASUS Strix) so is silent in normal use.

theandrewbailey 10y ago
Yup, large (100+mm) and slow (<1000) RPM fans are the way to go. Put it under the desk (desktop to deskunder?), use SSDs and a noise insulated case, and that's a fairly quiet machine. And that's before going overboard with liquid cooling. Gaming has lots of sound to mask any kind of noise from the case, unless there's something quiet and emotional. I have 1000w 7.1 speakers, and never notice case noise. I have a four year old GTX 680 with the blower reference cooler (fairly quiet). I've blown air into the outside vents to get the dust out, but a few weeks ago, I took off the shroud for the first time, and was amazed that there were no dust bunnies anywhere, even though I hadn't blown the dust out for at least a year.

luxpir 10y ago

Checked this out last night when it was linked to in the HP post. I like the direction these fanless PCs are going in, but as others have said, it's more or less a solved problem. Fanless laptops are where I'm now looking. The UX360CA Zenbook is fanless, low-power, and very reasonably priced (at least in the USA - still waiting on price to 'settle' over here). Silence would be very welcome for night reading and viewing.

exDM69 10y ago
> Fanless laptops are where I'm now looking. The UX360CA Zenbook is fanless, low-power, and very reasonably priced The fanless Zenbooks are fantastic. But they're also really low power with the Core-M CPUs with a TDP of 4.5 Watts [0]. That's in a power budget that could fit in a tablet. The Airtop-D has a Core i7 CPU, which has a TDP of 65 Watts (can downtuned to 37W) [1]. You can roughly expect it to have 10x+ more computational power. It's just a whole different category of devices. [0] http://ark.intel.com/products/88199/Intel-Core-m7-6Y75-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/88199/Intel-Core-m7-6Y75-Proce... [1] http://ark.intel.com/products/88040/Intel-Core-i7-5775C-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/88040/Intel-Core-i7-5775C-Proc...
- chx 10y ago
  You will be sorely disappointed if you expect those CPUs to have a 10x difference. First, you have a 2.75x clockspeed difference and then a double core count so 5.5 times is what you could expect if they were the same architecture but the 6Y75 is Skylake (don't be mislead by the "Core M" moniker, these the same architecture as their larger wattage brethen just with a lower TDP, they used to mark them with an Y postfix like i3-4220Y and the Y is still in the moniker) and the 5775C is Broadwell but it has eDRAM so the difference is negligible here http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700.... So in real world, you can expect to see a 3-5x speedup.
  - luxpir 10y ago

SimonPStevens 10y ago

I find the hum of lots of computer fans comforting. I did a lot of my work at uni very late at night in the computer labs when it was empty, just the constant noise of a hundred or so desktop machines. It's my ideal working environment.

vijucat 10y ago
We've got you covered, mate. Here we have retro computer fan and server room sounds in the age of these pesky-quiet, small form factor fanless PCs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeESf9aCZHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeESf9aCZHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_RHdE7zsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_RHdE7zsc :-)
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  If you like those you might also like the star ship Enterprise idling, for 24hrs... for a more futuristic spin (haha!) on things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA
  - swozey 10y ago
    That's awesome. http://mynoise.net http://mynoise.net has similar ambient sounds, they have a section on "Transports" that contains (just a few); Spaceship, Railroads, Sailboat, Aircraft cabin, Flying Fortress.. etc It's awesome when I'm writing short stories, they've also got stuff like; RPG Dark Forest, Dungeon, Battlefield that helps me get in the mood if I'm writing a fantasy story. IIRC it's a sound engineers hobby side project. I've got nothing to do with the project, just been a happy user for years.
    - vijucat 10y ago
      Brilliant site, thanks for the recommendation.

thenormal 10y ago

Site is down for me

imperialdrive 10y ago

What is the use-case for this? It seems pricey for entry level, but has a lot of nifty options for power-users.. but, then why would I risk having no airflow or extra power (200watt PS) for when I get cookin' with storage or fast video?

