“Processors have made some huge leaps in the last year. Way back in the 66MHz days chips barely spit out 15W of power. Today you find P4 pushing over 100W. If you can’t picture the amount of heat generated by such a tiny object, put your face near your desk lamp and that should give you a nice idea. While very rarely do systems shutdown because of heat issues, most of these issues being bad heatsink installations, it is always important that you have a solid heat sink/fan unit on your chip at all times.”
Head over to 3D Accelerated.