Thermoelectric Cooling

[Solouko]

Has anyone else seen this?

it's an ordenary swiftech watercooling system that's been combined with a thermoelectric cooling system.

i was looking at watercooling solutions today and i came across it and i was reading up a little on the principal of how it all works

Thermoelectric cooling principal

when's OcUK going to get these badboys in!?!?

i mean it's useing an alectric current between dissymilar metlas to force heat conduction generating a watercooling soloution that's below ambiant air temp.

ok.. it's a bit pricy, but once you have the power supply i dont think there's any limit to how many thermoelectric sinks you can have, and they already have thermoelectric VGA coolers

 

[Jokester]

Problem is, for viable TEC cooling, the TEC itself generates a lot of heat (generally more than what you're actually cooling).

For example on my X1800XT, using a 172W TEC cooled it to about 20C load. Now load power is probably about 100W once you've bumped voltage/frequency so you're talking about 300W of heat.

For that sort of outlay you're far better going for a phase system on a CPU system, as TEC aren't anywhere as near as efficient as phase change.

You'll also likely need one PSU per TEC unless you oversize your PSU in the first place.

Jokester

 

[Zefan]

As Jokester says it's in-efficient and the unfortunate fact is that the only TEC's worth getting oftn cool BELOW the ambient temperature, therefore you get dreaded condensation (Which then involves splashing dielectric grease around).

If they could somehow drive the price down (The PSU's are the problem) then I might consider it, but tbh if I ever end up throwing grease everywhere it'll be with this baby --- OCZ Phase

 

[Solouko]

well the risk of condensation can be combatted by proper insulation, the same with removing an IHS as you expose parts of the processor that need to be sheilded from the conductive AS5 and i'm sure if you where serious enough to remove the IHS on your CPU you'd gladly go arround the edge of your GPU or your mobo with some unsulation gloop too...

and as for the heating effect.. as it says in that little info link i added in it's a fine balance between the cooling effect and the heating effect to keep the heating down you lower the operational current and increase the number of TE coolers ontop of one another

and swiftech have gone one step further and put a watercooling system ontop so the TE system only asists the watercooling making it more efficient. it's not as cheep a mod as removing an IHS to lower your temps but i think adding in a TE cooling system is just the next step once you've tried averything else.

 

[Clarkey]

TEC's are more trouble than they are worth, they have been around for donkeys yeears and nobody ever used them. The only serious next step from watercooling is phase change.

 

[Zefan]

conductive AS5

Unless you're VERY messy and/or extremely unlucky then you're highly unlikely to damage any components (Even a processor core as you state) by using AS5 un insulated... as stated by the manufacturer:-

Not Electrically Conductive:
Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

 

[VaderDSL]

At least it is a watercooled kit, and not aircooled like Thermaltake brought out lol.

But to re-iterate what everyone else has said, T.E.C's are very inefficient, they need serious cooling capabilities, due to you removing heat from the T.E.C as well as the CPU, you also need a dedicated PSU (bench PSU) to provide the amps iirc and again as said condensation is a risk and needing insulation, di-electric grease and the sort.

TBH you're better off just going for a custom watercooling setup imo or just jumping straight into phase change

 

[Solouko]

Unless you're VERY messy and/or extremely unlucky then you're highly unlikely to damage any components (Even a processor core as you state) by using AS5 un insulated... as stated by the manufacturer:-

Not Electrically Conductive:
Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

well i stand corrected but i didnt say that AS5 could damage the core, i said it could damage aprocessor with a removed IHS, ok, that statemet wasn't 100% correct, but if you read the sticky on IHS removal it clearly makes a point of insulating the circuitry surrounding the core, and i was under the impression that it was because AS5 was conductive.

 

[Martynt74]

If you want to go for it mate do it, tecs are fun and theres loads of people that do indeed use them. Head here for lots of pretty decent info.

I think the best logical way to do it is to use phase on the CPU and then a tec on the gpu having a seperate loop to cool it.

What size tec comes with that kit?