hibbelig 10y ago
It's silent. Maybe to you it makes no difference, but for me it's really important.
- imperialdrive 10y ago
  I'm a 'fan' of silence, but a Silencio ATX case is <100 and I never notice my computer, ever. I also spent a lot of time finding just the right keyboard and mouse, a sweet-spot of solid action without too much click... us techies sure are picky now that I think about it, and for a good reason, tools of the trade.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > I'm a 'fan' of silence, but a Silencio ATX case is <100 and I never notice my computer, ever. Sounds like you have a pretty high "silence" threshold. I have a Define R4 with undervolted front fans, and while it's good enough when awake I couldn't sleep next to it.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
Reliability of quietness of course. I love the fans in my PC, the way they make almost no noise. But they make noise. And worse, they are a marvel of engineering. If some accident of dust or bumping were to upset their balance I fear will I be back to the loud old days. Worst of all, they are moving parts that might simply fail. Having a thing that is fanless from the start is much less likely to suddenly find its assumptions about heat dissipation violated.
CPLX 10y ago
For starters there are presumably use cases for which silence is of critical importance. The computer at the production desk in a broadcast or recording studio, church, or theatre comes to mind as one example.

bnegreve 10y ago

I have been using a laptop and a docking station for a while now. I think this is the optimal configuration. - no / very little noise - no need to synchronize between work / home (Given that I also have a docking station at home, I essentially use my laptop as a portable hard drive with a screen) - I can take my current work to meeting rooms anytime. - ...

stinos 10y ago
> no / very little noise Doesn't that heavily depend on usage? At least I've never had a laptop which wouldn't turn into a noise generator once you start compiling, computing or heavy imaging/editing. But yes a single machine + docking station at home and one on the job isn't a bad solution
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  > Doesn't that heavily depend on usage? At least I've never had a laptop which wouldn't turn into a noise generator once you start compiling, computing or heavy imaging/editing. Exactly. For the past decade I've built desktop computers that are silent no matter the load (I don't do any GPU heavy work). I really cannot say that for my work laptops.
- bnegreve 10y ago
  True, still it fits me because I run most of the stuff on remote machines. But I this can be a problem indeed.
- mrkgnao 10y ago
  I've never heard my Chromebook (Asus, I think a C7[24]0) make any noise, although I do always have a fan running in my room.

dpfu 10y ago

I recently got my parents a fanless desktop computer. There a lot of options, but I went with a cheap Shuttle XPC slim barebone [1]: It is tiny, has a really nice industrial design and two front facing COM ports (!). [1] http://www.shuttle.eu/fileadmin/resources/download/docs/spec/barebones/DS68U_e.pdf http://www.shuttle.eu/fileadmin/resources/download/docs/spec...

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
two front facing COM ports They'll come in handy! But seriously, what's the motivation behind putting those on the machine, or wanting them?
- spin 10y ago
  I imagine that's for use with POS terminals (ie cash registers). A lot of those still have serial-port barcode scanners or serial-port printers.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure the ports are also commonly used for cash drawers.
- clarry 10y ago
  They're nice for kernel debugging. Also it's nice to be able to headlessly control a machine without ssh & the entire network stack.
- sena 10y ago
  From the datasheet: "Two serial ports: Many PCs do not have these legacy ports any longer, since they have been superseded and replaced by USB for most consumer applications, but they are still commonly used for applications such as industrial automation systems, scientific analysis, POS systems and other such fields of application."
- jajern 10y ago
  These are meant to be industrial computers. To be used for things such as being the brains of an automation system.

noja 10y ago

I worry about dust. With a non-fanless PC, you will notice it needs cleaning because the fan becomes noisy. With a fanless PC you won't get that.

gambiting 10y ago
On the other hand, there are no fans pushing dust inside that PC(in fact, the whole inside of this thing can be sealed airtight) and the amount of dust that naturally settles on the radiators outside should be much smaller than on any active-cooled PC.
commentzorro 10y ago
These (AirTop, Fit-PC, etc.) are completely sealed machines so no dust enters. It does build up on the case - depending on your environment - but doesn't effect the thermal characteristics at all.
- clarry 10y ago
  It looks like the airtop has open air pipes that work like chimneys, letting the heated air inside flow up and out of it. These ought to be easy to clean with compressed air though.

