The choice between air and liquid cooling for your PC depends on what kind of performance you're after and the workloads and temperatures you expect to encounter. Liquid cooling systems are generally more expensive than air cooling but offer incredible temperature management capabilities. Air cooling is a more cost-efficient solution but offers less thermal performance.

Air cooling works by increasing air flow over computer components to help disperse heat. There are two basic types of air cooling: active and passive. Active systems use fans and a heat sink to pull heat away from the processor. Passive systems are simpler and only rely on a motherboard's built-in CPU fan to move the heat out of the case.

While all air cooling systems use the same physical principles, they differ in how they control airflow and how much power they consume. They can be categorized as room-, row- or rack-based. An air-based system may rely on a data center's existing computer room AC units to push chilled air throughout the equipment room, while a row- or rack-based air cooling system might use dedicated cooling fans and coils.

Water cooled systems have a more complicated cooling process but also offer better performance and higher efficiencies than air cooling. They require access to a water supply that can support the compressor's needs and be disposed of properly, whether it's an open or closed water cooling system. They can also be a good option when space is limited and it's not possible to duct the hot air that an air cooled unit collects to another area of the facility.

An open water cooling system can rely on an existing body of fresh water that meets the system's requirements or can run with a de-chlorination unit to provide clean water. Closed water cooled systems use a pump to circulate the coolant, which is often a nonconductive dielectric fluid. This type of cooling can be single or two-phase. A single-phase system uses a coolant that's continuously circulated and cooled to dissipate the heat, while a two-phase system allows the liquid to vaporize at high temps before condensing back into a coolant.

As technology continues to advance, the need for more advanced cooling systems increases. Immersion cooling is a newer technology that submerges servers in a nonconductive dielectric fluid. This approach can help reduce power consumption but requires servers to be lifted out of the fluid for maintenance, which is a challenging task. Additionally, this process creates a lot of waste and can pose safety and environmental concerns. For these reasons, many organizations choose to go with an air-based cooling system instead of this newer technology.