Intel’s NUC line of desktop computers are small, but they’re not exactly silent — most feature fans for active cooling. The Intel “Frost Canyon” NUC 10 I reviewed recently runs quieter than most laptops, but under heavy load you can certainly hear the fan spin up.
But if you’re willing to trade size for silence, the new Akasa Turing FX is a third-party case that brings passive cooling to the NUC 10.
Already available in Europe for about $130, the Akasa Turing FX should be available in North America soon.
Update: Akasa says the new case should be available from Amazon and Performance-PCs by mid-May.
The Akasa Turing FX case measures about 9.8″ x 4.5″ x 3.7″. That’s pretty small by desktop computer standards, but still a lot larger than the 4.6″ x 4.4″ x 2″ NUC 10Â with a fan.
But the additional space gives the computer’s motherboard, and other components more room to breathe — and wraps them in an aluminum case designed to help dissipate heat without the use of a fan. There’s even a dedicated heat sink that sits atop the computer’s M.2 solid state drive.
The result is a computer that should generate no noise at all, which could come in handy if you’re making a home theater PC, music server, or operating an NUC in a quiet retail or business environment.
Of course, you’ll need to perform a bit of surgery to transplant the NUC 10 mainboard into a new case. So if you’re uncomfortable with that, you might want to look elsewhere for a pre-assembled fanless computer.
via Akasa, FanlessTech, and @JaniAnttonen
Cute, but still not comparable to my Airtop-PC. Most potent fanless PC ever offered.