Turemetal UP3 - Building a Fully Silent Fanless PC

This custom computer included the following components:

Case: Turemetal UP3
CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B660-I Gaming WiFi
Memory: Kingston Fury Renegade 2 x 16 GB 6400 MT/s CL 32
Storage: Kingston Fury Renegade 1 TB NVMe 1.4
Internal Power Supply: Mini-Box PicoPSU-160-XT 160 W DC-ATX
External Power Supply: Shnitpwr SNT-1210 120 W 12 V AC-DC

Chapters:
00:00 Intro & Case Design
01:29 Similar Cases
02:22 Build Components
03:37 Motherboard Prep
06:04 Cutting VRM Heatsink
07:22 CPU Block Installation
09:07 Case Installation
09:54 Heatpipe Installation
14:10 Case Installation Cont.
15:02 Power Supply Installation
15:46 Final Assembly
16:19 Thermal Testing
17:37 Performance Testing
18:21 Comparison to Similar Cases
19:56 Outro

After a half hour stress test with an 80 watt CPU load, the maximum CPU temperature was 83.1 C, with a 22.5 C ambient temperature.

The Passmark Performance Test benchmark can be found here:

[__aceofspades]

I know this is mostly about the case, but the 13900k limited to 65w has the same multi-threaded performance as the 12900k at full 240w, while having higher single thread performance regardless. So you could easily upgrade to 13th gen Raptor Lake with your Z690/B660 board, to get a lot more performance

[Rakadis]

Do you think we will be reaching the limit for passive desktops with the newer generations of GPU/CPU? These newer generations have very high wattage requirements and are designed to run at 90-100 degrees celsius as the norm. I fear we will be relegated to laptop style hardware in the future if we wish to build newer generation passive/fan less setups...

[TheHypertwist]

Silent PC idea. Put your standard loud PC in room ONE. Put your desk with monitor, keyboard and mouse in room TWO. Make a small hole in the wall between room ONE and TWO for cables going from PC to your desk. Voilà. All the noise is going to be insulated by the wall. What do you think about that?

[tauicsicsics]

Interesting the manufacturer says it can handle 55-75W for CPU, but it seems it can hold much more.

[sevezart]

Interesting video, thanks! A while ago I stumbled upon the German company called "Cirrus7" which produces similar small fanless custom builds, but there're very few reviews of their systems anywhere, mostly the old ones. Currently they offer a fanless pc with 35w 12900T, for instance. Really curious, how does it stacks up against this Turemetal PC. Maybe you'll be able to check it down the road at some point and make some comparison review, would be very cool for sure.
P.S. Your subscriber now ^^

[aliabdolahi]

Would be funny if this dude tried to build a mac studio clone both in power & visuals. Great video though.

[kasimirdenhertog]

Quite a 'hack job' with that heatsink 😉
I've got the same board and the heatsink was also in the way for the heatpipes in my DB4. I took the heatsink off and glued some small low profile heatsinks on. Works great, no overheating - I'm not pulling more than 80-90 watts anyway.
I did have a problem with the SSD overheating during gaming. The throttling thresholds on SSD's are quite conservative and aggressive, so after about an hour it would become a stuttering mess. I'm now using a riser cable from the rear M.2 slot to spare the SSD the inferno. This solved it!

[ayc]

can this PC upgraded by adding PCIe cards?

[boominfree]

It would have been sick to make the heat pipes go through the cut heat sink

[matthiaskoehler]

Hi Matt! This question was always on my mind. What can I do with my HDPlex H5 if I want a new CPU or GPU configuration?
I love my H5 so I don`t want to replace it in the future for a necessarily performance upgrade.
Can you estimate how much watt it can handle?
Greetings from Germany!

[g.h.]

No half size expansion slot :-(, too bad.

[FuckDaGovernment]

can you do cooling limittest with Akasa Turing WS? the new 13 boards go up to 65watts!

[tauicsicsics]

This is a fantastic review, Matt, congratulations. Is this the best case for passive cooling so far maybe?

The passmark test was really great, score of 35k vs 41k (official tests with full TDP)

I have 2 questions pls:

1. Are there better PSUs so we can allow 100W TDP for CPU, or maybe 125W (official TDP for this CPU).

2. When limiting the TDP for a CPU, it will never activate turbo boost, isn't it? The turbo boost for 12900k is 200W+

Cheers!

[anlemcsa]

Hello! At 65w, which will be faster 13900T or 13900?

[Olekskandr_Dzhurynskyj]

Мэтт!
А, ты понимаешь русский язык или переводчиком пользуешься?
Столько лет на тебя подписан, а этого факт не знал :)