According to Noctua, the NH-P1 is custom-designed for fanless operation and is capable of cooling modern high-end CPUs with low to moderate heat dissipation. Of course, there is a catch, as Noctua says that this will work in enclosures/cases with good natural convection.

According to Noctua and its CEO, Roland Mossig, the company is very proud of its design and has managed to make a completely fanless demo system that keeps an Intel Core i9-11900K running Prime95 at more than 3.6GHz, which is a great result considering 125W TDP.

"The NH-P1 is our very first passive cooler, and it should be easy to see that we didn't just take a regular heatsink and omit the fan", says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "A lot of engineering work went into designing this unit for fanless operation from the ground up and we're truly proud of the end result. In our completely fanless demo system, the NH-P1 cools an Intel Core i9-11900K running Prime95 at more than 3.60 GHz - this is a lot of processing power and a whopping 125 W kept in check with zero fan noise!"

In order to design it for passive cooling, Noctua had to include much thicker and more widely spaced fins, that reduce airflow resistance for natural convection cooling. It also features the Torx-based SecuFirm2+ mounting system and comes with Noctua's NT-H2 thermal compound. The cooler is backed by a 6-year warranty.

Noctua is also offering an optional NF-A12x25 LS-PWM 120 mm fan for the NH-P1, which is a low-speed, PWM-enabled version of the NF-A12x25 fan. The fan has a maximum noise of 12.1dBA and can be set for semi-fanless operation, shutting it down when it is not needed.

According to Noctua, both the NH-P1 and the optional NF-A12x25 LS-PWM 120 mm fan should be available as of today from Noctua's official Amazon stores, priced at USD/EUR 109.90 for the NH-P1 and USD/EUR 29.90 for NF-A12x25 LS-PWM 120 mm fan.

- Noctua NH-P1 Passive CPU Cooler - $109.90 at Amazon.com

- Noctua NF-A12x25 LS-PWM Ultra Quiet Silent Fan - $29.90 at Amazon.com