Fanless Ryzen 9 9950X seemingly outperforms the same liquid-cooled chip in Cinebench R23 — flagship Zen 5 CPU hit 95ºC at full load

Tony Yu (from Vasilin), general manager of ASUS China, pioneered the “fanless” Ryzen 9 9950X PCs with Asus components seem to perform better than the same chips running on liquid coolers. Yu benchmarked the system in Cinebench R23. The temperature is also controlled and can reach a maximum of 95 degrees Celsius.

Yu achieved a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,451 points at a maximum operating temperature of 95 degrees Celsius. For context, we tested the Ryzen 9 9950X with the Corsair H150i RGB 360mm AIO liquid cooler at launch and saw a multi-threaded score of 41,929 points in the same benchmark. However, the two test systems do not share exact specifications or test environments, and it is unclear whether Yu used performance-boosting settings such as PBO or modified curves, so there must be performance differences. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how well the Ryzen 9 9950X performs. After all, I used it nightof NH-P1 Passive CPU cooler, so we didn’t expect the die to overheat.

The build is installed inside an Asus PA401 mid-tower ATX case, one of two cases that has been unboxed. The other one is the ASUS PA602 case. Both cases feature ASUS ProArt nomenclature, a sub-brand aimed at content creators and professionals rather than gamers.

Yu used Noctua’s NH-P1 passive air cooler, a large aluminum cooler that doesn’t require an active cooling fan. Despite being a “fanless” PC, the PA602 case’s three internal case fans remain internal. This inevitably gives the air cooler a greater cooling capacity than operating in a completely passive environment.