Peltiers?

[Psittac]

Are peltier coolers still a thing?

[Enderman]

Not really.

Too much power consumption, barely any improvement under load, high failure rate, expensive, difficult to set up.

Stick to liquid cooling or phase change.

[Windows7ge]

I built a mini-fridge and power it off of a peltier. The peltier was cheap and it only draws 58W from the wall. The mini fridge maintains a temperature around -1C to 1C depending on room temperature. As for cooling a processor. Not very effective. Wouldn't recommend. (I tried)

[TheGhzGuy]

10 minutes ago, Psittac said:

Are peltier coolers still a thing?

For cooling computer stuff? not really. For other weird projects? They are still availible.

[pwn_intended]

I have seen some cool peltier setups where the peltier unit cools a waterloop which in turn cools the CPU, instead of having it on the cpu itself. This is safer since your CPU isn't likely to get fried if it breaks.

Still, there are better ways of getting below ambient temperatures, and a lot less risky to your system.

[Mira Yurizaki]

The problem with a peltier cooler is you need a beefy cooling solution on the other side to keep the unit from burning up. If you're going to invest in a beefy cooling solution, you may as well tack it directly onto the processor.

 

Also going below ambient temperature creates a condensation hazard if it's directly attached to the CPU.

 

EDIT: Let's say a peltier unit can transfer 150W of thermal energy off the CPU. That means you need something that can dump 150W or higher away from the peltier unit to keep it from burning up.

 

You may as well attach the 150W cooler to the CPU itself.

[Jacek13]

It would be much better to use compressor (like in big fridges).