This combination was suggested by a moderator of Tom's hardware.

A little more expensive, but either a 3.2 GHz 6 core or a 3.0 GHz 8 core cpu.

https://silentpc.com/fanless-pcs/ryzen-fanless-pc

Argh, that's some $$ for a fanless case! Just buy a decent case with 2-3x silent Noctua or Fractal Design 14" fans. Even with the stock cooler a low-end Ryzen will be that quiet you hardly going to notice it.

If you want to buy a Ryzen system be sure not to get one of the early builds. They have this terrible bug where you get random segfaults or crashes when you utilize all/most of the cores. And don't be disappointed by the performance. You really should see them as 6 or 8 cores + hyperthreading, not as 12 or 16 core CPUs. This hyperthreading is a joke, if you really are going max out all logical cores.

But does it run Crysis MorphOS?

Well, the case bt itself is only $150, and they have a low cost case at $50 and an MATX case for $100.

And, yes, if you put an X5000 motherboard in it it could run MorphOS (and of course the board quoted in the package can run Crysis).

I just started researching this topic (passive cooling) because Andre mentioned it.

Frankly, with my hearing loss and tintinitus, background noise is usually not an issue for me.

And why a Ryzen system?

I wanted to ascertain how easy it would be.
With Ryzen processors available in 35, 45, and 65 wattage versions, no problem there.

And with passive cooling available for video cards right up to the RX 560 and HD6870, also doable.

Also, PSUs can be external or internal and still be fanless.

Finally, on core count, I always differentiate between that and core count and only mention core count here.

As in there are now 65 watt Ryzen cpus with a 6 and 8 core count (that is, a 12 or 16 thread count) the 2600 and 2700.

There is actually a 45 watt 2700 (2700e), but it's 200 KHz slower.

[ Edited by Jim 02.06.2018 - 13:33 ]

Hyperthreading mostly does not speed up a single Program.
But it speeds up Multitasking, if you are running several Programs.

Quote:

I doesn't speed up a single thread at all, so if the program is completely linear and isn't broken down into modules, neither helps.

But you can write a "program" that benefits from multiple threads if it can be broken down into separate processes and there are modules that can be run concurrently.

This idea, for me, dates back to the 6809 (from there to the 68K and now PPCs).

Also, code modularity just makes sense from the perspective of system resource use and it helps if you are implementing a virtual memory system.

At the extreme, loading and unloading these modules slows things down, but it also can help maximize the utility of your available memory.

You have to remember that until we had MMUs, we were limited to 64K on the 6809 (and in some ways still were after as that was the limit for direct cpu addressing).
For our 68K systems, generally 16MB (the 68020 system could address more, but at the time memory was expensive).

The current limit (a legacy issue) of 2GB seems almost expansive in comparison.

[ Edited by Jim 02.06.2018 - 14:53 ]