Heat is #1 enemy to fear. The fear of damaging integrated circuits in general. And of the microprocessors in particular. Increasing it too much can cause the stability and performance of a computer to plummet, but this is not the worst. The most serious thing is that an excessive temperature can trigger physicochemical processes capable of permanently damaging a microprocessor, That is the reason why we will talk about why some type of refrigeration is needed.
Fortunately, we have tools designed to prevent these unwanted effects from occurring. Fan cooling is the most widely used and usually gives very good results, but there are other options that users find it useful to know, such as, for example, steam chambers or liquid cooling systems.
Refrigeration: why it is so important
A part of the electrical energy that an integrated circuit requires to carry out its function is dissipated in the form of heat and must be evacuated to prevent its temperature from increasing excessively.
The power that a microprocessor dissipates in the form of heat depends on several factors, but the most relevant are the voltage it requires, the number of transistors it incorporates, the clock frequency at which it works and the integration technology that has been used in its manufacture.
It is easy to intuit that if it contains more transistors it will need more energy to work, and this increase in the electrical energy it receives will also cause an increase in the energy it dissipates in the form of heat. In addition, the increase in the clock frequency means that the microprocessor carries out more operations in the same time, so that the transistors will change state more frequently, consume more energy and dissipate more heat.
The first symptom of overheating often takes the form of computer freezes, unexpected reboots, and ultimately abnormal behavior of both the operating system and applications. And if the heating persists, the processor can be irretrievably damaged.
The liquid cooling solutions currently offered by the market are of two types: compact systems and advanced or customizable packages. The former take up less space inside the box, are cheaper and are also easier to install, but in return, their cooling efficiency is usually lower than that of more advanced solutions. The latter are more voluminous because they incorporate more elements, are more expensive and their installation is more laborious, but they can offer us a greater cooling capacity.
