Having a silent system without fans is a noble goal, but CPUs generally need at least one. A new heatsink from Silentmaxx called the TwinBlock is designed to passively cool processors up to approximately 100W. Supporting sockets 774, 775, 1155, 1156, 1366 on the Intel side and 939, 940, and AMD 2/3 for AMD processors, it is compatible with just about any processor. The TwinBlock is, in a word, massive. Weighting in a just over 3 pounds, the heatsink measures 210mm (B) x 135mm (D) x 160mm (H) mm. It features a copper base with 10 heatpipes that connect to two aluminum fin arrays.

Interestingly, FanlessTech pointed us to a new computer build – the Fanless I-850 Gamer – that the company is planning to use the passive heatsink with to create a silent gaming PC. The PC can be equipped with up to an Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E processor and up to either an AMD 7970 or NVIDIA GTX 670 graphics card. The processor is cooled using the TwinBlock cooler while the GPUs are using custom coolers that should only kick on the fans over long gaming sessions or folding. The Fanless I-850 starts at 1279,00€ for the base configuration.

It is possible to buy just the heatsink, however. The Silentmaxx TwinBlock cooler can be yours for about $120 USD (€ 99.90 inc. VAT). More photos of the cooler are available below, and you can read more about the cooler on the SilentMaxx website.

 

The copper baseplate with 10 heatpipes connected to it.

Personally, I think this is a really cool heatsink, but it would never fit in my case. I think I did a cartoon-style jaw drop when I first saw it, and I think this even shows up the huge passive GTX 680 cooler we showed a few months back in terms of size – and that it's actually available currently. If you do decide to check this out, make sure you have enough clearance to install it!

It does come with a fan for increased air circulation if needed.