Olivier of FanlessTech notified us of a recent SilverStone passive CPU cooler. If you would prefer to jam your case with a giant piece of metal than hear a fan whine — you should read on. I must say, this gets me interested.

I hope this will continue to be a trend of not needing to trade-off between performance and silence.

It is becoming very difficult to find passive cooling systems for PC parts and it becomes even more difficult if you actually want a good PC when all is said and done. The latest cooler from SilverStone will support CPUs up to 95W which is well over what is required for even the higher-end 77W Ivy Bridge processors.

If only there would be options like this for a GTX 680 or similar GPU.

It is a shame that passive power supplies seem to have not crept too far past 500W and that GPU coolers have been getting substantially less and less passive over time. But I guess someone needs to break the ice and I am glad that you will at least have an option for passively cooling higher-end CPUs and maybe we will see that trickle into other high-end PC markets.

The SST-HE02 is expected to cost $70 and will be available late in Q3 of this year.