Venturing into the realm of extreme PC cooling, one Reddit user is pushing the boundaries by attempting to passively cool an Nvidia RTX 3080, a graphics card notorious for its power-hungry nature. As a fundamental aspect of computer hardware, cooling systems usually rely on fans, but this user is opting for an unconventional approach. In a post that caught the attention of the passive cooling community at Fanless Tech, the user details the endeavor to replace the stock cooling shroud of the RTX 3080 with a colossal contraption made from a solid bar of copper, measuring one foot wide, two inches tall, and three inches deep.
The copper block alone weighs an impressive 23.26 pounds, overshadowing the RTX 3080 GPU and PCB beneath it. Although still in the planning stage, the user’s design includes at least eleven additional CPU cooler heatsinks. However, concerns are raised in the comments about the practicality of dissipating the significant heat generated by the 350-watt power consumption of the RTX 3080. The community speculates on the effectiveness of the massive copper block, akin to a cast iron pan on a stove, and questions its ability to handle the thermal load effectively. The user plans to explore a horizontal variant in the next iteration to allow natural heat rising and potentially incorporate more direct heat pipes through drilling holes.
Despite the user’s past experience with passive cooling projects, skepticism persists among the comments regarding the feasibility of this ambitious undertaking. While the idea of fanless cooling for high-power components has a niche following, particularly with commercial products like SilentPC’s passive cooling designs, achieving fanless cooling for a GPU as robust as the RTX 3080 remains a formidable challenge. The post raises questions about the practicality of such extreme passive cooling and whether it can effectively handle the demands of cutting-edge GPUs.
