Over the last few years the cooling scene has be quite interesting. At first you had all kinds of heatsink / fan combos and over time you started to see water cooling systems become easier and easier to adapt by the home user.

Anyone into over clocking or even just general computer use knows a cool machine is a happy machine. In fact the hotter the cpu gets the more likely the system is to become unstable. This is the reason most over clockers do not use the stock heatsink and fan that come with most boxed retail cpu’s. The over clocker types want the latest in air/water cooling and hence the market we have today.

Today we have all kinds of crazy heatsinks and water cooling systems. We even have cooling systems that can drop a cpu to -25 c if you got the $600 U.S for the unit. In the case of AIR cooling you normally have to put up with noisy fans. The reason the fans are noisy is for the most part do to their size and how much air they are trying to pass through. The smaller the fan diameter the higher the the RPM of the fan which equates to more noise.

So if your thinking that AIR is not for you then maybe you want to try water cooling? Well this to isn’t a bad idea and in terms of cooling its way better then any AIR cooling you will see. The problem with water is just that , water and electronics don’t mix. If you don’t do the install of the water cooling system properly and make sure there are no leaks you best be prepared to shell out some cash for some new system components. Although water cooling systems have gotten better in the last few years its still quite a hassle to get a water cooling system installed.

The only option left is the Vapochill option and thats where you can basicly hook a fridge compressor to your cpu and drop the temps down past -0 c. Vapochill units are 10 times more efficient then water and cost way more to buy. However if you did go this route you could do some serious over clocking do to the low temp of the cpu.

So is the Vapochill route the best one? That depends on your needs and if your over clocking or just want a quiet PC. Just recently i was reading a article of a company that has found a way to use a liquid metal to cool cpu’s down. The metal is circulated by magnets and thus there is no need for a noisy pump. You will still need a fan with this setup to cool the liquid going through the radiator but the fan wont have to work very hard at all and should be nearly silent. The metal used in this cooling solution is 65 times more efficient then water. The problem it seems they are having with this liquid metal cooling idea is making units cheap enough to be able to sell to the average computer user who wants very good cooling and essentially no noise.

I think this liquid metal cooling could be the future of cooling. It may not get your cpu down to -25 c but rest assured it will keep it way cooler then air or water will and do it with nearly no noise. I think the days of having a computer loaded with noisy fans may be numbered..

UPDATE:

I recently done a search on google for liquid metal cooling and come back with some interesting info. It seems that company i had read about who started this liquid metal cooling has given up on it and moved onto another type of cooling. It should be noted though that several other companies are still looking into the liquid metal cooling and hopefully one of them will develop a cheap solution that people can afford.

WolfManz611..