We just stumble upon this post from Mike Chin, editor of Silentpcreview.com and it's saddening to see so much misunderstanding coming from a computer pro.
He's not alone, unfortunately. Some people just don't get it.
There's no such thing as an inaudible fan. And yes, passive cooling is the best option for (real) silent computing.
Is it always achievable? Of course not, gaming rigs and workstations do require active cooling. But with today's 35W CPUs there's actually NO reason not to go fanless for a HTPC, a Facebook/Youtube webstation or a family computer.
At the end of the day, it's not even about silence anyway. The lack of moving parts means less failures, reliability against shocks, and actually increases the motherboard's lifespan : fanless industrial PCs run more than 10 years without any maintenance!
Passive computing aficionados are not clueless dreamers and deserve if not respect, at least tolerance.
