Did you know, though, that there are two ways of doing it?
They’re passive and active cooling.
Here’s how they differ and which one to choose.
Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
There’s alsoimmersion cooling, but that’s a bit extreme for most people.
Laptops, which add space and airflow constraints to the problem, also benefit from active cooling.
Whether inside the fans or around the cooling fluid tubes, there’s always room to place somestylistic lighting.
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Or, simply put, it’s when your unit has no fans or cooling liquid flowing through tubes.
Some more expensive models feature more complex parts, like graphene sheets andvapor chambers.
More recently, laptops (and mini PCs) have been using passive cooling, too.
Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
While few different computers with passive cooling are available yet, they are becoming more common and popular.
But there are other benefits and shortcomings to each solution.
Starting with the heat itself,computers that rely on passive coolingmay get considerably hot under intensive workloads.
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That’s because no air or fluid is flowing away with the warmth.
That also means they’re likely to suffer fromthermal throttlingin such scenarios.
The processor slows down to prevent overheating, which lends to a noticeable performance reduction.
Active cooling has its shortcomings as well.
Another is that, unlike fanless computers, they make noise.
Heavier workloads mean fans spin faster,getting louder as a consequence.
There’s the need for cleaning, too.
For laptops, the lower power consumption means fanless machines usually have better battery life.
The more powerful internals in computers with active cooling suck up the juice faster.
Active or Passive Cooling, Which Should I Choose?
The answer depends on your priorities.
If your requirement is higher performance above anything else, get one with active cooling.
