The Airtop Is One Of The Coolest Linux-Friendly PCs Ever For Enthusiasts

[justmy2cents]

Look at the end:
http://anandtech.com/show/9958/compu...airtop-systems

thanks, i missed this. pricing seems decent for what you get

[starshipeleven]

Computers all used to be *almost* passively cooled. Just look back at that old 8086 or 80286, or even 80386.

those have the processing power of the average modern controller, not even Linux supports them now.

[droidhacker]

Computers all used to be *almost* passively cooled. Just look back at that old 8086 or 80286, or even 80386. They really didn't make that much heat, except for the power supply itself. Newer power conversion technology could be easily adapted to older power requirements, a good modern power supply can make *incredibly* little heat.

And then look at all of the modern devices that aren't just passively cooled, but actually sealed entirely! Phones and tablets, for example. The intel compute stick, while having a little fan, doesn't *need* the fan. Its just there to lower the temperature a bit in order to maintain a higher clock rate and better performance.

[Compulab]

No way. Console systems are in a very price-competitive market. Large passive cooling systems are a lot more expensive than a cheap little heatsink-n-fan. When you're selling the whole machine for just $349, there is no budget for fancy cooling.

Actually economy of scale works great for housing.
PS4 is 27.5 x 30.5 cm (slightly larger than Airtop) and 150W. Natural Airflow mod for PS4? Hmmmm...

[torsionbar28]

For the love of all that is holy, please sell this design to Sony so I can get a PS4 that doesn't howl when I play games on it! A little more seriously, this thing has better hardware than any of the game consoles, and yet even after all of the fan issues with the PS3 and overheating and issues with xbox 360, Sony and Microsoft couldn't fix them by doing something like these guys built?

No way. Console systems are in a very price-competitive market. Large passive cooling systems are a lot more expensive than a cheap little heatsink-n-fan. When you're selling the whole machine for just $349, there is no budget for fancy cooling.

[leech]

For the love of all that is holy, please sell this design to Sony so I can get a PS4 that doesn't howl when I play games on it! A little more seriously, this thing has better hardware than any of the game consoles, and yet even after all of the fan issues with the PS3 and overheating and issues with xbox 360, Sony and Microsoft couldn't fix them by doing something like these guys built?

[Sonadow]

You mean the Skylake that causes PCs to freeze when performing complex workload? Yeah, no thanks. Intel has been quite buggy these past years.

A bug which no general user is expected to trigger at all under any circumstances.

[lvlark]

Alert : Subliminal advertizer detected

Is it POLARIS with POLARIS and POLARIS ? if POLARIS then POLARIS else POLARIS end POLARIS.

Oh bite me. I'm interested in this Airtop, and also interested in that GPU. While not worded very strongly in that post, I meant to say that 'Polaris will first have to be released' before we can tell if it's worthwhile. So you might think twice before you go about your alerts.

[pal666]

They have heat pipes embedded in the side panels to channel the heat from the CPU and the GPU to the full extend of the dissipating panel which has fins and convection airflow channels. They claim 100W of heat dissipation per side (100 for CPU and 100 for GPU) and nothing about their design suggests they are making that up. It probably works just fine.

active cpu coolers have heatpites and larger surface area and fans, so obviously they are making that up. there are passive coolers, one cooler can be put it this case it you remove from it everything else. and they still depend on airflow from case fan

[drSeehas]

i wonder about the price...

Look at the end:

http://anandtech.com/show/9958/compulab-rollsout-passivelycooled-airtop-systems