Computex: how to passively cool a i9-9900K

By chance, Martin and I stumbled across the Noctua booth at Computex. The Austrian company had a small, inconspicuous stand. But what we saw there stimulated our curiosity: a large heat sink without fan, combined with a case that circulates the air from bottom to top in a balanced way. A glance at the product description tells us that it’s the prototype of a passive cooling element for x86 processors. Even at 120 watts of CPU power, the part should cool the processor sufficiently.

I wanted to know more and grabbed Dan from the Noctua booth for an interview.

Sure, working at over 90°C is a hell of a job for any processor. Still, with a CPU at 120 watts only being cooled passively, this average temperature is shockingly low. I wonder how much work still needs to be done until production can begin, and whether this thing will even find buyers. But hey, it’ll always be an interesting product study.