Is air conditioning necessary for a desktop PC or Server if I live in a hot region?

Question

Is air conditioning necessary for a desktop PC or Server if I live in a region where summer temperature is 48 centigrade?

Answer 1

Definitely for a server you will need AC.

But if you have just one or two desktops in a room, I've found that they can handle it, although the hardware failure rates will be higher than normal.

I have done this with operator consoles at a factory I used to work at. And as long as it doesn't get above say, 50 degrees, and they are not in direct sunlight they will usually be ok.

Answer 2

I think your best answers will come from real measurements.
Look at Real Temp and HDDTune.
^{I assume you refer to Windows machines, else you will need the Unix sensor tools}

Once you figure out things are heating up beyond normal,
it is also possible to focus the cooling at your machines rather than the entire environment.
Look at this Kioskea article on Methods of cooling your pc.

Of course, if you have a lot of machines in the room, then it would make sense to cool the room (think of server rooms as against your work place with 2-3 machines in the room).

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Update on your comment.

• A cooler environment is usually more useful for overclocking devices (running them over specified frequencies). I do not expect your processor or your hard-disk performance to increase by factors similar to those of overclocking if you just keep your system cooler.
• Some processors have mechanisms to gracefully degrade performance if working temperatures get higher. By keeping the system cool, you may avoid reaching these thresholds and effectively get better performance from the system.

In short, I don't expect a great deal of performance increase by keeping your desktop cooler than say 30 C (I mean the temperature 2 inches above your processor, where the fan pulls in air towards it). But, I do expect potential performance and component life degradation if your system continues to run on higher temperatures.