Monochrome 2: SFF enthusiast unveils passively cooled AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395-powered small form-factor DIY PC
There is hardly any doubt that the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is one of the most talked about chips on the planet right now. Boasting a powerful Zen 5-based CPU with integrated graphics powerful enough to trade blows with mid-range discrete graphics, the highest-end Strix Halo chip from AMD, which we also praised in our review, promises shockingly good performance.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before a DIY expert with an appreciation for fanless tech arrived with a modded system. TheJiral, a member of the SFF community, seems to have done just that, utilizing the Framework Desktop's AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo"-powered motherboard. The resulting 7.5-liter passively cooled chassis sure does appear quite attractive to say the least, boasting a black-and-white color theme.
Cooling the AMD Strix Halo beast is obviously no small task, which is why the entire exterior of the case acts as a giant heat sink for the chip. TheJiral claims that the case, aptly named Monochrome 2, should be able to dissipate up to 150 watts, which should be sufficient to tame the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU running at 100 watts, since things got rather toasty at 120 watts and higher. The project started two months ago, and has finally been marked as complete by the creator. As such, the first benchmarks are here, and they sure do look promising:
- Geekbench 6.4 - Single-core: 3116. Multi-core: 20785.
- Cyberpunk 2077 Liberty (via Lutris) - 1440p Ultra, FSR off: 39 FPS, 32 FPS (avg, min)
- Unigine Heaven - 1440p: 118
Of course, TheJiral did attempt running the system at 120 and 140 watts, but decided to step back when temperatures reached 98.8 C upon 2 hours of stress testing. At 100 watts, the system performed according to their expectations, only heating up beyond 80 C when hit with CPU and GPU loads simultaneously. For an idea of the external case temperatures, refer to the image above.
Folks who want to try out the Strix Halo APU can opt for the actively cooled GMKTec EVO-X2, currently available for $1,999 on Amazon.
Source(s)
TheJiral via Smallformafactor.net, spotted by Tom's Hardware