misotaur 10y ago

Here`s hoping for a future where desktops are so efficient that they don`t need any active cooling.

clarry 10y ago
Arguably they've been around for a while now (I have two fanless shuttle mini PCs running on my desk, and one laptop made fanless by stabbing a screwdriver through the vent holes into the fan). It's just that whenever you want the last three inches of extra performance, you pay a heavy price with respect to thermal power.

tuananh 10y ago

at this price, i would rather buy intel NUC.

gambiting 10y ago
Have you ever used one? They can be extremely loud under load. It's like comparing apples to oranges.
- ZoFreX 10y ago
  There are fanless NUC cases available. I have one from Akasa, it's a beautiful piece of kit. Solid black metal with heatsink ridges on the top, it looks and feels like a hi-fi amplifier. https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-newton-h-aluminium-fanless-case-for-intel-nuc-d34010wyb-and-d54250wyb-with-2-usb30-audio-and-i https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-newton-h-aluminium-fan...
- sliken 10y ago
  The only NUC that I've heard that's loud under load is the new skull canyon which has the IRIS 580 and looks like a black plastic GPU, and sometimes sounds like a GPU. The "normal" NUCs that are approximately mac mini in size seem quite in a wide range of use cases.

chx 10y ago

I am using this https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q190G4-Celeron-Processor-Barebone/dp/B019Z8T9J0 https://www.amazon.com/Qotom-Q190G4-Celeron-Processor-Barebo... machine as a Linux router and also as a media player. It's astonishingly cheap for what it is and is not an Atom which CPUs I really dislike because of their incredibly slow single thread performance. This is not fast either but it's about on par with a i3-4020Y so don't be put off by the "Celeron" marking. It's very similar to the Shuttle @dpfu mentions in this thread except a little different in ports and appearance and 20% cheaper. The Shuttle one has two DIMM slots while this only has one.

throwanem 10y ago
Qotom boxes are great! I run one as a router with pfSense, and it gives me no trouble. If I ever start using my TV again, I plan to get another for media center use. One note of interest: depending on the shipper, you may need to pick it up in person, as photo ID may be required if it comes through customs. This was no issue for me since the DHL depot at BWI is less than a mile from the light rail stop - I even got to see a couple of 777 and 747 freighters up close! - but may be inconvenient depending on shipper and depot location. Still very much worth it IMO - the price/performance of Qotom hardware is extremely impressive, and nothing I could more easily source compares.
- chx 10y ago
  Yeah when I looked at the price I was extremely skeptical of getting four Intel Ethernet controllers but there they are... LOL I remember when a four port Ethernet card costed more than this whole machine :D
_hackerzero_ 10y ago
I'll second the Qotom boxes. I use it as a firewall and run Sophos UTM Home. It's fanless and the integrated heatsink gets kinda warm to the touch but with some air flowing over it (ceiling fan) it works great.
- pbowyer 10y ago

d3ckard 10y ago

If this thing can dissipate 200W of heat, that I must say it's truly impressive. I cannot say I want to buy one (I'm not that sensitive about noise), but from technical point of view it seems like a little marvel.

clarry 10y ago

Does anybody understand the copper heatpipes? It mentions virtual vacuum, but my understanding is that heatpipes are typically filled with a liquid that boils and turns to gas as it heats, thus moving up along the pipe and carrying heat further away to allow for a larger contact surface with the heatsink. Are airtop's heatpipes somehow different? What "virtual vacuum" and how does it work?

