![Image](http://www.neo-geo.com/personal/i5-fanless/i5-build_small.jpg)
![Image](http://www.neo-geo.com/personal/i5-fanless/i5-build2_small.jpg)
![Image](http://www.neo-geo.com/personal/i5-fanless/screenshot_small.png)
![Image](http://www.neo-geo.com/personal/i5-fanless/tri-display_small.jpg)
The case I used was last produced in 2004, the TNN500AF from Zalman of South Korea.
The passive cooling performs remarkably well, sporting lower #s than I had anticipated...
Ambient temperature (room temp): 24°C
CPU low 20°C shortly after boot, mid 20°C idle and lower 30°C @ full load after an extended period (1+ hour of gaming).
GPU high 20°C shortly after boot, mid 40°C idle and upper 50°C @ full load after an extended period (1+ hour of gaming).
My goal was to build the most powerful work station and green friendly PC that I could come up with while utilizing the latest technology and also being completely 100% silent. I cherry picked the parts based on what would yield the highest performance on low thermal properties and low power consumption, but the most important attribute above all was to achieve long lasting system reliability and stability (easily obtained when there are no moving mechanical parts such as fan motors and magnetic spinning HDDs, all of which are doomed to failure). Other perks include dust free internals, a permanent system life cycle, and a recyclable aluminum case. The case will function just as well 1000 years from now as it did when it was manufactured 6 years ago, as that's all it is, a hunk of metal which serves as a massive heat sink.
It took a couple weeks longer to assemble as more parts were required than were initially anticipated but all were necessary to meet the requirements of the motherboard. The 1st time I attempted to boot the system, the machine wouldn't even post (bios screen didn't load). I was a bit paranoid, thinking it could have been anything from a bad motherboard (that would have been a nightmare) to a grounding issue, but apparently the bios of the motherboard did not support the latest CPUs and possibly lacked compatibility with the memory I had chosen. The solution was connecting a laptop to the motherboard by USB to update to the latest bios remotely! I didn't even know it was possible to update the bios of a motherboard without being able to at least power the system on, that was quite an interesting trick that this high-end motherboard supported. Bios was updated remotely and all of the following boots have been successful.
I welcome any advice or critiques on how I can improve this system. For example, I've been considering installing optional 120mm case fan(s) for use during gaming to insure a long lifespan for the components, set to kick on when the CPU reaches 30c. Is that even necessary?