Question about peltiers

[damonpip]

Hey, I'm building a dual 1800+ (palomino) system that I need to be really quiet. What I'm planning on doing is putting a 40watt peltier on each cpu, and putting a large 3x3" aluminum HS ontop of each one. These will be cooled by a Panaflo with a duct to vent the hot air outside the case. I will not be overclocking it at all, and am wondering if the peltiers are big enough to remove heat from the CPUs. My idea is that the peltiers will allow the heatsinks to ruun much hotter, but still keep the heat away from the cpu itself.

 

[KF]

That duct idea is good.

Have you used Peltier's before? If not, check out Overclockers.com and their forums.

In short, with the amount of heat that Athlons put out at maximum, it is not likely that you will gain anything using a normal high-performance, air-cooled heatsink. The Peltier that could provide a temperature drop while passing the 70 watts an Athlon may generate would also generate something like 70 watts of additional heat. The heatsink will have to get rid of 140 watts, doubling the temperature rise across the heat sink. With the same heatsink minus the Peltier, the CPU will be cooler. That is untlil you get to a "super heatsink". With a "super" heatsink, the temperature rise across the heatsink ultimately can be low enough for the Peltier to be an advantage. A compact "super" heatsink would be water-cooled. An air-cooled super heatsink would be like 6 by 6 inches and use a high CFM fan.

A Peltier design which will do the job would consist of an array of 4 or more Peltiers with an addition power supply to handle the current. The Peltiers would be in a cold-plate/heat-spreader sandwich topped with a "super" heatsink.


Since you are not going to OC, Athlons will do just fine with a normal heatsink, such as the one that comes with the retail version. Or get an SlK800 with a slow 80mm fan. People claim they are almost silent, quieter than the power supply. Maybe with some kind of ducting rig you could use a bigger, slower fan and locate it outside the case.