Compulab Launches Kickstarter For Its GTX 1080-Powered Fanless Mini-PC

[Guest]

Compulab is looking to Kickstarter to launch its newest mini-PC, the Airtop2 Inferno. The totally fanless machine is powered by an Intel i7-7700K and the desktop version of Nvidia’s GTX 1080.

Compulab Launches Kickstarter For Its GTX 1080-Powered Fanless Mini-PC : Read more

 

[kuhndj67]

Right... just what I want to do - spend big money on a custom machine (that won't be easily supported except by the design owner) from a company that's so poorly financed they need a kickstarter to even put the design together. Wish I had that kind of money to roll the dice with.

 

[Simon Anderson]

Hopefully they use some of the money to make it look better

 

[mysteriousecho4]

Who is this for? If you are limited on space and need a small computer just buy a laptop, I don't understand the purpose of this, especially for that kind of money..

 

[JonDol]

@kuhndj67

"Right... just what I want to do - spend big money on a custom machine (that won't be easily supported except by the design owner)"

I'm not sure what is your worry with this but this is exactly the case for EVERY other assembled PC vendor be it huge like Dell, HP or small like Alienware, DigitalStorm, PCSpecialist etc.

«from a company that's so poorly financed they need a kickstarter to even put the design together. Wish I had that kind of money to roll the dice with."

Again, I don't understand where you get your conclusions from. Even huge companies use Kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaigns and it doesn't mean they are poorly financed. The purpose of these campaigns is rather:
1. to better assess if there is a market for a product
2. they don't wish to take the whole risk for launching a new product

For your information, my interest in silent computing started 15+ years ago and this machine has, by far, the best ratio performance/size I know: it's much more powerful than Streacom ones and has not the mammoth size (of the more capable otherwise) Calyos ones.

Now about the value (rather than money) of this machine: this would make a more capable and flexible multimedia (streaming) machine for your living room (because is small and completely silent) a lot cheaper than some of the best off the shelf ones (albeit with some personal time investment). Forgot mentioning the gaming capabilities of the machine? That adds even more value to it!

 

[ajr1775]

Say what you will......putting all this high end product in a form factor like this without noise producing elements and a GTX 1080, WOW!!!!!

 

[MSC123]

If you really cannot stand a little noise, a set of earplugs is a lot cheaper. I certainly don't want to buy an overpriced throttled machine that runs too damn hot which results in premature component failure. This thing might make a good room heater.

 

[JonDol]

@MSC123

"If you really cannot stand a little noise, a set of earplugs is a lot cheaper."

I owe you that earplugs are one of the cheapest solutions for the silent computing but it could have been even better if we were all deaf...

"I certainly don't want to buy an overpriced throttled machine that runs too damn hot which results in premature component failure."

For me, as long as there is not enough competition and not enough sales to push the costs down, that's not overpriced but it's just the normal price.

For the last part of your sentence, wow, you look like some kind of guru or visionary... You never seen it but you already know its throttled ! The only way to throttle that is to overclock it since it goes beyond the rated TDP.

I have a Streacom gaming machine and during the 10 hours of game play sessions, the only thing that throttles is my Logitech Z5500 surround system !

"This thing might make a good room heater."

You are wrong again ! During these months of winter, I can confirm you that is not enough to heat the room and yet I'm the kind of people for whom everything above 20° C is no longer comfortable...

Cheers

 

[Eximo]

Their i7-7700/1060 version is pretty neat as is. Rather than this they should work on their cooling panel offerings and just sell the barebones chassis. Right now they are custom modifying a GPU to make it work.

CPU is going to be pretty straight forward, conceivable to swap out for i7-8700 with their larger cooler. The GPU panel would be cool if they made different versions for reference GTX cards. I would say AMD as well, but that seems like poor return on investment.

I recall a similar product that was more cube shaped and basically had a huge aluminum extrusion as the chassis and some heat pipes to carry heat out to the surface.

Great ideas, but it just needs to be slightly more modular. Enthusiasts don't often go for off the shelf PCs. Half the fun is making it yourself, so they should concentrate there.

 

[photonboy]

Price aside, the GTX1080 solution is only interesting if there is NO SIGNIFICANT THROTTLING of the CPU or GPU and of that I have severe DOUBTS.

A far, far better solution would be to modify the design slightly so an optional FAN could be put at the bottom to spin at an INAUDIBLE RPM and push air up through both sides through the heat sinks... that would be similar to the Apple Pro (garbage can) design.

FANLESS solutions for high thermal load products are often way overpriced, especially when there are ways to use a fan that is still completely inaudible... heck, in some cases they have fanless PSU's that radiate the heat into the main PC chasses which ends up being NOISIER overall due to the other fans less efficiently exhausting the heat.

 

[wiktorw]

Regarding throttling doubts - see Linus Tech Tips review "Tiny, Passively-Cooled Gaming PC - Compulab Airtop 2" - https://youtu.be/d4R-EsiyRk0

Especially look near 2:00 minute at the temperatures after two hours of full synthetic load. You may be positively surprised

Yes, they tested regular Airtop2. But hey, the Inferno version is not available yet!

 

[JonDol]

Regarding throttling doubts - see Linus Tech Tips review "Tiny, Passively-Cooled Gaming PC - Compulab Airtop 2" - https://youtu.be/d4R-EsiyRk0

Especially look near 2:00 minute at the temperatures after two hours of full synthetic load. You may be positively surprised

Yes, they tested regular Airtop2. But hey, the Inferno version is not available yet!

May I add that usual gaming does not stress that hard the machine ?

As I already replied on this thread, I have a Streacom DB4 (reviewed by THW France here: http://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/test-boitier-streacom-db4,2-2608.html) and GPU-Z logs indicate no throttling (and yet, I use only 2 side panels for cooling !)