Modder straps a 2.5kg heatsink to an RTX 4060 for completely fanless cooling

Someone on Bilibili decided their RTX 4060 needed a cooling solution roughly the size of a small radiator, and the result is somehow both ridiculous and kind of beautiful. The build straps a gigantic 2.5kg block of finned aluminum directly onto the card, ditching the stock fans entirely in favor of pure passive cooling.

For scale, that heatsink weighs more than twice as much as the graphics card itself, and it towers over the tiny mini-ITX motherboard the RTX 4060 is socketed into. The fins are spaced wide apart on purpose, giving hot air room to rise and escape without any help from a fan. Even the CPU sitting next to it got the passive treatment, so the whole rig runs in total silence.

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The project first surfaced on Chinese platform Bilibili before FanlessTech picked it up, and it made the rounds online. Nobody outside the build seems to have shared official load temps, so treat this one as a proof of concept and a crazy one-off, rather than something to copy this weekend.

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While at first glance the build may seem quite obtuse, the RTX 4060 is actually a smart pick for a stunt like this. It runs at a 115W TDP, which is low by modern GPU standards. Compare that to the RTX 5060's 145W or the RTX 5090's 575W, and it's clear why nobody is strapping a heatsink onto a flagship card and calling it a day.

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Going fanless does come with tradeoffs. TweakTown has covered plenty of passive builds before, including one where a Redditor dropped an RTX 4060's power target to 90W just to keep it stable without a fan, still landing around 80C to 85C under load. Passive cooling is quieter, sure, but it rarely matches active cooling for keeping temperatures down, and it barely saves any power since GPU fans only draw a handful of watts anyway.

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That hasn't stopped the DIY crowd from going bigger. One Redditor previously built a passive RTX 3080 setup using ten stacked tower heatsinks, and fanless small form factor builds around AMD's Strix Halo APU have become their own little niche. Even case makers have joined in, with Streacom's SG10 chassis designed to dissipate up to 600W without a single fan spinning.

Frequently Asked Questions

TweakBot answers common questions about this news using TweakTown's own coverage from this page and related content from our archive. Tap a question to reveal the answer, or type your own below.

Question #1

How much does the 2.5kg heatsink used on the RTX 4060 weigh compared to the card itself?

The heatsink is a 2.5kg block of aluminum and it weighs more than twice as much as the graphics card itself.

Answered

Question #2

What specific design feature of the heatsink fins helps the build work without a fan?

The heatsink's fins are spaced wide apart on purpose, giving hot air room to rise and escape without any help from a fan. This wide fin spacing enables natural convection to move heat away from the card passively.

Answered

Question #3

What tradeoffs does the article highlight for going fully passive on a GPU?

The article says going fully passive usually means higher operating temperatures and reduced cooling performance compared with active cooling, sometimes requiring lowering the GPU power target to keep it stable (one example dropped a 4060 to 90W and still saw about 80C to 85C under load). It also notes passive cooling saves little power since GPU fans only draw a handful of watts, can be impractical and bulky (the heatsink weighed 2.5 kg and dwarfed the card), and that public load temperatures for this specific build were not shared so it should be treated as a proof of concept.

Answered

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Obviously, this is not practical for most people, and that's kind of the point. Builds like this exist because someone wanted to see if it could be done, not because it needed to be. Given how much aluminum went into keeping one RTX 4060 quiet, it's safe to say the answer was yes.