Earlier this year, Ville 'Willek' Kyrö decided to go crazy and build a completely passive PC. Armed with a bucket-load of heatsinks and some ageing computer hardware - we're talking an Opteron 170 processor and GeForce 6800 GT graphics - Kyrö got to work and found some interesting results.
His idea was to maximise heat dissipation without the assistance of any noisy fans, relying largely on over-sized heatsinks. Deciding against making his own heatpipes, Kyrö took apart a Thermaltake Big Typhoon and after a little struggle bent its existing heatpipes into the shapes required.
He'd tested aluminium as a material for the CPU block but found temperatures to be higher than he'd hoped - and promptly switched to copper. Still unhappy with temperatures, he did the only logical thing left to try; turn it inside out. The end result is this 20kg beast:
Numerous crashes and plenty of blown power supplies were two of the problems encountered in what he described as a "long and painful" build. The design isn't without compromise, either, as the hard-disk drive used isn't completely silent - and Kyrö couldn't then afford the hugely-expensive SSDs.
Ultimately, he decided the build "might not have been worth it", but it's a valiant effort. Bet he wishes he'd waited for something like the mCubed HFX, though.
Source: metku.net
