Peltier Water Hybrid cooling, Where to get it?

[Kieron]

I know I've bothered you before with inane questions about WC, but at this time I've calculated how much money I'll have on my hands come january, so I'm considering building a WC setup, with Peltier blocks, and (iff possible) a peltier device to tranfser heat FROM the water aswell.

 

What I'm wondering, is, where do I go to find peltier blocks and cooling elements? I've googled the . out of the entire internet, and mostly i get spammed with tests and commercials, and after a few pints, I really dont have the eyesight to browse through the entire interwebs.

 

Any hints would be greatly appreciated, and any experience gained through assembling a WC/Peltier hybrid system would ofcourse be shared, and welcomed if anyone before me have tried a custom setup.

 

As always, regards from the cold part of norway =)

[caesar666]

I know I've bothered you before with inane questions about WC, but at this time I've calculated how much money I'll have on my hands come january, so I'm considering building a WC setup, with Peltier blocks, and (iff possible) a peltier device to tranfser heat FROM the water aswell.

 

What I'm wondering, is, where do I go to find peltier blocks and cooling elements? I've googled the . out of the entire internet, and mostly i get spammed with tests and commercials, and after a few pints, I really dont have the eyesight to browse through the entire interwebs.

 

Any hints would be greatly appreciated, and any experience gained through assembling a WC/Peltier hybrid system would ofcourse be shared, and welcomed if anyone before me have tried a custom setup.

 

As always, regards from the cold part of norway =)

 

 

I don't have any experience with Peltier-Water hybrid cooling nor custom WC setup. I assume that the peltier unit will cool of the radiator of the WC setup right?

If that's the case, CoolIT actually has that kind of product : CoolIT Freezone Elite V2 and CoolIT Boreas MTEC Chiller Case

 

Hope it helps you in some way!

Edited April 11, 2011 by caesar666

[MercuryDoun]

Both products you listed are older products that were designed for previous generation CPU's, I dont think they would be up to the task for cooling current generation CPU's.

 

Sorry OP, i dont know much about WC so you will have to wait for someone else with more knowledge to come along.

[Boinker]

Well from what I have heard peltier can be a pain in the butt as depending on how big of one you will/may need condinsation insulation as your temps will dwindle below ambient if you have a powerful enough peptiers and depending on the way its configured you may not need a peptides set-up at all it. Now the real question is how far are you willing to go to get the results you want. With a peptier you will need a larger radiator, a top shelf pump, noisy high output fans, high capacity Res, high resistance to temperature tubing, of course the peltier, voltage converter power supply, mounting hardware, insulation and an all metal waterblock.

 

Even the ultra silent set-up I recently built can take an i7 past 4.00ghz on water and it has room to go on its current ambient.

 

Before I start picking out parts for you are you sure you want to do pelteir cooling?

[Waco]

What Boinker said. Peltiers consume HUGE amounts of power (you'll double your CPU power usage at minimum) and can fail pretty catastrophically. In addition to that, cooling with pelts almost always brings along with it problems with condensation when you drop below ambient.

[caesar666]

Both products you listed are older products that were designed for previous generation CPU's, I dont think they would be up to the task for cooling current generation CPU's.

 

Sorry OP, i dont know much about WC so you will have to wait for someone else with more knowledge to come along.

 

My mistake. I'm sorry, I don't really know what kind of processor sockets those cooler supported.

 

Well from what I have heard peltier can be a pain in the butt as depending on how big of one you will/may need condinsation insulation as your temps will dwindle below ambient if you have a powerful enough peptiers and depending on the way its configured you may not need a peptides set-up at all it. Now the real question is how far are you willing to go to get the results you want. With a peptier you will need a larger radiator, a top shelf pump, noisy high output fans, high capacity Res, high resistance to temperature tubing, of course the peltier, voltage converter power supply, mounting hardware, insulation and an all metal waterblock.

 

 

What Boinker said. Peltiers consume HUGE amounts of power (you'll double your CPU power usage at minimum) and can fail pretty catastrophically. In addition to that, cooling with pelts almost always brings along with it problems with condensation when you drop below ambient.

 

After reading around on the web, I think I couldn't agree more with boinker & Waco. Peltier really is not a simple cooling solution no matter how you look at it. Its risky too.

