Why bother cooling a desktop computer at all? Isn’t it unnecessary when the supplied fans are usually enough? It’s not, and there are three reasons – cooling can increase performance, help your computer’s components last longer, and make it less noisy. In today’s article, we will look at the overall concept.
Overheating of components is typically the first reason why a user becomes interested in cooling their computer. High temperatures above 90 °C seem threatening and are not ideal for a computer, although with modern assemblies they do not pose a risk of spontaneous computer shutdown or even component destruction. At high temperatures, the graphics card or processor simply sets lower clocks, thereby reducing the heat output and ensuring that a safe temperature is maintained.
This brings us to the second reason cooling is addressed, which is power loss. If the component reaches a critical temperature, it reduces performance and so-called throttling occurs. However, when you see the word throttling lit up in a diagnostic program, it is not necessarily the temperature (thermal) one. The limit may also be the maximum current or voltage (or the overall maximum input of the component), so check the specific values carefully.
One of the latest trends is cabinets with bottom-up airflow. Among other things, it ensures a good supply of cold air to the graphics card, which usually heats up the most in a gaming setup.
Without diagnostic tools, you can recognize thermal throttling by the computer slowing down during prolonged use. For example, when playing, you start to experience drops in frame rates after a few minutes or tens of minutes, or a decrease in average frames per second. Another indicator can be increased noise, the fans (unless manually set differently) will run at the set maximum.
The solution to such problems can easily be the purchase of one additional fan for the cabinet. We will discuss details and other connections in the following chapters. We will advise you on how to buy additional fans, why it might be a better idea to replace the entire case, or how to think when designing cooling for a new gaming machine.
