Laptop cooling pads have been a subject of debate, many laptop gamers believe that having a laptop cooling pad will lower down the temperatures of your laptop, and the statement is true, but are laptop cooling pads actually worth it? are they worth the money?
Granted that a cheap laptop cooling pad hardly costs $20, but does it really give the performance? is it worth investing the $20 in?
To know that we have to know how effective they are first in cooling.
Here Are The Stats
According to a study done by laptopmag, cooling pads do work, and they work quite well in some circumstances. On average, a good laptop cooling pad will lower down the temperature of your laptop by 13 degrees.
So let’s see what you get for $20.
- You keep your laptops temperatures under control
- A cooling pad prevents your laptop from overheating
- A cooling pad helps you elevate your laptop, keeping it cool
- While gaming, a cooling pad adjusts performance of fans to match your laptops needs
- A Cooling pad comes with additional USB ports
- Some cooling pads come with speakers
- A laptop cooling pad will prolong your gaming laptops life
- A laptop cooling pad will increase airflow to the laptop
- A laptop cooling pad will give you comfort if you’re using your laptop on a bed
- A cooling pad will Keep your old laptop from thermal throttling
After taking a look at this huge list, laptop cooling pads are definitely worth it, for only $20, you’re basically protecting your laptop from 90% of the problems.
And protecting your laptop from 90% of problems means that you’re basically prolonging it’s life, you can expect your laptop to last upto 2 more years after using a cooling pad.
How External Factors Affect The Worthiness Of Your Laptop Cooling Pad
While cooling pads are effective in most cases, sometimes, they’re even bad! let me explain.
A 13 degrees average is a number which is derived from Ideal circumstances, although the study done by laptopmag is very authoritative, it just isn’t much practical, because there wasn’t a control group. And different laptops resulted in different temperature drops.
Because all laptops have different type of internal fans and how they work, so sucking air from the bottom isn’t the only effective way to cool down your laptop.
External Things such as ambient room temperature, weather of your city, room ventilation, placement of cooling pad, and maintenance are all things that drastically impact how your cooling pad performs.
For example, if you’re using your laptop cooling pad in a hot room then expect it to throw hot air inside your laptop, in this case, instead of cooling down your laptop, it’ll be the exact opposite!
But laptopmag took out the average, so we can safely say that on average, you can expect your temperatures to go down, but don’t expect too much! because if you’re expecting your laptop temperature to drop 13 degrees, remember that the study done by laptopmag was done in an ideal situation.
A Simple Test To See If Your Cooling Pad Is Doing It’s Job Right
To truly see if your laptop cooling pad is working the way it should, all you have to do is download and install Coretemp and GPUTemp, these applications will let you monitor the CPU and graphics card temperatures.
- First download and install these applications, open coretemp, run a game on it or use a benchmarking tool such as geekbench, and monitor the temperature, then note it down in a notepad file.
- Then run GPUTemp, run furmark GPU benchmarking software, then note down the average temperature without the cooling pad.
- After benchmarking and noting down the numbers without a cooling pad, use a cooling pad and do the same thing, if the temperatures drop by 5 degrees, then your laptop cooling pad is definitely worth it!
Most laptop cooling pads are worth the money because even if they drop temperatures by 5 degrees, they’re still making your laptop better than it was before and protecting it from major harm.
According to research, the ROI is more than 100%, why? let’s suppose your laptop costs $1000, you then proceed to buy a cheap laptop cooling pad worth $20, then you use that laptop cooling pad or 5 or 6 years, without of course damaging it, so not only does it cool down your laptop but it also prolongs it’s lifespan!
Should You Buy A Cooling Pad?
You should definitely invest in a laptop cooling pad, because a cooling pad doesn’t just cool down your laptop, it extends the functionality of your laptop by giving you more USB ports, speakers, elevating your laptop, giving you more comfort and so much more.
Even if you don’t need a laptop cooling pad , you should still buy one, just be careful not to buy a too expensive one because the cooling performance is almost similar to a cheaper one.