How do Shuttle silent barebones stay cool if fanless Intel motherboards don't?

[nLinked]

I found this fanless Shuttle barebone which keeps cool passively. It has an Intel Atom D2700 CPU. It's advertised as not needing fan cooling.

But then I found this Intel motherboard which has the same CPU and no fan on the board, but it's product manual says they expect airflow through the chassis. Screenshot of manual page here.

Shuttle doesn't say anything about worrying about airflow and it's the same CPU. Could I get away with not worrying about airflow if I went for the Intel motherboard in my own fanless case?

 

[dma0991]

The Shuttle case has perforations all over it, relying either on the idea that heat will rise and escape or natural draft in your room. My E35M1-M Pro with AMD E-350 has a much higher TDP(18W) and it is quite comfortable being passively cooled.

No guarantees that it will work with a case of your choice if you've chosen a case that isn't similar to Shuttle's.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Well, you can definitely forget overclocking.

http://us.shuttle.com/ModelComparison.aspx?CategoryCode=62

I used to have one of those with an Athlon 64x2. It ran like a tank for 6-7 years. Always ran hot but never crashed, worked flawlessly. Eventually it became obsolete (2GB RAM is not enough for anything these days). Longest working computer I've ever owned.

 

[piasabird]

Power supply may be moving enough hot air out. Sometimes they use heat pipes.