Peltier Devices

[JPH1121]

I've been thinking of putting a peltier on my CPU and GPU and was wondering how much of a benefit it would net. I currently have high end air cooling on them and would continue to use them in addition to the peltiers.

I figure that the combination of my CNPS 9500 cpu cooler with a peltier should give me some nice temps. Same scenario with the VF900-Cu

Opinions, suggestions, and other input welcome!

Thanks

 

[aigomorla]

your kidding right? No offense but the hotside of a TEC system was not designed to be cooled by air. Not to mention, u would probably need a LOW watt TEC system for air cooling to be efficient, that would just be a waste of time and resources.

When people use TEC system, these are concidered as EXTREME cooling systems for computers. The hot side is usually cooled by a watercooling block while the cold side will usually maintain a temperature near 0C or in negitive.

Do some more reading on TEC systems before you even decide to use them, and a better choice then a TEC system at your standpoint will be water. Once u mastered water, then you should even concider TEC systems.

BTW welcome to the forums. :]

 

[Kakumba]

as has been said, dont bother using air on a TEC. water is the only way to cool a TEC well. there is heaps of info on TEC cooling on the Xtremesystems forum.

The more I read about TEC cooling, the less I think I can be bothered getting into it for the rest of this year. its a LOT of effort for not huge benefits. you would be better off jsut getting watercooling, or going phase cange (warning: phase change is crazy. do this when you have too much money and HEAPS of time to waste, not to mention you dont care too much about safety. its not that its unsafe, its just unsafe if you dont do it right.)

 

[TrevorRC]

Originally posted by: Kakumba
as has been said, dont bother using air on a TEC. water is the only way to cool a TEC well. there is heaps of info on TEC cooling on the Xtremesystems forum.

The more I read about TEC cooling, the less I think I can be bothered getting into it for the rest of this year. its a LOT of effort for not huge benefits. you would be better off jsut getting watercooling, or going phase cange (warning: phase change is crazy. do this when you have too much money and HEAPS of time to waste, not to mention you dont care too much about safety. its not that its unsafe, its just unsafe if you dont do it right.)

I've been looking into TECs lately, too.

First and foremost, it is borderline insane to cool a TEC without water.

Second, you usually need a dedicated PSU for TECs. Add ~100ish to the cost of the peltiers and everything else.

Kakumba, a couple things I'd like to correct you on--
1) You are not better off going to phase. Some people like their computers to be relatively portable--with a TEC, this is possible [just the weight of an extra PSU]. With phase change, not a chance in hell. Some would say that the water from a watercooling system offsets this, but I personally believe that TECs are a nice compromise between the weight and power of phase and the relatively (when compared to phase) low weight and cooling capabilities.
2) Pre-assembled phase systems are pretty hard to mess up unless they aren't properly insulated.


I have a watercooled computer, but I'm looking into peltiers to get me into the sub-zero range.
It's a nice bridge between the two.

--Trevor

 

[JPH1121]

Actually, for the power situation, that's totally covered...I have a 350 watt PSU sitting idly in a computer that I stripped a while back that isn't 100% unused and am about to replace the same 350 watt PSU with a 550 that I bought yesterday off newegg (waiting for shipping)

Was also considering watercooling my compy but waiting to see what happens with some other RL stuff before I invest another dime into my computer! My recent expenditures on it is kinda making me cry lol. 7900gt, upgraded PSU, doubling my RAM, upgraded coolers all around :/

I know that peltier's typically use watercooling but all the reviews I could find of them used old heatsinks that were good at the time, but fall technologically way behind now-a-days. My hexaheatpipe cooler I thought might have the cooling capacity as the air-coolers effeciency should RISE with higher temps.

Just doing some investigating atm...your input is still appreciated as I keep thinking about it.

 

[TrevorRC]

Originally posted by: JPH1121
Actually, for the power situation, that's totally covered...I have a 350 watt PSU sitting idly in a computer that I stripped a while back that isn't 100% unused and am about to replace the same 350 watt PSU with a 550 that I bought yesterday off newegg (waiting for shipping)

Was also considering watercooling my compy but waiting to see what happens with some other RL stuff before I invest another dime into my computer! My recent expenditures on it is kinda making me cry lol. 7900gt, upgraded PSU, doubling my RAM, upgraded coolers all around :/

I know that peltier's typically use watercooling but all the reviews I could find of them used old heatsinks that were good at the time, but fall technologically way behind now-a-days. My hexaheatpipe cooler I thought might have the cooling capacity as the air-coolers effeciency should RISE with higher temps.

