Billet Labs has built a custom gaming PC that relies entirely on passive water cooling. The system uses an RTX 5080 and a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but its fanless design struggles to keep the CPU cool under heavy loads.
Three radiators fail to keep CPU cool
The PC features three radiators: a 120x240mm, a 140x280mm, and a 200x400mm unit arranged in a tapered tower to promote convection. The build also includes a Gigabyte Aorus Pro B850 motherboard, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB storage drive, and a 600W Flex ATX power supply. The base plate is made from 8mm aluminum.
During combined Cinebench and FurMark testing, the system drew over 450W. The CPU throttled and exceeded 95 degrees Celsius. The GPU stayed below 85 degrees Celsius and did not throttle. Billet Labs acknowledged the project failed to create a daily-use passive PC and plans to add a 120mm fan.
The builder admitted, according to a report from Techspot, that the attempt to make a fully passive PC was unsuccessful. The company intends to revise the design with an active fan to improve thermal performance.
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