Nofan CR-80EH

My first two computer builds were made using conventional PSUs and coolers which were selected to be "quiet". They were so nice they made me wonder about "silent". I built two identical systems using Intel i7-4770S CPUs and the NoFan CR-95 cooler, which has been discontinued. I put those in CoolerMaster perforated cases with all fans and filters removed. Running fanless power supplies and the onboard Intel graphics, these things were a revelation. I am completely committed to fanless, silent computing. The CR-95 keeps those 4770S's quite cool under normal loads and even transcoding video at @100% load they don't come close to temp-throttling.The CoolerMaster cases I used are huge and I wanted to build something a little less space hungry. I used the Thermaltake Core P1 and a mini-ATX board, Seasonic fanless PSU and this NoFan CR-80 cooler and the intel i7-8700 CPU. This cooler is much smaller than the CR-95 and has less cooling capacity. Installation was much less clumsy than the CR-95. The trickiest part was assembling the mounting bracket. Getting the cooler mounted onto the CPU was very straightforward with the bolts going through the board front to back without any fussiness about positioning. (TIP: Apply your thermal compound to the CPU and invert the cooler on a table and place the mobo upside down over the cooler bolts and then tighten the nuts. Easy, and no sliding the cooler all over the CPU, which isn't so good for the thermal seal.) The cooler clears the memory and the PCH heatsink on my board but only by a paper-thin margin. On a more spacious micro-ATX or larger board, this should not be a problem and with memory farther away and this cooler's much smaller base diameter, you'll have less probability of interference than you would have with the CR-95.The Thermaltake case is all open so offers the highest possible amount of free air flow. The CPU idles in the low to mid 30°s C. Under normal task loads it mostly runs in the 40°-50°C range. Under full load, transcoding video, the CPU will hit 100°C although the load figures don't show that it actually trips throttling. This is to be expected when using Intel's Turbo Boost. When triggered, Turbo Boost forces the CPU way over its normal power rating and above the capacity of this cooler. It comes down from those temps very quickly once the task completes or you terminate it.This leads us to the caveats. THIS IS NOT FOR ANY KIND OF OVERCLOCKING. Don't buy this and complain that your overclocked rig runs too hot and has problems. I have decided to disable Turbo Boost. This does not affect most "typical" usage since the CPU is rarely working anywhere near its capacity. Performance for things like transcoding video is reduced but not by so much that it bothers me. In the open case, running near 95% CPU load while transcoding, it hovers around a max of @ 80°C with sustained use and Turbo Boost disabled.The bottom line is that this cooler works well when your goal is absolute silence and you match it with a thoughtfully selected CPU, case, and PSU, and your computing demands are reasonably normal. I would recommend that for really heavy loads, Turbo Boost be disabled to keep temps in a safe range. You will probably not notice much difference in performance and most of the time there won't be any difference. You *might* not need to do this if you run a 35 watt CPU, but I can't promise; I can only say what I see using the 65 watt CPU I have.If what I write makes you think you might run case fans with it, or you're looking at a graphics card or PSU with a fan, I would say don't bother with this cooler. You'd do at least as well with a big cooler running with a slow fan. This NoFan cooler is for when you want SILENCE and are willing to tailor everything towards achieving that goal. If that's what you want, this cooler is what you need.

I love the look of it. It has no problems cooling a 65w CPU in real world daily use and light benchmarking. Please note that it is normal for a CPU to run hotter when using passive cooling especially at idle. Noctua has a great article about this on their website in reference to their passive cooler if you want to read it. Basically you "want" the CPU to run hot because the hotter it gets, the easier the passive cooler is able to shed heat. The passive cooler becomes more and more efficient as the CPU temperature rises. So typically what you see is that a CPU idles very hot with a passive cooler, but then as the load increases the temps do not increase much because the passive cooler has hit a temp where it begins to shed heat very well. It is fine to run a CPU on the hot side, it is not going to hurt it.I do have case fans in my case but I spin them at only 300rpm so there is only a tiny amount of airflow through my case. Overall I am impressed by its performance for the size. It clears my RAM. My only real complaint is that the mounting system is not very good. I would prefer a mounting system that used springs and attached from the topside of the motherboard.

Does it's job. Put it on my NAS/HTPC i3-4130T 35W and in the bios it's running 32-33 degrees Celsius. Stock Intel cooler was running 35 degrees. Room temp was 76 F on both. Sorry only got the bios temps.(Added later).. forgot to mention I have a slow turning fan at the top of the case. With it off it shot up to 40C. I'm leaving that one on. It's silent enough.I would have been fine with a couple degrees hotter given a fan cooler will collect dust and not cool as well most of it's life when you're no longer paying as much attention to the temps. A fanless one shouldn't have this issue and temps should remain fairly constant I would think.You can use the sizing chart on NoFan's website to see if it fits your mobo. It said mine was fine in all areas, but if I ever have to unplug the CPU power cable, I'm going to be in trouble.BTW: This is an early review, I just installed. Unless the thing falls off the CPU, I'm sure I'll be fine down the road.9/11/2014: Tried it fanless with prime95 and got it in the low 70s rising very slowly, so switched back to top fan which btw is close to the cooler. Prime95 100% Cpu usage raised it flucuating in the high 50s to low 60s constant at 76 degree room temp.

aber schlecht zu montieren.Der Kühler ist sehr gut verarbeitet, liegt plan auf und enthält sowohl für Intel als auch AMD_plattformen das nötige Rüstmaterial. Durch die konische Form ist der Zugang zum mainboard nicht wesentlich eingeschränkt. Man kann somit in den meisten Fällen nachträglich RAM einsetzen bzw. ausbauen, ohne den KÜhler entfernen zu müssen.Leider ist die Montage der Schwachpunkt. Die Kontermuttern werden durch einfache Plastikeinsätze arretiert. Was sich in der Theorie als einleuchtend zeigt, erweist sich in der Praxis als Designfehler. Die Plastikbolzen sind unterdimensioniert und brechen beim Kontern ab. Dann drehen die Schrauben durch und der Kühler lässt sich nicht mehr festschrauben.Jammerschade um eine gute Idee. Dafür kann es nur einen Stern geben, denn der Kühler ist dann unbenutzbar.

Je me suis fait une config PC quasi fanless : avec le boitier cooler master silencio 550M, dans mon PC j'ai seulement 2 ventilateur 800rpm à l'avant pour aspirer l'air frais et 1 à l'arrière 800rpm pour expulser l'air chaud.( carte graphique fanless et aucun autre ventilateur nul part)Le radiateur est annoncé pour un TDP max de 80W.Du coup un AMD à 65W de TDP ou un intel idem peuvent convenir largement.Je ne recommanderais pas pour quelqu'un qui est un hardcore gamer, mais pour un joueur occasionnel et pour la bureautique, c'est la solution de refroidissement idéal.Le radiateur est assez gros donc ça me bloque un slot de RAM avec ailette de refroidissement. Vous pouvez l'utiliser si vous acheter de la mémoire vive LOW profile, comme celle-ci par exemple : Kingston KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX Mémoire RAM DDR3 1600 8 Go KVR CL9 HyperX Kit2 XMPFournis avec de la pâte thermique, donc no soucis ! Facile à monter quelque soit le socket.