Is it possible to cool an i9

Der8auer performs an interesting experiment, testing whether it is possible to cool a powerful Intel Core i9-9900K with a passive cooling system.

Der8auer tests the i9-9900K with an ARCTIC Alpine 12 heatsink

Der8auer on YouTube has experimented with passive cooling on an Intel i9-9900K, using the ARCTIC Alpine 12. The ARCTIC Alpine 12 only has a nominal power of 47 W, so Der8auer did not expect much from the unit, as he comments in his video posted.

Although the passive cooler showed that it was better able to cool down this powerful Intel Core processor, it couldn't keep the Intel i9-9900K properly cooled in the stock settings, so Der8auer ended up using this CPU with stable clock speed of 3.6 GHz in all the cores, where it showed stable temperatures of use.

ARCTIC Alpine 12 is a low-profile passive heatsink

It should be noted that the tests were carried out with a system that is not mounted inside a box, but outdoors. So, with equipment fully mounted inside a box, it would work to a few degrees more. Still, you 're using a fanless heat sink with a TDP of just 47W, to cool a chip that has a nominal TDP of 95W.

With the frequencies in stock and only on the Windows 10 desktop, the processor returned a temperature of 49 degrees, but when Cinebench R20 ran, the temperature shot up to 100 degrees Celsius.

With a little manual tuning in the BIOS, Der8auer was able to run Far Cry 5 at 1080p with a GTX 1050 Ti at around 40 FPS at a rate of 3.6GHz at 0.925v. CPU temperatures were maintained between 70 and 75 degrees.

The ARCTIC Alpine 12 in its passive version is costing around 15 euros only, and as we can see, it is possible to cool an i9-9900K with it, although at frequencies of 3.6 GHz or 3.8 GHz maximum.

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