Ask HN: Best fanless PC with high end CPU/GPU? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best fanless PC with high end CPU/GPU?

(Not an answer, but just a side note)

In case anyone's primarily concerned about fan noise or heat while gaming, GeForce Now is a really amazing alternative to having to buy or maintain your own PC. It's a RTX 4080 in the cloud for $10/mo (currently on sale): https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/

The tech has gotten dramatically better since the Stadia days (and Nvidia has the first-party advantage here), and you can play many AAA games in 4k/120 fps with minimal latency.

When I first tried it out, I thought it would be a neat addition for traveling or whatever. But it works so well, and is so much quieter & cooler compared to a local GPU, that I eventually sold my desktop altogether and just use this now.

Not affiliated with them. Just an incredibly satisfied customer (who hopes Nvidia won't abandon the gaming segment for their AI money printing).

There's a fairly straightforward set of engineering tradeoffs at play here. As written, use a water pump or make the case surprisingly big are solutions, using a power supply sufficiently oversized that it doesn't bother spinning up the fan. You can still expect reduced lifespan of the motherboard and maybe memory, it all really expects some slight airflow.

The good answer to "really fast computer I can't hear" is to put it somewhere else. Long HDMI cable or some variant on thin client and a network cable.

An interesting answer is the fanless cases where heat pipes dump heat into the case, but you're probably still under 100W for those.

I like a small x64 machine in the wire tray under the desk driving monitors and the real hardware somewhat far away.

Puget Systems makes high quality quiet workstations if you don't want to roll your own.

Fanless

High end CPU/GPU

Pick one

Unfortunately this is the correct answer.

Anything water-cooled.

Doesn't the GPU typically still have fans? Or are there setups where both the CPU and GPU are exclusively water-cooled?

According to [0], "One water block for the CPU, one for the GPU....First you have to inform yourself that the water block for your favorite GPU exists, looking at the part numbers, then you buy the GPU, then, and only then, after double-checking the part number on the box and on the website of the water block vendor, you buy the water block."

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/watercooling/comments/ubwjrc/i_know...

Hmm, seems like a relatively rare mod? Too bad, because typically the GPU is way noisier and hotter. I wish someone would make an eGPU water heater enclosure that you can just put in the garage, lol.

Go to https://www.metapcs.com/watercooled/ and pick Intel or AMD.

On the next page (core components) under "GPU Waterblock" click Edit, then switch to "Graphics Card Waterblock" from "Standard Aircooled".

Then, configure the rest of the PC.

Or, go here: https://www.metapcs.com/contact-us/ and just talk to them about what you want and what is possible, etc.

But I think this is basically what you want. I don't know of any prebuilts for your fanless with high end GPU (they could exist), but I do know that reputable firms do specialize in high-power low-noise PCs. So I think it can be done and is not too uncommon. Like this one, just for example.

That's cool that those exist! And they're pretty.

Expensive though (starts at $4000), and probably not self-upgradeable.

It's self-upgradable if you're brave!

But even a configuration like this won't eliminate fans. The water-cooler on the GPU block still runs through a radiator circuit that is fan-cooled and shared with the CPU. Replacing the 400-odd watts of heat that system dissipates under load is extremely difficult with a passive system. You'd have to end up undervolting the components for stability's sake, at which point selecting such a powerful system starts to make less sense.

Can put water blocks on anything hot. Preferably excluding the power supply. You also don't need fans on the radiators. The pump makes some noise though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com