HardwareZone's 10th Anniversary Special
Evolution of System Cooling in 10 Years
Evolution of System Cooling in 10 Years
It's a well known rule that the faster a processor is, the hotter it tends to be when operating. Therefore it's really no surprise to find a whole slew of cooling products made to alleviate the problem. While this isn't really true for the newer processors, which tend to run much cooler, it was definitely a much needed requirement for overclockers working on the squeezing as much juice as they could from their chips.
These CPU coolers consisted mainly of a heatsink/fan combo, come in creative and thoughtful design and mainly relied on air cooling to keep the processor cool. More extreme solutions however, started to evolve as the clock speeds increased and overclockers went bonkers with their plans.
Water cooling started picking up in the last 10 years, and while it was mainly homemade setups made from scratch by hardcore folks, it's now pretty common to see water cooling kits for beginners and experts alike being made by various cooling vendors.
Phase change cooling also started making its rounds during the AMD Athlon years, but it was generally for those looking for even more extreme performance. Phase change cooling works on the same premise as your refrigerator, and were generally superior to water cooling techniques when set up right.
Of course, with the advent of 65nm and 45nm manufacturing techniques, chips now run much cooler compared to the older processors, and these days more often than not, it's the GPU that requires more drastic cooling measures, though this may vary depending on the situation.