Majority of KitGuru readers now planning on liquid cooling

Back in 2009, when CeBIT was still a major show on the international calendar, we came across a small company called CoolIT – tucked into a corner at the back of a huge hall. While many of the larger stands were decorated in bright colours, with promo people handing out brochures, sweets and other assorted freebies – the CoolIT stand had a steady queue of technology journalists visiting from morning to night. The tech-know crowd was being drawn in by the idea of a compact, closed loop CPU cooler at an affordable price. Our latest pan-European survey shows just how drastically the world has changed over the past 8 years, with liquid cooling now more popular than ever. 

KitGuru is a founder member of the European Hardware Association. Over the course of April and May 2017, almost 15,000 people responded to our Technology Buying Trends Survey – which asked a broad range of questions about what you, the reader, wants to buy – now and in the future.

One of the most interesting results came from the question about ‘Which CPU cooling technology you are looking at for your next rig'.

A whopping 51% of you said that your next CPU will be liquid cooled in one way or another. That leaves 43% of you sticking with traditional air coolers, 5% who permanently prefer a portable PC solution and 1% left undecided at present.

It seems that the majority of technology enthusiasts now look at the challenges of putting liquid next to their most expensive components, balance that out with the challenge of fitting a huge air cooler, and decide that the smaller block wins.

The original CoolIT team that we met back in 2009 have all diversified slightly. Inventor Geoff Lyon is now focused on delivering advanced liquid cooling solutions to enterprise/data centre installations, while Barry (pictured, back in the day) now specialises in water purification for the Canadian masses. A different kind of liquid solution.

if you have any stories about the early days of self-contained liquid cooling – or you want to send us a shot of your current system – please let us know over on Facebook!

KitGuru says: There are a few genuine ‘Eureka!' moments in this industry. Seeing affordable, self-contained liquid coolers in Hanover was one of them. 

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