Just doing some investigating atm...your input is still appreciated as I keep thinking about it.

Check how many amps are on the 12V rail. Who makes the PSU, as well?
Typically, you'll want a good 20-30A on the 12V rail if ONLY using it for the CPU. Check out XSs Peltier undervolting charts. TEC Section of XS.

Big problem with air coolers... they can't remove the heat fast enough.

As the hot side gets hotter, the cold side gets hotter too... the difference between the two drops, the efficiency drops, and you end up cooking your chip.

That's why air coolers usually aren't used
--Trevor

 

[JPH1121]

What I'm implying though is that I can hook up the extra PSUs just to power the peltier(s)

So, the conclusion is, I shouldn't try a TEC until I get watercooling

 

[Kakumba]

a 350W PSU wont cut it. a 226 W TEC can pull up to 350 electrical watts. not for long, but it could.

TrevorRC, I can see what you mean. I guess you could have a TEC cooled compy that is portable, but when I go for that kind of cooling, it will be in a full tower with a lot of gear in it, so its probably not going to be portable whether I use air or phase....

anyways, I think OP has got the point...

 

[TrevorRC]

Originally posted by: JPH1121
What I'm implying though is that I can hook up the extra PSUs just to power the peltier(s)

Yes, I understand that

I'd still tell you that unless it has over 20A on the 12V rail, it isn't safe.

Originally posted by: JPH1121
So, the conclusion is, I shouldn't try a TEC until I get watercooling

Pretty much.

Good luck with it.

PM me if you want a link to a 12V high amperage single-rail PSU. Cheap, too Don't want to post it here.

--Trevor

 

[Luckyboy1]

I cool with a Peltier and as already stated, trying to cool with a Peltier on air is in most cases, just about useless due to the inability of even the best of air cooling to carry the heat generated by the Peltier fast enough. As a result, and believe it or not, this is the good news, good quality water cooling will take you about 80% as far as you can go with current cooling technologies. Add Peltiers done right that is to the mix and you get to about 90% as far as you can go. Go to compressed gas cooling and you can add maybe another 6-8% to that and for the last 2% you want to submerge everything in liquid nitrogen!

Then you need to consider what CPU and GPU you will be cooling with a Peltier and get a Peltier big enough to do you some good. For most modern CPU's that would be a 220 watt or bigger Peltier and for the GPU, a 170 watt or bigger GPU and they run on 12 volts DC. Let's see here... 220 + 170 / 12 = almost 33 amps on the 12 volts rails and you'd still need more power by at least 6 more amps to run the water pump and cooling fans for the radiators. You noticed I said radiators and not radiator. You would want to run a double looped system and have a pump big enough to push it all along.

 

[JeffMD]

erm, most of the first peltier heatsinks were air cooled.. of course they where usually accompanied by a 50db fan (aka delta screamer) but they were on a crap ass aluminum heatsink, so yea you could do it today. Does it make sense to air cool it? not really.. not unless you enjoy going (or allready are) deaf. So today peltiers are pretty much left to water rigs.

I guess if you have setup and feel comfortable with water rigs, peltier would be ok for you. I made one long ago and it was a pain in the ass to seal up the socket with silicon gel. And even with the ton of gel I used, after a few months the mother blew out from a leak somewhere (my only sign of damage was a black pinhole.. so I guess water got pass the dielectric grease and shorted the BGA, remember the peltier is going to cool the cpu to near or below freezing, this will create alot of condensation in the socket and even behind the motherboard where the socket is located. The cpu will also get wet too.)

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: JeffMD
erm, most of the first peltier heatsinks were air cooled.. of course they where usually accompanied by a 50db fan (aka delta screamer) but they were on a crap ass aluminum heatsink, so yea you could do it today. Does it make sense to air cool it? not really.. not unless you enjoy going (or allready are) deaf. So today peltiers are pretty much left to water rigs.

I guess if you have setup and feel comfortable with water rigs, peltier would be ok for you. I made one long ago and it was a pain in the ass to seal up the socket with silicon gel. And even with the ton of gel I used, after a few months the mother blew out from a leak somewhere (my only sign of damage was a black pinhole.. so I guess water got pass the dielectric grease and shorted the BGA, remember the peltier is going to cool the cpu to near or below freezing, this will create alot of condensation in the socket and even behind the motherboard where the socket is located. The cpu will also get wet too.)

Peltiers weren't being asked to cool current generation CPUs that generate massive thermal loads. The efficency curve is not linear (there's a hint in the name) and for high TDP you're looking @ 50% efficency or so. That means to cool a 100W CPU you have to dissipate 200W or so of heat. While the hot side will be very hot, making it easier to disspiate heat it's still not easy.

