New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- Gaming laptops are powerful machines, but with great performance comes great heat. As soon as you start running heavy games or graphic-intensive software, your laptop begins to warm up quickly. Too much heat can affect performance, cause throttling, or even damage components over time. To tackle this, many gamers rely on cooling accessories. Two of the most popular options are cooling pads and external fans. Both promise to keep temperatures under control, but they work differently. Let's break down how each one works and find out which is better suited to your gaming setup.

A cooling pad is like a mini stand for your laptop. It usually has one or more fans built into a flat surface that the laptop rests on. The fans...