How long before cpus run without fans

[brownninja97]

I was thinking about whether this would be the future not maybe not due to heat of transistors and resistance. What year do you think cpus may use no fans or water cooling(this is before oc)

[Nexus]

We already have cpu's that don't have any HSFs or watercooling etc. Just not for your PC or laptop.

[KittenHat]

Doesn't linus' wife use a pc with just a large heatsink and no fan? ( maybe I am misunderstanding the question.)

[greenroost1445]

Maybe not need passive or active cooling altogether

[brat137]

My phone doesn't exactly have a fan or any significant heat sink or pipes so its already happened its just a case of when we will be able to get enough power from them for desktop use without the heat output. Although if we weren't so obsessed with smaller we could have focussed on reducing heat output years ago.

[brownninja97]

What i mean is something like an i3 just put in the socket and your done, good to go.

[Guest]

Moves to CPU's

[heineygoat]

We do have fanless cpu cooling for pc. It's called a passive cooler.

[brownninja97]

We do have fanless cpu cooling for pc. It's called a passive cooler.

I knew that already what i mean is just a naked cpu thats its barebones.

[Art Vandelay]

We will probably never have fanless CPUs because fanless limits the maximum CPU power so much. Overclocking will probably always exist, and you will probably always need a forced air cooler for it.

[tacticalpanic]

my first pc had windows 3.1 , a 486 intel cpu and it was passively cooled with a very very small heat sink.

[Rhinofeed]

Not on desktop workstations. Ever. Maybe in laptops as they become even slimmer and more like tablets and phones, but there will always be a place for a proper place to work. With heat output.

[Godlygamer23]

Well, laptop sensors sometimes have the fan turn off when the CPU hits a certain temperature. Even though you keep saying "CPUs without a heatsink," you put in the title "without fans." So that kinda broadens things a bit.

[Lukiose]

Probably not anytime soon, with great power comes great heat-output-bility   B)

[Glenwing]

CPUs in phones run without fans or heatsinks... unless you count the casing as a heatsink I guess. But not all phones are made of metal. In any case, even when a future CPU can be as powerful as today's i7 without a heatsink, they will make a bigger and badder version that does require a heatsink and performs like a supercomputer. In short, as CPUs draw less power per transistor and per clock, manufacturers will add more transistors and raise clock speeds on desktop PCs. I don't think we will ever get like 1W CPUs on the desktop, because why would they do that when they could just make a 50W version that blows everything else out of the water and just requires a small heatsink/fan.

[Godlygamer23]

CPUs in phones run without fans or heatsinks... unless you count the casing as a heatsink I guess. But not all phones are made of metal. In any case, even when a future CPU can be as powerful as today's i7 without a heatsink, they will make a bigger and badder version that does require a heatsink and performs like a supercomputer. In short, as CPUs draw less power per transistor and per clock, manufacturers will add more transistors and raise clock speeds on desktop PCs. I don't think we will ever get like 1W CPUs on the desktop, because why would they do that when they could just make a 50W version that blows everything else out of the water and just requires a small heatsink/fan.

I'd rather say that manufacturers will improve instructions per clock, rather than their frequency. That way you get the most out of your clock.

[Glenwing]

I'd rather say that manufacturers will improve instructions per clock, rather than their frequency. That way you get the most out of your clock.

They'll do both.  GHz is what they put on the box and for the general consumer market it's a selling point for them.  From a business standpoint increased clock speeds are a nice thing to have :)  I mean how many noobs have you had to convince that AMD CPUs aren't a way better deal than Intel CPUs?  (OMG 8 cores 4.0GHz cheaper than Intel quad core... wtf Intel!!!)

[Godlygamer23]

They'll do both.  GHz is what they put on the box and for the general consumer market it's a selling point for them.  From a business standpoint increased clock speeds are a nice thing to have :)  I mean how many noobs have you had to convince that AMD CPUs aren't a way better deal than Intel CPUs?  (OMG 8 cores 4.0GHz cheaper than Intel quad core... wtf Intel!!!)

Yeah. That's true. But I bet AMD increased the clock speed to help cover up the holes in their architecture, and increased core count since they can't compete with Intel on per core performance.

[codytappen]

The answer is now. There are plenty of passive coolers that can handle modern x86_64 CPUs. Not to mention that if you turn down the voltages (obviously the clockspeed must go down as well) low enough modern chips can run with very little cooling. Also pretty much everything ARM based runs with no active cooling; meaning that your phone's modern CPU already does this.

[Glenwing]

The answer is now. There are plenty of passive coolers that can handle modern x86_64 CPUs. Not to mention that if you turn down the voltages (obviously the clockspeed must go down as well) low enough modern chips can run with very little cooling. Also pretty much everything ARM based runs with no active cooling; meaning that your phone's modern CPU already does this.

He means without a heatsink or any cooling apparatus at all.

[Dimensionz]

Yeah...we kinda have CPUs that run without fans. 

[AustinTheIntern]

never because cpus will have to have some sort of cooling because they get too hot

[Peopie]

I wonder why manufacturerers dont want to use a super low rpm fan to greatly increase these massive passive coolers' cooling capacity. if the fan is high enough quality, it shouldnt make any noise at all

[Giac]

given that not even fast ARM processors can run without some sort of heat dissipation I would say not for another 5-10years.

 

I wonder why manufacturerers dont want to use a super low rpm fan to greatly increase these massive passive coolers' cooling capacity. if the fan is high enough quality, it shouldnt make any noise at all

 

Because fans with a very low startup voltage are more expensive to manufacture.

[1wsx10]

there are so many computers out there (and so many morons), I reckon there has to be some idiot who has thrown in a cpu without a cooler and had it run for a small amount of time XD