Great review. I'm very critical regarding computer noise and built a system using a Seasonic fanless power supply, Noctua cooler with 120mm fan and one 120mm case fan, both Noctua fans. I run the fans at about 1000rpm and the system noise is below my ability to hear unless I put my ear next to the case, and even then it's tough to hear anything. This is a "normal" 4770k non overclocked and it runs fine stock. My point is that I suggest anyone needing a silent system might be able to go with a passive power supply, large CPU air cooler, and quiet low rpm fans. You'll get virtually the same result for less money and a more powerful system.
Completely agree. It's not "portable", but I always build my systems in a full-size ATX tower and install 2x 140mm front intake, 1x 140mm bottom intake, and 1x 140mm rear exhaust Noctua fans. That way I can run them all at 700-800 rpm and maintain acceptable temps and essentially silent operation. I also usually oversize the (titanium-rated) power supply so that its fan never comes on in normal (< 50% capacity) operation.
‘Virtually silent’ is a vague concept. People with partial hearing loss may label quite noisy things in that manner. I also don’t know to what degree what someone notices is a 1:1 correspondence with what can irritate the person’s hearing.
Droning fans, even when quieter than some noise sources, can be more irritating for a person with tinnitus. I presume this is due to a lack of rest intervals. High frequency emissions may also play a role. Some ball bearing fans are tuned to emit high frequencies.
You're right about the vague concept. The fans they're describing will be running with FDB bearings, though, and not running at a speed that would produce any human-audible droning at common operating distances (1m+), assuming the sort of noise floor you'd expect in even a very quiet household environment.
I'm not just stating that as an opinion - it's the sort of conclusion SPCR used to come to with their testing, and it's also my personal experience from building similar systems and testing them in quiet environments (quiet house, no HVAC, not near main roads).
I am pretty sure the Akasa Turing was designed to sit upright, not flat on the table. Upright position increases the thermal performance by a significant margin, even though it is already quite good thanks to the beefy heatsink.
The way it was tested by Anandtech only uses the upper half of the heatsink for convection, the two lower parts are basically dummies with no possibility for natural airflow whatsoever. Positioning the Case upright should not only improve overall thermal performance, but also speed up the cooldown time and improve the ssd temperatures a bit.
Apparently Akasa designed this to embedded standards, as there are no holes in the sides of the motherboard compartment which would improve airflow along the SSD due to natural convection, but would also be susceptible to Dust. A feature that is very liked in dusty Enviroments like industrial manufacturing, or weathery semi-outdoor applications etc. Dust is one of the major drawbacks to "almost noiseless" fan designs like the one Hulk mentions in his Post below.
Maybe, but my 2 previous cases, the orientation made little difference in my room with no active air circulation. There's just not enough convection to cool the 30-40w heat coming from such a small area.
The build quality on these is pretty exceptional and they work really well. I have a slightly smaller version with i3 based NUC hardware functioning as a HTPC; 0 noise and looks sick. At some point I'd like to try one of their ITX options with a AMD APU.
Thanks, interesting review! This question isa bit out of left field, but are there (still) kits or build plans for a silent mineral oil-immersion cooled systems out there? (Very pure, pharmaceutical grade mineral oil, of course) I thought for a long time now that those might be a great solution for silent computing, as long as one doesn't want or have to modify the setup after it's in the oil. Any experience with one of those? They should be able to take a lot more TDP than a dry passive system like this one.
I saw some older reports and even reviews on those, but most were at least 10 years old and "archived". Do you (or anyone else) here know of kits that are available to buy. The DYI is a bit risky and gets messy, not the least because oil tends to travel up cables and connectors; there is a reason why WD40 etc exist and work - oil has high capillary action. Any information is appreciated!
Had two of their cases previously - Euler (thin-itx +35w i5) and Newton (7th Gen i5 NUC). Might be a northern european thing (UK) but in our typical rooms at home with no active air circulation, i've had overheating issues with both - throttling and outright thermal shutdown. Had to run a usb fan at times that defeats the whole point. Looking at the peak temperatures here, i'm guessing this is the same. I've now gone for a case with a slow fan that I can hide under my desk - not as pretty but it never crashes and is effectively silent too.
Room air flow plays a role I'm sure. My gen 8 i3 based NUC is in the Plato which looks like it has quite a bit more surface area than the Newton. Its also out completely out in the open and has the benefit of central air though AC is almost never on. I've never had thermal issues with mine running World Community Grid at 75% load all summer. A 100% stress test on a hot day (28c) will cause it to throttle but thats not a realistic use case so I'd say it does quite well.
