Peltier air cooling?

Curious, as sometimes, the difference between air and water cooling can be quite small, assuming that the bets possible components are used
the recent conversations into blower fan technology in computer cooling has raised a thought in my mind. blower fans can move a great amount of air with minimal noise. they way they do it also allows them to move that air to the spot needing cooling from a remote location a lot better than a traditional axial fan.

This brings me back to thoughts ages past of using a peltier unit on a air cooled system. I know there are a lot of units out there that do it, alpha, swiftech and thermaltake to name a few, but less go back to using the best possible parts in our theology, shall we <_<.

Thermalright makes the best possible heatsinks for us overclockers. they are big, beautiful and efficaint. what do you think of incorperating peltier units into air cooling assuming the use of higher end thermalright sollutions, such as the brand new sp 97?

with high cfm blower fans, I wonder if it would be possible to match the cooling potential of a water unit at much less cost and much less risk of hardware damage.

heatsink design just looks really cool imo. i miss the days of dragon orbs

more curious, the addition of heatpipe cooling and peltier technology together.

would love to get some ideas together ^^

bad idea
you need to put 200W to get 100W of heat out of the way, and the HSF will be the only one taking care of the heat from CPU and TEC unit, and there is insulation/condensation problem, and then the expensive power supply for high wattage TEC unit....

the gain won't cover the effort, make a tunnel to suct outside cold air into HSF fan would be a better idea, much cheaper too

Also, don't the Thermalright units have pretty narrow bases? All other problems aside (and I think Colt has a legitimate point), you'd probably want something with a larger base, like a Swiftech.

i think the new giant swiftechs will perform better with higher airflow and a higher temp over ambient than the thermalrights, but then agian the sp-97 might still win. but if you duct a goot 200 cfm blower onto a pelt/hs combo i bet it would work well. the swiftechs just look like the cohesive airflow of a blower would work beautifuly with it. i would be interested in the results of a swiftech with a blower as compared to a thermalright with a blower, since the straight airflow through the fins of a thermalright seem slike it wouldnt work too well, while the machined pins of a swiftech seem like they would create a large ammount of turbulance and transfer a great deal of heat to the air.

The 4th picture in this review shows why the thermal right heatsinks (and the sp-97) are not good choices for peltier air cooling:

http://www.systemcooling.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1464

Pelt air cooling is still a bad idea even given a good heatsink and blower... My blower can push pretty close to 200 CFM with good pressure (wheel diameter 5"+) if I remember the rating correctly, but when I turn it up that high I can feel the floor vibrateing under my feet. You just can't compute like that for long.

Modern processors require either a 172 or 226 watt pelt. A 226 watt pelt will emit well over 300 watts of power on an overclocked processor. You just don't want to cool this without water cooling - a big enough heatsink would require too much conduction through the metal - a radiator has a much larger surface area while very little conduction through the metal is necessary for the heat to get from the processor to the air.

Unless you want a blow dryer in your case in terms of noise don't do it. I recommend watercooling for a pet.

Has anyone actually ever tried this, or are all of these guesses?

anvil82 said:

Has anyone actually ever tried this, or are all of these guesses?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about others, but it's no guess for me. To have a Pet running on air cooling you need to have a SUPER power fan/Heatsink. I'm not sure of you've heard the 80mm 80CFM fans, but they are very load, if you like that then yes it possible. Maybe a 92mm fan will be quieter but you will have dead air in the center of the heatsink and I don't recommend it.

anvil82 said:

Has anyone actually ever tried this, or are all of these guesses?

Click to expand...

Lots of people have air cooled pelts using high quality heatsinks... Without exception it is either poor performing or noisy, and sometimes its both at the same time.

I'm sure a blower could achieve good performance with a pelt if it were moving around 100CFM (effective, not rated), but the noise level is going to be considerable.

I haven't seen a blower directly applied to cooling a pelt, but its not hard to accurately infer some simple understandings from what other people have done.

Any way you look at it, cooling a 300+ watt 80mm x 80mm heat source is not a good idea to attempt with air in the long term.