Overclocking? That's all you can say? (Score 1)

OK, I AM an electronics engineer, which I guess is the reason I'm bugged by the "overclock" comment, even though I know it's mostly a joke.

The reason people want to cool computer hardware that is "overclocked" is because of a basic, heretofore unavoidable fact of nature: Joule's Law. Stated simply, Joule's Law says that electrical power dissipated as heat is proportional to the resistance that the current is passing through. In a computer, signals turn on and off (that's the "clock" part), so the heat is proportional to the frequency, too. (It's also proportional to the square of the voltage, all other factors being equal, which explains the push to lower voltages.) So, crank the clock frequency, the voltage, and given some resistance, and yeah, you better be ready to remove heat from the device.

BUT THIS IS A SUPERCONDUCTOR.

Superconductors don't have any electrical resistance; that's the whole point of superconductors. Therefore, given the right conditions (magnetic fields not spoiling your superconduction, etc.), you can run a superconducting computer with a clock frequency WAY faster than you could ever run anything made of normal silicon field-effect transistors (FETs). Even when they are fully on, FETs have a resistance of some hundredths of an ohm, up to tens of ohms. Superconducting FETs (if they work the way I think they're working, but I didn't RTFA) don't have ANY resistance. Zip. Zero. Nada.

So, no need to lower the temperature any more, and you just "clock", not "overclock". Sorry, modders :-(