TEC (Peltier) cooling

[EMENCII]

Hi guys,

I've recently read about Peltier cooling, and seems a good way to cool a cpu. But the informations found were not much and not complete, so i've lot of doubts left.

The first is about condensation and insulation of the cold plate of the TEC module: can a fan keep the humidity away from condensin on the motherboard? How should i do anyway?

Another one is about the hot face of the TEC: Can the Swiftech H2O-320 (or 220) cool 400W of heat? And, seen this, how much powerful should i buy the TEC to cool down (for now) a 4770k oc'd? Can i use my psu to power that (Corsair RM850)?

For now i've seen this TEC module http://www.customthermoelectric.com/tecs/pdf/12711-6M31-26CW_spec_sht.pdf, that is the best from that site at 12v (18-20A) because can cool over 250W at that voltage.

I would use the TEC as everyday cooling, and i dont pay the bill for the electricity... So should i go with TEC or with only the Swiftech loop?

I have a NZXT Phantom 530, so i can mount 320+280 rad, shoud i buy another pump to add at the H2O the 280 rad?

[Vitalius]

Eh, it's a lot more trouble than it's worth honestly. 

Probably not. A fan isn't going to stop water from condensing on the plate. It will push water in a direction, but it will have to form first. You should coat the motherboard in Plasti-dip. That way, any condensation that forms won't be able to affect a thing, however this will impact your cooling ability somewhat. 

.... No. I would imagine it cannot cool 400w of heat. 400w is a lot. Most CPUs TDP is 125-200 maximum (and that's pushing it). Overclocking might add like 50w, but nothing near 400w. I seriously doubt it'd be able to keep up personally. 

If you wire it correctly, yes you can use your PSU to power the peltier cooler. The problem is that it will use as much energy as the CPU does to pump the heat away, so it isn't energy efficient at all.

You have to add both the inefficiency of the Peltier cooler and the TDP of the CPU together to find out how much cooling potential you need. Otherwise, you won't be doing much. 

I would only go with the Swiftech loop and forgo peltier cooling altogether. It's simply not worth it. 

Dual pumps are only necessary for redundancy. I'm pretty sure any decent pump like the H20 can keep a good flow going in that kind of loop. 

I come here saying all this because I asked a similar question and got a similar answer to what I've given here. It's possible, but certainly not worth it unless you just want to be that guy with that sub-ambient CPU temp (i.e. an enthusiast who doesn't care about practicality at all, which is fine. I'm that type of guy too, but I just don't like maximal effort for minimal reward type things, which is what I define peltier cooling as).

[T.Vengeance]

I don't see any advantages to peltier cooling tbh.

[Zeke]

Cooler Master have actually implemented TEC in one of their coolers, I think that was the V10 model.

[Solrix]

I have one of those Peltier coolers laying around. I might try and see how well it could cool my desktop. Its kicks out some cold air. It was like a 500$ unit they were throwing away. It was able to cool a small cardboard box About 1 ft by 6 inchs by 6inchs. Down to 60F

[CM Norumu]

Cooler Master have actually implemented TEC in one of their coolers, I think that was the V10 model.

That's the one. It performed well in terms of cooling, but overall, I think our TPC 812 was a better cooler using vapor chambers instead.

[d3sl91]

 

TEC Inside my brother's computer.

 

Essentially TEC's use a ton of wattage (I think this unit uses 100W or so) to get about the same performance of a high-end aircooler or 120/140mm Closed-Loop cooler. I still use it because it's a novelty item. 

[EMENCII]

Dear Vitalius, thanks for the answer,

but i said 400W referencing to the Peltier cell + cpu wattage, because i know that my cpu goes up to 100w or more and i have to add this to the 12v*20A=240W of the Peltier. So the hot face will have 340W to be thrown away.

Which loop (custom, not aio) would you advise me?

[EMENCII]

Eh, it's a lot more trouble than it's worth honestly. 

Probably not. A fan isn't going to stop water from condensing on the plate. It will push water in a direction, but it will have to form first. You should coat the motherboard in Plasti-dip. That way, any condensation that forms won't be able to affect a thing, however this will impact your cooling ability somewhat. 

.... No. I would imagine it cannot cool 400w of heat. 400w is a lot. Most CPUs TDP is 125-200 maximum (and that's pushing it). Overclocking might add like 50w, but nothing near 400w. I seriously doubt it'd be able to keep up personally. 

If you wire it correctly, yes you can use your PSU to power the peltier cooler. The problem is that it will use as much energy as the CPU does to pump the heat away, so it isn't energy efficient at all.

You have to add both the inefficiency of the Peltier cooler and the TDP of the CPU together to find out how much cooling potential you need. Otherwise, you won't be doing much. 

I would only go with the Swiftech loop and forgo peltier cooling altogether. It's simply not worth it. 

Dual pumps are only necessary for redundancy. I'm pretty sure any decent pump like the H20 can keep a good flow going in that kind of loop. 

I come here saying all this because I asked a similar question and got a similar answer to what I've given here. It's possible, but certainly not worth it unless you just want to be that guy with that sub-ambient CPU temp (i.e. an enthusiast who doesn't care about practicality at all, which is fine. I'm that type of guy too, but I just don't like maximal effort for minimal reward type things, which is what I define peltier cooling as).

 

Dear Vitalius, thanks for the answer and the link for your previous post,

but i said 400W referencing to the Peltier cell + cpu wattage, because i know that my cpu goes up to 100w or more and i have to add this to the 12v*20A=240W of the Peltier. So the hot face will have 340W to be thrown away. I think a 360mm rad should be able to cool 350W...

Which loop (custom, not aio and possibly without dual bay res, because i have a dvd writer and the upper one of my case would interfere with the 360 rad) would you advise me?

Thanks,

EMENCII

 

P.S. I've searched on Ekwb and xspc sites, and i've found some products (from xspc):

http://shop.xs-pc.com/xsp/XSPC-RayStorm-D5-Photon-RX240-V3-WaterCooling-Kit_45333.html

http://shop.xs-pc.com/xsp/XSPC-EX360-Slim-Line-Triple-Fan-Radiator_25385.html

This is an ex360 + rm240

 

http://shop.xs-pc.com/xsp/XSPC-RayStorm-D5-Photon-AX360-WaterCooling-Kit_43122.html

http://shop.xs-pc.com/xsp/XSPC-EX280-Slim-Line-Dual-Fan-Radiator_29027.html

This is ax360 + ex 240

Which is better?

[Zeke]

You can theoretically combine several TECs and get a huge delta-T, but it scales even worse than SLI.