Remember the Kickstarter for the high-performance fabless gaming system touted by TweakTown, Linus, and others? Calyos.
Apparently vaporware. The backers, last time I checked, received nothing. And, that may include people who preordered from their separate website. Also, apparently some of the people behind the Calyos debacle moved on to set up another company to sell, you guessed it, fabless gaming PCs and cases. I assume that didn’t go very far, too.
People with tinnitus who want to game have a hard time. They either get to choose underpowered equipment or vaporware.
You should check out monsterlabo - they'd had fanless CPU+GPU options available commercially for a while now, and The Beast looks like it will provide as much cooling as anyone could reasonably need.
Every Akasa cooling product I've encountered has performed worse than stock so kudos to them for not stinking the place out with this particular product.
Considering it's an entirely custom, fanless cooled case for a NUC. This thing is surprisingly affordable. There are a lot of commercial and industrial applications for a case like this.
Good to see fanless tech getting some attention. I'm one of those fussy tinnitus sufferers, and the silent PC I just built for myself is making me very happy.
However, my case (Streacom FC8a) is also 2.7kg net, yet it is coping fine with a 65w Core i5, even in high Australian ambient temps. Same weight and seemingly awkward form factor for the Akasa makes me appreciate mine even more.
Those Streacom cases are excellent. One day I'd like to build an APU-based system in the DB4, maybe once AMD get around to sliding RDNA 2 into a DDR5-based system.
Yeah I was keen to use Ryzen 4650G but couldn't find one in my neck of the woods. Maybe next upgrade in a few years when the integrated graphics are even more impressive.
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Hulk - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Great review. I'm very critical regarding computer noise and built a system using a Seasonic fanless power supply, Noctua cooler with 120mm fan and one 120mm case fan, both Noctua fans. I run the fans at about 1000rpm and the system noise is below my ability to hear unless I put my ear next to the case, and even then it's tough to hear anything. This is a "normal" 4770k non overclocked and it runs fine stock.My point is that I suggest anyone needing a silent system might be able to go with a passive power supply, large CPU air cooler, and quiet low rpm fans. You'll get virtually the same result for less money and a more powerful system.
emgarf - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Completely agree. It's not "portable", but I always build my systems in a full-size ATX tower and install 2x 140mm front intake, 1x 140mm bottom intake, and 1x 140mm rear exhaust Noctua fans. That way I can run them all at 700-800 rpm and maintain acceptable temps and essentially silent operation. I also usually oversize the (titanium-rated) power supply so that its fan never comes on in normal (< 50% capacity) operation.Hulk - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Yup. A number of large, high quality fans run at low rpm are virtually silent and move enough air to keep temps down.Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
‘Virtually silent’ is a vague concept. People with partial hearing loss may label quite noisy things in that manner. I also don’t know to what degree what someone notices is a 1:1 correspondence with what can irritate the person’s hearing.Droning fans, even when quieter than some noise sources, can be more irritating for a person with tinnitus. I presume this is due to a lack of rest intervals. High frequency emissions may also play a role. Some ball bearing fans are tuned to emit high frequencies.
Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Many people also live in places with high levels of ambient noise pollution.Spunjji - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
You're right about the vague concept. The fans they're describing will be running with FDB bearings, though, and not running at a speed that would produce any human-audible droning at common operating distances (1m+), assuming the sort of noise floor you'd expect in even a very quiet household environment.I'm not just stating that as an opinion - it's the sort of conclusion SPCR used to come to with their testing, and it's also my personal experience from building similar systems and testing them in quiet environments (quiet house, no HVAC, not near main roads).
AT_comma - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Look a lot like the new Xbox form factor. Perhaps made also to stay in place.Maksdampf - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
I am pretty sure the Akasa Turing was designed to sit upright, not flat on the table. Upright position increases the thermal performance by a significant margin, even though it is already quite good thanks to the beefy heatsink.The way it was tested by Anandtech only uses the upper half of the heatsink for convection, the two lower parts are basically dummies with no possibility for natural airflow whatsoever.
Positioning the Case upright should not only improve overall thermal performance, but also speed up the cooldown time and improve the ssd temperatures a bit.
Apparently Akasa designed this to embedded standards, as there are no holes in the sides of the motherboard compartment which would improve airflow along the SSD due to natural convection, but would also be susceptible to Dust. A feature that is very liked in dusty Enviroments like industrial manufacturing, or weathery semi-outdoor applications etc.