jfindley 10y ago

This is not all that new of an idea. I had one of these around 2005/2006: https://www.quietpc.com/hfx-mini-metal https://www.quietpc.com/hfx-mini-metal - completely fanless and (virtually) silent - back in those days there were no SSDs, so one had to content onesself with slow spindle speed HDDs mounted on soft rubber to minimise vibrations. Despite the fact that the mfr appears to think it's a "revolutionary" idea, I'm not really seeing any material difference between that and the case above, from over 10 years ago. Perhaps I'm wrong though?

besselheim 10y ago
I had a couple of machines from Hush Technologies (long since out of business), also ~10 years ago. They were passively cooled through a finned chassis, connected to the CPU and other hotspots by heat conducting pipes. Like yours, sounds like the same sort of thing as these Airtop machines.

anentropic 10y ago

nice, I want one! preferably as a Hackintosh... is it possible?

dmayle 10y ago
Not directly... But with a discrete GPU and the KVM hypervisor on Linux, you could get the same effect
- anentropic 10y ago
  what does that mean? this airtop has a discrete gpu what does "KVM hypervisor on Linux" have to do with running macOS on it?
  - dmayle 10y ago
    In order to run it as a hackintosh natively, you would need compatible hardware and drivers, which this doesn't have. A niche alternative (starting to be more documented) is to install Linux and run an OSX virtual machine. Traditionally, that gave you terrible performance, and specifically terrible graphics. A hypervisor is a very lightweight wrapper around a virtual machine that either requires a modified virtual machine (not the case here) or hardware support in the CPU so you get to run a VM with a performance hit on the order of 3%. The newest intel CPUs have added hardware virtualization support, so if you have a discrete GPU (like for this box), you can give the integrated graphics to the host Linux system, and dedicate the discrete GPU to the virtual machine (again, performance within a few percent of native). All of this is to say that you can run a virtual OSX system on top of linux, and get almost native performance like running a hackintosh, but without having to have a perfect match of already supported hardware components.

RazrFalcon 10y ago

Too much compromises and too expensive. For this money you can buy a normal i7-k processor with Noctua cooler, Asus Strix video card with DirectCU and PSU by 'be quiet!'. Put all this stuff in a good case and you will get a PC with a great performance and almost no noise.

qplex 10y ago

IMO 120mm+ fans running at low speeds combined with large heatsinks and SSDs pretty much solved noise problems for desktop PCs.

durzagott 10y ago
Except for discreet graphic cards, of course.
- qplex 10y ago
  There are discreet graphic cards with passive cooling available. The power-hungry models fitted with dual 120mm fans and a large heatsink are not too noisy either.
- synackrst 10y ago
  Some GPUs have fans that spin down entirely under light load (Asus calls it 0db mode), and only spin up the fans when under moderate to heavy loads.
  - qplex 10y ago
    Yes. Also, at least With NVDIA cards, you can specify a temperature target to the driver. I think the defaults usually run the chips at ~70C. I guess the fans are actually mostly 100mm in 2x fan configurations, manufacturers seem to have many custom solutions for blade configuration etc.
sliken 10y ago
I used 120mm fans in my previous build, worked fine. However the enthusiasts seem to have moved to 140mm. Fits all the normal size cases and moves either more air for the same RPM, or the same air at less rpm. My favorite thing about them is the pitch of the hum is just a bit lower.

krylon 10y ago

Funny/scary anecdote: I have a PC whose CPU fan has stopped working about 18 months ago. The thing has been running as my home server, reliably, and it is very stable. Of course, the fan sits on top of a huge heat-spreader, which still (passively) works, and the case is open, and the machine has not all that much to do serving me. On hot summer days, the system log tells me frequently that the CPU has throttled itself to prevent overheating, but that's about it. And that's Core2 Quad, so it has not been exactly engineered for this scenario. And still, to my utter surprise, this thing runs along merrily, with an uptime of currently 148 days. If I can create a "fanless"[1] computer by accident that works and is - in face of the rather modest load I put on it - rock-solid stable, building one intentionally should not be that hard. I own two notebooks, for Pete's sake, that are fanless, and they work well. So, yes, the idea that a computer must make some kind of noise to show you it is working is gradually becoming a thing of the past. If sufficient cooling can be achieved without moving parts, that is preferable. OTOH, the sounds devices emit used to be indicators of what was going on inside them. With SSDs, you can no longer hear your hard drive work. When I sit at one of our CAD workstations and watch a designer model something in Autodesk Inventor, more and more fans are spinning faster and faster as the temperature rises - the noise level correlates to the workload of the system. If the computer becomes absolutely silent, we need substitutes for those metrics. Blinkenlights, maybe. [1] Strictly speaking, the power supply still has a fan, and that one is not all that far away from the CPU, which might improve the situation somewhat.

