CPU Temperatures and Cooling

The cooling of the CPU is one of the most important things you have to do. Choosing the right cooling method for the CPU you have could be essential. The CPU itself will have an ideal working temperature. You may or may not be surprised to know that the warmer a CPU becomes the slower it actually performs until it stops altogether. Also bad cooling could lead to permanent damage to your CPU and Motherboard. So what are the ways of cooling your CPU and other components. Well we have the two easiest methods to start with, which are the most popular. These are the heatsink and standard fan.

The Heatsink

The Heatsink is a simple piece of either copper or Aluminium which sits onto of the Processor chip. The idea is that the heat sink transfers the heat from the CPU or GPU or even chipset and and disperse it into the air. Heatsinks are normally coupled with a fan to aid in removing the excess heat.

When using a heatsink always use a thermal paste (sometimes called goop). This thermal paste fills the small holes which appear in all solid materials. In this case the imperfections in the heatsink and the CPU are filled with the paste and this greatly improves the heat transfer. If you find that your Heatsink actually gets hotter when you use thermal paste, you are correct. The paste has increased the heat transfer and so the heat is now in the heatsink and not the CPU. This is much better for the Performance of the System as a whole.

CPU and Case Fans

CPU, GPU and chipset fans are almost always attached to heatsinks. The idea is the heatsink removes the heat from the CPU and the fan blasts the heatsink with the surrounding air cooling it down. The reason that you don't want to have the fan blowing air from the heatsink as you may expect is that the hot air would simply be blasted into the case heating up the other components. If you wish to have a set up where the air is removed from the heatsink you will want a duct attached to the fan which runs to the outside of the case, this is a very effective way of removing the hot air away from the case altogether. Case fans provide this function as well. The idea of the case fan (sometimes called exhaust fans) is to remove the warm air in the case which is generated by all components. Once the hot air has been expelled from the case, cooler air is drawn in. Again this is healthier for the system overall.

Find the best fans and other cooling equipment

Water Cooling

When we are talking of advanced cooling we are talking of water cooling. Now those of you that are into overclocking and high system performance may have already heard of water cooling. Those of you however that haven't may well be thinking what a bad idea it is to have water running round an electrical system. I am not going to say that water in your system is not dangerous because it obviously is. However when you using water cooling you should use de-ionized water. De-ionized water is a very bad conductor of electricity and so should give your system a chance of survival should a bit leak onto the circuitry.

Water is far better at absorbing heat than air. For this reason passing water over the heatsink will mean that the water will pick up a lot of the excess heat, a lot more than air being blasted onto it would. The water is then taken away from the system to cool and pumped back again to the CPU. This method of cooling is very efficient. If you are thinking of using a Peltier cooler (see below) then I would definitely recommend setting up a water cooling system.

Expense does play a part in water cooling. the parts are still quite expensive, although they are not as bad as they once were. If you are serious about having a performance system or are into overclocking your components then this is the way to go.

Peltier Cooling

Peltier cooling is definitely the odd one of the bunch. The Peltier cooling system actually creates heat. Slightly odd you may rightly presume. But the reason for this is that the Peltier cooler uses electricity. It looks like a standard heatsink, however there are two sides to the plate. Heat is electronically "pumped" from one side of the plate to the other away from the CPU. The hot side of the plate can get very hot indeed, a great deal hotter than a standard heatsink. This is why we suggest water cooling with a Peltier system. The upside of all this heat is the part you actually want to cool, the CPU, remains very cold. I think efficient is the wrong word for the Peltier system. It takes power and creates heat so its not really efficient. However it is excellent at the job its supposed to do, which is keep the CPU cool.

Time for the disclaimer and nasty information. As you are aware as with all computer modding and overclocking, things can go wrong if you are not careful. I cannot be held responsible for actions you may take when using these cooling systems. Please be aware that especially with Peltier systems, to have hardware monitoring available. Any component breakdown could fry your whole system.  When done properly these systems can greatly increase performance. Always follow standard safety procedures.

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