Dust is one of the major drawbacks to "almost noiseless" fan designs like the one Hulk mentions in his Post below.
dontlistentome - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Maybe, but my 2 previous cases, the orientation made little difference in my room with no active air circulation. There's just not enough convection to cool the 30-40w heat coming from such a small area.The Von Matrices - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Look at the logos on the case. They're designed for the case to be horizontal, like it was reviewed.Flunk - Tuesday, October 27, 2020 - link
The publicity photos on Akasa's site show it in both orientations.Operandi - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
The build quality on these is pretty exceptional and they work really well. I have a slightly smaller version with i3 based NUC hardware functioning as a HTPC; 0 noise and looks sick. At some point I'd like to try one of their ITX options with a AMD APU.tfouto - Monday, December 28, 2020 - link
Does the Wlan antena works on the new case? If not how does one solve this?eastcoast_pete - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Thanks, interesting review! This question isa bit out of left field, but are there (still) kits or build plans for a silent mineral oil-immersion cooled systems out there? (Very pure, pharmaceutical grade mineral oil, of course) I thought for a long time now that those might be a great solution for silent computing, as long as one doesn't want or have to modify the setup after it's in the oil. Any experience with one of those? They should be able to take a lot more TDP than a dry passive system like this one.SirPerro - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
That exists since a long time ago. It works just fine! Very heavy build and nasty maintenance though...eastcoast_pete - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
I saw some older reports and even reviews on those, but most were at least 10 years old and "archived". Do you (or anyone else) here know of kits that are available to buy. The DYI is a bit risky and gets messy, not the least because oil tends to travel up cables and connectors; there is a reason why WD40 etc exist and work - oil has high capillary action. Any information is appreciated!Spunjji - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
I don't think there was ever enough money in it for kits to be sustainable - it's just too niche!dontlistentome - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Had two of their cases previously - Euler (thin-itx +35w i5) and Newton (7th Gen i5 NUC).Might be a northern european thing (UK) but in our typical rooms at home with no active air circulation, i've had overheating issues with both - throttling and outright thermal shutdown. Had to run a usb fan at times that defeats the whole point.
Looking at the peak temperatures here, i'm guessing this is the same.
I've now gone for a case with a slow fan that I can hide under my desk - not as pretty but it never crashes and is effectively silent too.
Operandi - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Room air flow plays a role I'm sure. My gen 8 i3 based NUC is in the Plato which looks like it has quite a bit more surface area than the Newton. Its also out completely out in the open and has the benefit of central air though AC is almost never on. I've never had thermal issues with mine running World Community Grid at 75% load all summer. A 100% stress test on a hot day (28c) will cause it to throttle but thats not a realistic use case so I'd say it does quite well.Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Remember the Kickstarter for the high-performance fabless gaming system touted by TweakTown, Linus, and others? Calyos.Apparently vaporware. The backers, last time I checked, received nothing. And, that may include people who preordered from their separate website. Also, apparently some of the people behind the Calyos debacle moved on to set up another company to sell, you guessed it, fabless gaming PCs and cases. I assume that didn’t go very far, too.
People with tinnitus who want to game have a hard time. They either get to choose underpowered equipment or vaporware.
Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Fanless, not fabless. Apple’s ‘auto-defect’ at its finest.eastcoast_pete - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Google's Gboard is no slouch at those, either. Smart keyboards can be so dumb sometimes (:Spunjji - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
You should check out monsterlabo - they'd had fanless CPU+GPU options available commercially for a while now, and The Beast looks like it will provide as much cooling as anyone could reasonably need.BushLin - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link
Every Akasa cooling product I've encountered has performed worse than stock so kudos to them for not stinking the place out with this particular product.Flunk - Tuesday, October 27, 2020 - link
Considering it's an entirely custom, fanless cooled case for a NUC. This thing is surprisingly affordable. There are a lot of commercial and industrial applications for a case like this.asfletch - Tuesday, October 27, 2020 - link
Good to see fanless tech getting some attention. I'm one of those fussy tinnitus sufferers, and the silent PC I just built for myself is making me very happy.However, my case (Streacom FC8a) is also 2.7kg net, yet it is coping fine with a 65w Core i5, even in high Australian ambient temps. Same weight and seemingly awkward form factor for the Akasa makes me appreciate mine even more.
Spunjji - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
Those Streacom cases are excellent. One day I'd like to build an APU-based system in the DB4, maybe once AMD get around to sliding RDNA 2 into a DDR5-based system.asfletch - Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - link
Yeah I was keen to use Ryzen 4650G but couldn't find one in my neck of the woods. Maybe next upgrade in a few years when the integrated graphics are even more impressive.