You eventually tune it out, but the constant whir of a desktop computer’s cooling fans can take a toll on your psyche. It’s like a buzzing mosquito that never strikes, and never stops. So the folks at a German company called Silent Power have created a compact desktop PC that trades noisy fans for a block of exposed copper foam that dissipates heat so effectively no fans are required.
The top of what its creators are claiming is the smallest high-end PC in the world looks like something you’d use to scrub pots and pans, but the intricate copper mesh provides a remarkable amount of surface area to dissipate heat channeled directly from the CPU and GPU — supposedly up to 500 times greater than a traditional heatsink using fins.
Silent Power is currently selling pre-orders to help raise the funds to put its PC into production, and the lowest spec model with an Intel quad-core i7-4785T 2.2GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive can be yours — sometime in 2015 hopefully — for around $US935. But those specs can of course be upgraded if you’re willing to sink some more cash into your next ‘handheld’ gaming machine. [Silent Power via Gizmag]