Peltier Guru needed

[ctk1981]

Okay, im coming up on a project where I am going to try and use a peltier on a video card.

My frist question is, will a 44W peltier suffice on a Radeon 9800 Pro. Will try and utilize air cooling first, if I get crazy enough it will be water cooled also. (quick note....this will be the final product card, I will test it out on a POS TNT2 card to make sure it works right.)

I understand i need some dow thermal conforming material (or something like that.) Where can I get it, or do i really want to use that? Think some neoprene padding would work better for a temporary install?

I will probably use a seperate power supply to power up this thing, I have a 300 Watt laying around so it should do the trick. The water pump will be on its own supply also if I do that too.

This is pretty much a test project. No way in any shape or form is this unit going to stay on any video card. Im simply doing this for a test.

Anything else I need to know or will require for this crazy project?

 

[BG4533]

How are you planning on cooling the peltier if you do not use watercooling? By the time you threw on a peltier and a heatsink there would be no room for PCI cards. Is there room on the 9800 board to fit everything. Also, make sure everything is insolated well. Normally, peltiers do not give good results without watercooling, but the 44W of this unit should be controllable by a good heatsink. If you have a quality big large wattage PSU you shouldn't need a separate PSU for only a 44W peltier. SOrry I can't help more with the specifics of the project.

Brian

 

[ctk1981]

Yes air cooling if not water. This unit was actually all matched together and used for some commercial application at one point.

No PCI cards wont be a problem, because this is going to be a test run and thats about it. I will remove the unit and go back to something simple for air cooling.

I actually looked at swiftechs unit..the water block and peltier in one. I think I may give that a try instead. They show that actually being mounted on a 9800 and it comes with everything I need.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Something to remember about peltiers:
1: 44W isn't the power that the peltier will use. It's the amount the peltier can move given the ideal conditions for that peltier. It will likely use more.
2: The amount of heat that must be heatsinked will be the device heat+the peltier heat. Expect this to be about 60-70W
3: More voltage does not neccessarily mean more cooling that the peltier will do. Check the specs. There is a definate sweet spot.
4: A peltier setup w/ undersized HSF will be WORSE than just the undersized HSF.