Cooling is how a computer carries heat away from its chips, and thermals are the temperature limits that ultimately cap how hard those chips can run.1
Overview
Every switching transistor dissipates a little energy as heat, and a modern processor has billions of them. That heat is moved off the die by a heat sink (a finned metal block), often with a fan forcing air across it, or by liquid loops in high-end systems. A chip’s thermal design power (TDP) states how much heat the cooling must remove. When a part gets too hot, it throttles — lowering clock speed to cut heat and stay safe.
Where it fits
Cooling sets the ceiling on sustained performance: a CPU or GPU can boost briefly but must back off once heat accumulates. Most of the power a PSU delivers ends up as heat the cooling system has to shed. For an unattended GopherTrunk capture node baking in the sun by an antenna, passive heat sinks and good airflow keep a fanless Raspberry Pi from throttling mid-decode — thermals are a real-world constraint, not an afterthought.
Sources
-
Computer cooling — Wikipedia, on heat sinks, fans, liquid cooling, and thermal limits. ↩