I read up on TECs a while back for a build, but they aren't really practical for aircooling at the high end.

 

[TrevorRC]

Originally posted by: Luckyboy1
I cool with a Peltier and as already stated, trying to cool with a Peltier on air is in most cases, just about useless due to the inability of even the best of air cooling to carry the heat generated by the Peltier fast enough. As a result, and believe it or not, this is the good news, good quality water cooling will take you about 80% as far as you can go with current cooling technologies. Add Peltiers done right that is to the mix and you get to about 90% as far as you can go. Go to compressed gas cooling and you can add maybe another 6-8% to that and for the last 2% you want to submerge everything in liquid nitrogen!

Then you need to consider what CPU and GPU you will be cooling with a Peltier and get a Peltier big enough to do you some good. For most modern CPU's that would be a 220 watt or bigger Peltier and for the GPU, a 170 watt or bigger GPU and they run on 12 volts DC. Let's see here... 220 + 170 / 12 = almost 33 amps on the 12 volts rails and you'd still need more power by at least 6 more amps to run the water pump and cooling fans for the radiators. You noticed I said radiators and not radiator. You would want to run a double looped system and have a pump big enough to push it all along.

Lucky, what the hell are you talking about? Most radiators can remove several kW [Yes, KW.] of heat. As the water gets hotter, heat becomes even easier to remove.

The temperature of the water is important [see below], but a double heatercore radiator with 2 38mm fans @ 7V can take car of quite a bit

Also, remember you're running these on 12V, and peltiers NORMALLY RUN ON HIGHER VOLTAGES. [Hence the undervolting charts at XS ]

If you run a 226 Pelt @ 12V, it'll draw 18.94A. Cooling capacity? 140W.

320 Pelt @ 12V draws an 22.3A..235W cooling capacity.

So...

With the 226 Pelt, it's Dt=(1-[110/140])*69=14.78C
So, you'll have a ~15C difference between the hot and cold side. If you can keep the water at

Now...
With the 320 pelt..
Dt=(1-[110/235])*69=36.70.
Wowsers, eh?

So, your best bet is to buy TWO 320Watt Pelts, buy a PSU with a VERY large amount of amperage on the 12V rail [read: Well over 40A....a 46A PSU might even be insufficient. .]... oh, and watch your electricity bill skyrocket.

Most would think 'Oh, if you can afford another 120 dollars for a power supply and the 60 you'll shell out for the peltiers, on top of the money for the insulation and cold plates... I don't think Half a kilowatt hour will do you much harm.'

But, for those who care:
$0.10 kw/hr on the high end... half a kw/hr per hour, so 12Kw/hrs.. assuming 500W [Actually a bit more, because efficiency will only be around ~70%], you pay anywhere from 1.20->2 bucks a day.

Over a year, 700 dollars. Not cheap. Costs just as much to cool these as running your entire computer at full load 24/7. Keep that in mind when looking into peltiers.

Just though I'd point that out.
--Trevor

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: JPH1121
Actually, for the power situation, that's totally covered...I have a 350 watt PSU sitting idly in a computer that I stripped a while back that isn't 100% unused and am about to replace the same 350 watt PSU with a 550 that I bought yesterday off newegg (waiting for shipping)

Was also considering watercooling my compy but waiting to see what happens with some other RL stuff before I invest another dime into my computer! My recent expenditures on it is kinda making me cry lol. 7900gt, upgraded PSU, doubling my RAM, upgraded coolers all around :/

I know that peltier's typically use watercooling but all the reviews I could find of them used old heatsinks that were good at the time, but fall technologically way behind now-a-days. My hexaheatpipe cooler I thought might have the cooling capacity as the air-coolers effeciency should RISE with higher temps.

Just doing some investigating atm...your input is still appreciated as I keep thinking about it.

okey unless your thinking of dedicating that 350W PSU just to power the TEC unit, there is no way in hell that 550W is going to be able to handle all the output + TEC. In my Rig i currently run a 500W PSU and my spikes at intensive gaming will go up to 415ish if not slightly higher. now drop a 226W TEC unit in there, or even a lesser 96W TEC unit and your going to be SOL.

Also, i was concidering dropping in a 226W TEC system, but my storm rev.2 with IHS removed, my X2 stays at a nice cool temp of 24idle and 28load. B4 when i had IHS it would be around 27idle 33 load. Plus water is so much cheaper then TEC. :X