Will dusting out my computer increase performance in games?

I got my rig in September last year, and haven't cleaned it out since. However, today I went in to it and shot some air around, marvelling at the massive clumps of dust that flew out of my CPU and GPU fans (along with every case fan in my computer). The amount of dust in there was almost unbelievable, i was practically choking on it the whole time.

my question is: will this noticeably affect performance in games? I thought my rig wasn't running as well as possible for having 4gb of ram, a 640MB 8800GTS, and a 2.4GHz quad core processor, but I haven't had the chance to try out a couple graphics-intensive games since blowing it out. I still have visions of that 2-inch in diameter clump of dust flying out of my GPU fan, and something tells me it might run a little better after that.

im sorry, but im not buying that article, maybe from a reputable review site, but i have dusted my system and left it, all system performance did not change.

folding times stayed the same, game framerates the same, system ran cooler.

im sorry, but im not buying that article, maybe from a reputable review site, but i have dusted my system and left it, all system performance did not change.

folding times stayed the same, game framerates the same, system ran cooler.

PWN-Schubie

Yes exactly, getting rid of dust helps with heat dissipation, it dosnt increase system performance

Your comp will run cooler, i keep my pc clean

I beg to differ on this one guys. Read this for more info: http://www.askapadwe.com/123/how-can-i-speed-up-my-wow-performance/JokerCCXXII

The only reason i can think of for increased performance when dusting your PC is that your PC runs better when its cool, i cant think of anything else that dusting has an effect on..

not unless its overheatingimprezawrx500

WRONG

Significant dust buildup on PCB's can actually cause shorts (not like the pair I am wearing) which can cause erratic PC behaviour and ultimately hardware failure.

Plain correct answer: No.

In a way however, keeping your PC clean of dust doesn't improve performance BUT keeps your performance at where your PC is supposed to be. Too much dust will cause heat build up, in which case your CPU may throttle down its performance resulting in a general lack of performance. If you have anything OCed, againg too much dust will have these components being too hot causing you to back down on your OC settings. Lost of performance there.

This is generally nit-picking though, but anyone who OC their PC should know more than well enough to clean your PC every once a month or so.

dusting will make things better, but only on the heat side, i dusted my pc and my temps went down almost 30C