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Review: Quiet PC Nofan A890S Silent Desktop

by Parm Mann on 23 November 2017, 12:00

Tags: Quiet PC, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Palit

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadnvt

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Conclusion

Wrapped inside a tidy aluminium chassis and aided by a giant CPU heatsink, the serene test PC delivers hexa-core processing power with no perceptible noise.

Having advocated quiet components for many years, Yorkshire-based Quiet PC is well placed to take advantage of today's increasingly efficient hardware. Hoping to widen its appeal from enthusiast hobbyists to mainstream users, the system integrator is expanding its portfolio of fanless systems to incorporate Intel's 8th Gen Core processor family.

Championing what's possible from today's passive PCs, the reviewed Nofan A890S Silent Desktop employs a top-of-the-range Intel Core i7-8700K processor, 16GB of DDR4 memory, a 250GB M.2 SSD and fanless graphics courtesy of a Palit GeForce GTX 1050 Ti KalmX.

Wrapped inside a tidy aluminium chassis and aided by a giant CPU heatsink, the serene test PC delivers hexa-core processing power with no perceptible noise. True, heat build-up is dramatic under maximum load, and there's an inevitable price premium attached to a fully-passive build, yet for those select few who appreciate the difference between reasonably quiet and truly silent, this is a rig that ought to be on your radar.

Bottom line: in a perfect world all PCs would be silent with no moving parts. We're not quite there yet, but Quiet PC's Nofan A890S Silent Desktop is a sign of how far we've come.

The Good
  
The Bad
Look Ma, no fans!
Blissfully quiet at all times
Up to an Intel Core i7-8700K CPU
Good choice of configuration options
Two-year collect-and-return warranty
  
Inevitably gets hot under maximum load
Reviewed spec pricey at £1,770



Quiet PC Nofan A890S Silent Desktop

HEXUS.where2buy

The Nofan A890S Silent Desktop is available to purchase from Quiet PC.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.


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HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH - Thu 23 Nov 2017 12:42
Surprised they use a Core i7 8700k for a passive build when it consumes more power than a Ryzen 7 1700,and the use of TIM probably does not help temperatures too.

I could understand if they were using the IGP,but then they use a graphics card,and I hardly see a GTX1050TI being bottlenecked by either CPU.

I think they missed an opportunity there.

Edit!!

Hmm,apparently not as they have a Ryzen based equivalent here:

https://www.quietpc.com/sys-ryzen-fanless-pro

It would be interesting to see how the Ryzen 7 1700 equivalent fares in comparison,as it is around £150 to £160 cheaper for a similar spec(the Intel build needs the 95W CPU cooler due to its higher TDP).
Posted by scaryjim - Thu 23 Nov 2017 16:52
CAT-THE-FIFTH
… It would be interesting to see how the Ryzen 7 1700 equivalent fares in comparison,as it is around £150 to £160 cheaper for a similar spec …

Spec the Ryzen 5 1600 and you can get 6C/12T, 16GB, 250GB SSD for ~ £300 less than the Intel build. It would be *very* interesting to see what the thermals were like on that. Although I'll be even more interested when the 65W desktop Raven Ridge APUs come out… ;)
Posted by Xlucine - Thu 23 Nov 2017 16:58
That system doesn't make much sense for value, I bet they were just trying to show off the best performing fanless system possible for the review.

scaryjim
Spec the Ryzen 5 1600 and you can get 6C/12T, 16GB, 250GB SSD for ~ £300 less than the Intel build. It would be *very* interesting to see what the thermals were like on that. Although I'll be even more interested when the 65W desktop Raven Ridge APUs come out… ;)

Go to the plain ryzen fanless system (with a gamer-y case and a B350 motherboard), and you can get a comparable system £470 cheaper than the reviewed one. Shame they don't offer RAM faster than 2.4 GHz though
Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH - Thu 23 Nov 2017 17:14
scaryjim
Although I'll be even more interested when the 65W desktop Raven Ridge APUs come out… ;)

You should have a look in the Ryzen thread. Raven Ridge looks pretty awesome even at lowish TDPs.
Posted by scaryjim - Thu 23 Nov 2017 17:59
Xlucine
… Go to the plain ryzen fanless system (with a gamer-y case and a B350 motherboard), and you can get a comparable system £470 cheaper than the reviewed one. …

I also noticed they do the 80W version of the cooler on its own for ~ £45, which looked decent value to me. And it's not too ridiculously large either; at only 113mm tall it should fit in the majority of tower cases…

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