what is Peltier?

[newbietweaker]

what is Peltier and what do they do?

[Hippo]

I think it's like a metal plate and when you add current to it it get hot on one side and cold on the other side. And I think they are best cooled by water.
Oh mainly used for CPU cooling.

[bdf24]

Basically it is an Electric heat pump. Like Hippo said It has a cold side and a hot side. The cold side pumps the heat over to the hot side. The reason why it is usually used with water cooling is cause water conducts heat much more efficiently then any air. But it all depends on how big of a peltier you get. They have different wattages. The higher the wattage the more heat it will pump away from the cold side.

But you need to be carfull. if you get a peltier that pumps less heat then what your cpu is putting out you will do the opposite and start warming the cpu up hotter then it already is.

The same goes if you put a peltier with very high wattage onto a heatsink fan combo you will warm up the heatsink so much it will start warming up the cpu as well cause it has no where to go with the heat.

So you need to be very carefull and do your research before you start playing around with them.