ethbro 10y ago
I believe a lot of fans in modern systems are for worse case rather than average case situations. As far as I know, there's nothing in the Dell et al. warranty that prohibits you from running a high-load system in a confined nook in a dust-clogged room with a high ambient temperature. So cooling needs to be designed to be sufficient even in pathologically stupid situations.
- rahulroy9202 10y ago
  "So cooling needs to be designed to be sufficient even in pathologically stupid situations." sounds like my home.

magoon 10y ago

12" MacBook has no fans, and I hardly ever hear them with 11" MacBook Air (unless I were to switch back to Chrome)

ommunist 10y ago

Read the thread. The main question is still open. Does anyone actually own such a computer?

kogepathic 10y ago

I've got a MintBox 2, which is a fanless PC produced by CompuLab (same manufacturer as the Airtop). From what I can gather, CompuLab's primary market is industrial/embedded PCs. As such, they have extremely long SKU lifetimes. The MintBox 2 for example comes with a 5 year warranty, and the "Long Term Availability" of the Intense PC SKU (released in 2012) is 2019. So they will still be selling 3rd Gen Intel parts in 2019. The MintBox 2 cost $599 US when released, and if you check the price today it's still the same $599 as on release day. So don't expect the models to get any cheaper over time. The only issue I've had thus far with the unit is that it's very picky on memory. You have to install modules from their QVL or you'll end up with memory errors and crashing. Otherwise, if you want a compact fanless PC, you don't want to build it yourself, you want a long warranty, and you're willing to spend Apple-level money, then CompuLab has the product for you!

Patient0 10y ago

The configurations that allow multiple 60Hz 4K monitors appear to depend on either having a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 or NVIDIA Quadro M4000 graphics cards. But the NVidia GeForce GTX says it needs a 350W power supply [0]. The NVidia Quadro says it needs 120W and says it has a "Ultra-quiet active fansink" [1] ... i.e. quiet, but it still needs a fan. Can anyone therefore confirm if the Airtops are completely passively cooled? Is it just the CPU that is passively cooled, or the graphics card too? [0] http://www.evga.com/products/Specs/GPU.aspx?pn=567ece10-ff52-4ebb-b856-6f38e9cde6f2 http://www.evga.com/products/Specs/GPU.aspx?pn=567ece10-ff52... [1] https://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m4000?sku=VCQM4000-PB&type=m https://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m4000?sku=VCQM4000-PB&type...

dmayle 10y ago
It is entirely passively cooled. The GTX 950 has a thermal profile (TDP of 90W [0]. The 350W recommendation is for your entire system, it's not asking you to add 350W to the size of your current power supply. The Airtop can passively cool about 200W, so they put in a GPU at 90W TDP, and a CPU at 85W TDP [0] http://www.anandtech.com/show/9547/nvidia-launches-geforce-gtx-950-gm206-the-lesser-for-159 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9547/nvidia-launches-geforce-g...
- Patient0 10y ago
  Awesome. I bought a NoFan from quietpc.com last year but I struggled to get a completely fanless setup capable of driving 4K at 60Hz (there was exactly one fanless card they offered which had displayPort 1.2).... Now though it looks like Airtop will be my next upgrade!
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    An ordinary GPU can be made fanless with an aftermarket cooler. The Arctic Accelero S3 will handle 135w TDP cards without a fan. That's sufficient to cool a GTX 1060. You will need a large case with plenty of ventilation. https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-s3.html https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-s3.html
  - 10y ago

bikamonki 10y ago

Compare to something like this that you can get for $30: https://www.pine64.org/?product=pine-a64-board-2gb https://www.pine64.org/?product=pine-a64-board-2gb Yes, the airtop will give you 4x-6x the features, yet in these days of cheap electronics, is $1800 really worth it?

