CoolIT Systems Peltier/Liquid Cooling... Extreme Tech review

John Reid · Post by **John Reid** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:58 pm

Extreme Tech looked at a Peltier cooler... interesting...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 683,00.asp

What do you tweakers think?

Buddabing · Post by **Buddabing** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:18 pm

John Reid wrote:Extreme Tech looked at a Peltier cooler... interesting...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 683,00.asp

What do you tweakers think?

I like the closed system, but it's really noisy:

"The Freezone's fan/pump combo emits a constant low hum we found very tolerable. Unlike some air coolers that get louder as fan RPMs increase, operation is quiet both at idle and under load. In 37.5dB ambient conditions, we measured idle noise output at 44.1dB. Under load with the potentiometer turned all the way up, noise output increased slightly to 44.5dB. "

It's also expensive: $400

Now if they could make it run with a liquid metal in the cooling loop and one of those silent magnetic pump thingies, and have cooling loops for the video card and northbridge.........

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:38 pm

I very much doubt that Extremetech's dBA numbers are comparable to ours. Different measurement methodologies lead to different results. I'd pay closer attention to their subjective account.

quizzicus · Post by **quizzicus** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:59 pm

The first thing I notice is that the reviewer is woefully misinformed about how refrigeration works. There are actually refrigeration-driven CPU coolers out there (like vapochill), but I hear they're noisy as hell. Nice misleading chart on page 3...

It's an interesting idea to move the peltiers off of the chip, but I wonder how much heat those peltiers are responsible for themselves, from both waste heat and power demands.

Heh. Liquid metal. That'd bring the cost down.

Mr Evil · Post by **Mr Evil** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:29 am

quizzicus wrote:...I wonder how much heat those peltiers are responsible for themselves, from both waste heat and power demands...

They are very inefficient devices and will contribute at least as much heat of their own as the CPU itself. Since they produce only heat as output, that is also how much electrical power they need.

John Reid · Post by **John Reid** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:20 am

See? This is why I like this forum... people with experience giving opinoins. Maybe they should make chips that run at lower temps in the first place...

zds · Post by **zds** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:37 am

Mr Evil wrote:They are very inefficient devices and will contribute at least as much heat of their own as the CPU itself. Since they produce only heat as output, that is also how much electrical power they need.

It depends on how you use them. See my analysis in this thread.

zds · Post by **zds** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:49 am

To be a bit more verbose: Heatpumps with high CoP (coefficient of performance) can be really useful for silencing people, if used properly.

What this means in practice is that if you are going to employ TECs, you should carefully engineer you configuration beforehand to ensure that the system really has high CoP. And usually getting higher CoP means you need several TECs in parallel, which costs you more money up-front. It also pretty much counts out systems where TEC is sitting right on the top of the CPU, as it comes soon awkward to place 4 to 6 50x50mm pieces _parallel_ on top of the CPU

.

But used between heatsink/radiator and water loop they might really give you some silence advantage: If you can raise the temperature gradient between heatsink surface and air to double, it means you can dissipate twice the heat with same airflow. And more heat dissipated with same airflow equals to less noise per same system wattage.

TECs are a bit tricky as many of their electrical and thermal properties are non-intuitive and non-linear, but they are small and contain no moving parts and can work wonders if utilized properly and you are ready to pay almost the compressor-based price up-front.

jamesavery22 · Post by **jamesavery22** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:53 pm

Some added info for anyone thats curious about TECs.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/for ... y.php?f=94

Recommend the 1st and 3rd sticky. Have been told they aren't 100% accurate but its good content for someone who knows nothing about TECs.

Butcher · Post by **Butcher** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:59 pm

In most cases TEC systems are going to be hot and noisy. If you're careful they're hot and quiet. But TECs dump a lot of heat into the loop regardless of how you use them, and cost a lot of run (think roughly tripling your comp running costs and you're in the right ballpark).

jmke · Post by **jmke** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:52 am

7dBA over ambient will certainly be noticeable , but did they fail to mention at what distance they measured?

CoolIT Systems Peltier/Liquid Cooling... Extreme Tech review

CoolIT Systems Peltier/Liquid Cooling... Extreme Tech review

Re: CoolIT Systems Peltier/Liquid Cooling... Extreme Tech re