this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Technically, a CPU fan is also optional but you need to provide some other cooling (water pump?) or accept massive throttling.
noctua have a passive cpu cooler, NH-P1 https://www.noctua.at/en/products/nh-p1
But that will not work unless in a wind tunnel of some sort
It might be sufficient if the case airflow is good. Not sure if you could avoid any heat throttling that way, but I'd guess it wouldn't need to shut down because of heat.
There's always natural convection - on a 25W CPU you should be fine
I don't get the point. You still need an exhaust fan for the case. Maybe in an open air setup I guess?
Depends mostly on the CPU "TDP" (even tho nowadays the TDP is not an actual power limit) and size of heatsink, check out Streacom passive cases for example.
But the essential part in a pc is the heatsink, before the cpu fan (or any fan).