There are loads of gaming systems that boast high performance and then there are fanless PCs that can run basic multimedia and productivity applications. Regrettably, the domains of gaming and fanless technology seldom overlap, resulting in a scarcity of passively cooled gaming desktops, which are often custom made and use expensive components. But it looks like Streacom wants to change that and make fanless gaming systems more widespread.
Streacom plans to showcase its SG10, a PC chassis that can dissipate up to 600W of thermal energy without usage of any fans at Computex in late May. The case was developed in collaboration with Calyos, which specializes on advanced thermal solutions relying on loop heat pipe (LHP) technology. An avid reader will probably recall that a couple of years ago Streacom already teased a case capable of dissipating 600W. That chassis has never made it to the market, but the SG10 is expected to become a product that will be available in retail.
For now, Streacom and Calyos are tight-lipped about their jointly developed SG10. We presume that the general principle used by all cases designed to enable passively-cooled systems is that the chassis itself acts like a massive heatsink. Meanwhile, this approach involves establishing a direct connection between heat-producing chips and the case. This part is indeed tricky, and this is where Calyos comes into play with its LHP expertise.
While 600W does not sound a lot by today’s standards, in fact such a machine could pack an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D or an Intel Core i9-13900K CPU and a GeForce RTX 4070-based graphics card, thus offering quite formidable performance in games.
The most intriguing aspect of this fanless case is how it establishes efficient thermal conductivity between the heat-generating chips and the case’s structure. Typically, users use custom-made heat pipes and apply thermal paste between them and special cavities in the chassis. That would be quite tricky to do with a bunch of custom-designed graphics cards that are on the market these days.
Anyhow, it looks like Streacom and Calyos are serious about bringing SG10 to market, so most probably it will feature convenient mechanisms to ‘connect’ CPUs and GPUs to the heatsink, which is the chassis itself.