jajern 10y ago
A fairly powerful, fanless computer with a 6 year warranty that can run multiple 4K displays for less than a well built MBPro is probably worth it to quite a few people. Besides people who just "want" a fanless PC, there are lab applications that require noiseless computers. Noiseless lab computers are VERY expensive. I'm sure there are many other professional use cases where $1800 isn't that much money. Maybe video/audio production?

CPLX 10y ago

Seems to me that if someone could figure out how to create a stable Hackintosh install package that exactly fit one of their builds it would be a thing of major usefulness.

lugus35 10y ago

It reminds me of Amstrad PC1512 in 1986 [1]: > "Whereas IBM's PC (and almost all PC compatibles) had a power supply in a corner of the main case, the PC1512's power supply was integrated with that of its monitor. The monitor had sufficient venting to cool itself by convection, instead of needing a fan. The PC1512 was therefore quieter than other PCs. Rumours circulated that an Amstrad PC would overheat, and while existing owners would note that this did not happen, new buyers were discouraged. As a result, later models had a cooling fan integrated into the main case." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC1512

PeanutNore 10y ago

I've never had any issue with PC fan noise - I have a fish tank in the room where my desktop lives and the PC can't be heard over the sounds of the aquarium's filter and air pump, which sound quite pleasant to me.

smrtinsert 10y ago
My latest build is surprisingly quiet as well. Part of it is using only SSDs. The only fan I hear is the GPU and seldom honestly even while gaming.

brianolson 10y ago

This is awesome but expensive. The base configuration is $800 ($795) for case+motherboard+power_supply. I'm used to $50 case, $200 mobo, $100 ps. $800 is a lot more than $350. Maybe you'll get $450 of enjoyment out of a sweet silent workstation. http://airtop-pc.com/product/airtop-customized/ http://airtop-pc.com/product/airtop-customized/

dmayle 10y ago
Well, you should at least compare apples to apples. A fanless power supply will cost your more like $200, a quality small case will cost you $200, a fanless cpu cooler like the NoFan will cost you $100, so you're at about the $700 range, which is not too far off. A $100 permium to get all of this integrated, and able to cool 200W (as opposed to about 100W of cooling in the generic solutions) is a lot less extravagent.

lmm 10y ago

0dB is pretty loud, no? IIRC it's the loudest sound expressible on an audio CD. (Decibels are a log scale - true silence would be minus infinity).

joelwilliamson 10y ago
No. 10dB is the volume of calm breathing, 0dB is the threshold for auditory perception of a sound at 1kHz. With regards to a CD, the decibel measures the gain rather than the volume. 0dB in this context simply means "full volume", while -10dB means 10% of full volume, and -20dB means 1% of full volume.

fest 10y ago

On a slightly related note: does anyone have recommendations for embedded PC distributor/manufacturer in EU with online order system? I don't want to waste time talking to sales reps. From time to time I need a PC to stuff inside places a regular desktop wouldn't survive too long (think factory floor). I've ordered from IPC2U but they introduced a minimum order of 10 for their Intel NUC based systems.

joshuak 10y ago

FYI, This page crashes on my iPad Pro in Safari 100% of the time.

bovermyer 10y ago

I am not the target market for this. I'm pretty sure I might be in the minority, but I enjoy the sound of desktop PC fans, especially the larger, noisier ones.

mmagin 10y ago

I'm kind of disappointed that it relies on an external power brick. If I'm spending a premium on a desktop, I don't want another bit of crap cluttering up the desk or floor.

sliken 10y ago
Indeed, lame. Just a cheap and silent way to get 10% or so of the heat generation outside the case.