Noctua confirms that its Passive CPU Cooler is "Coming Very Soon" | OC3D News (overclock3d.net)
 
Need to keep your system as quiet as possible? Want to replace your fans, pumps and other cooling devices with something a little quieter? Don't worry, because Noctua is working on a passive/fanless heatsink. Noctua's planned "Passive CPU Cooler" is due to launch this quarter, with Noctua confirming on Twitter to @FanlessTech that the heatsink is "Coming Very Soon". The beauty of passive CPU cooler designs is they have no points of failure. If installed correctly, there are no parts to fail. A fanless heatsink cannot have its fans stop working, and neither can a passive heatsink produce additional noise as fan rotors wear out or get compromised by dust. Simply put, it just works. 

Noctua's Passive heatsink will be an all-new design from the company, and it will be released into an unproven market. This heatsink requires different design considerations than forced-air/fan-driven heatsinks, new manufacturing techniques, and a lot of R&D effort. Noctua needs to make this heatsink cost-effective and thermally efficient, neither of which is an easy task. Noctua will likely showcase their latest heatsinks around Computex 2021, possibly as part of a digital event. This timeframe satisfies the company's "coming very soon" statement and sits in line with Noctua's typical product reveal schedule.

At this time, it is unknown how effective Noctua's Passive CPU heatsink will be, as high-end processors have only gotten larger and more power-hungry since Noctua first showcased this cooler. Could this heatsink be enough to cool a high-end Rocket Lake or Zen 3 CPU?
 
It will be interesting to see if this passive cooler can really cool down a top of the line CPU. 
 

Gonna be interesting to see how well it works.

Wonder what the max TDP for processor this would support. 

I love Noctua stuff.. can't wait to see this

I have only heard of passive cooling in terms of jokes. I'm surprised this exists at all.
Still, to have air flow in the case, you'll need fans anyway...
 
Or could one in principle make a heat sink so large, that it would work as a computer case, installing all of the components inside of it...?

I would definitely use this in a media pc, would be worried about size but just that it is truly silent. this with an apu and a ssd would make a nice addition to my living room. Now I have to plan a new silent build.

i wonder how this perform on my 9900k

So I've seen a lot of passive coolers over the years, but realistically speaking how good are they performance wise?
The higher end coolers are already almost dead silent, so why do people purchase them in reality? I guess for apu systems they could work, but if you purchase an APU and try to use it for games, they can get pretty damn hot and I don't know if a passive cooler would be enough.
Then comes size. Most passive coolers are pretty small, but the noctua one looks pretty big in comparison. If any of you have had experience with passive coolers, please share your knowledge as to why and how they are used.

Noctua does have some good products. would be nice to get info eventually about how / why they engineered it the the way they did and some actual thermal testing.

They been confirming this for 1-2 years now lol. Maybe longer. I prefer quiet, active cooling that is constant. I'd rather fans always running at low RPM's than ramping up and down, or no fans. Passive are great when you need absolute silence (useless in most homes/apartments due to ambient noise), or are in an environment where dust etc will bring fans down. This with a passive PSU, and maybe a very quiet exhaust fans could be interesting for HTPC's or people who crunch data at night with their room pc's.

I've seen this thing everywhere... curious to see what Linus thinks.

How big of a noise difference is this really going to make? I already can't hear my the fan on my Noctua heatsink at all.