But I found some guy on

that modify his current WC setup then adds two units of CoolIT Boreas MTEC Chiller to cooled down his WC setup.

The result is pretty amazing (AMD Phenom II X6 1090T OC'd to 4GHz; measured with CoreTemp, lowest idle temp is 0^oC and highest load temp 22^oC!

But the noise coming from those two units are really loud and they draws more than 400W!

[gotdamojo06]

@OP, I had once looked into doing a setup using a TEC to get below ambient temperatures, however it is quite expensive to do, you are going to run into the issue of massive amounts of power usage...if you are looking to run under ambient 24/7 this would work just fine and I am not trying to say not to do it by any means. If you are looking for a few runs at being below ambient, pick up a DICE pot and do that...should run you around 100$ at most for a pot, all the supplies should be around 50-60$...and you can get some pretty high clocks with that, I was able to max my E8400 out at 5.2GHz (CPU-Z link in sig)

[Boinker]

You know if a constant below freezing is what you want then you may as well get a phase unit. It may cost just a little more then the technology water cooling system but it will be a slightly more reliable cooler if you control it properly.

 

Just a thought.

[bschmidt71]

i use the boreas unit mentioned above, but i don't go subambient. i use the TEC's to keep the water temp at or near ambient. in WC setups the water temp will ramp up when you apply heat to the system. as the water temp rises, the CPU temp rises as well. these two are directly proportional - ie: at idle, the CPU will always be ~6C above water temp depending on your block/TMI. at prime 95 loads, the CPU will always be ~34-37C above the water temp - again, depending on your block/TMI. so you might start with 20C ambient, 25C water temps, and 31-32C idle CPU temps - but, once you start applying a load to your CPU (F@H for example runs the CPU ~32C above water temp) it starts dumping heat into your water loop. when the water temp starts climbing so does your CPU temps (how much the water temp climbs is determined by your radiator/fans - which serve to cool the water: a Corsair H50 will dissipate MUCH less heat than a custom loop with a "double" rad and 4x push/pull fans). the purpose my Boreas unit serves is to assist the radiators/fans by preventing the water temp from increasing. i can essentially hold the water temp at ambient temps. as a result of this i can hold my CPU temps stable as well. as the GPU's and the CPU dump heat into the water loop, the TEC's "counter" them by dumping "cold" into the water loop to balance everything out.

 

there is one caviat to the boreas system though: it comes with monitoring software that allows you to set the water temp wherever you want it (must be at/above ambient if your water loop is running through a radiator as mine is, or your just wasting watts). here in germany, most homes don't have AC (air conditioning) which means my ambient temps can get pretty high during the late summer and early fall months (jul - sep). note: if your set point is higher than ambient than the water will increase up to that point (35-40C for example) before the software tells the TEC's to start working (they operate between 40% min and 100%). i normally keep my set point around 35C to keep my CPU at or below 70C. with ambient temps between 18-20 i can usually run F@H without the TEC's ever ramping up and keeping the CPU temps below 70C. and, if things get warm the TEC's keep the water at 35C (to a point of course). with 3 F@H instances running (F@H MCP and two instances of GPU F@H - one for each GPU) i can easily hit pretty high temps, but my boreas keeps my water temps locked at a steady 35C and my CPU temp locked around 66-67C regardless of ambient (assuming ambient is below 35C)

 

i am actually thinking about changing my TEC up a bit and moving to water cooling on the hot side (currently, the boreas unit cools the hot side via heat sink/fans, and the cold side is part of the water loop). you can find all kinds of TEC units at amazon. just remember, the wattages given for them are at 15v. since you would have to use the 12v rail on your power supply, you will only get about 80% of that wattage. example: a TEC listed at 125W would only give you about 100W. since most of the newer CPUs are 95W parts (MAX), a 125W TEC should more than adequately meet your needs. and even an i7 part at 125-130W could still be sufficiently cooled by a 100W peltier.

 

well, i hope this helped you determine if you want to go the TEC route or not. personally, i don't think it's nearly as hard as the good folks here make it out to be - or as dangerous. the boreas unit i use consumes less than 250W, and since i tied it into my normal water loop there is no worry about condensation and it is still super effective (though not nearly as flashy since i don't get 0C temps). anyway, if anyone has any questions i would be happy to answer to the best of my ability.

[bschmidt71]

here is a link to some peltiers at amazon:

 

here