• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

TEC's And OCing?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

boorishid

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
I was reading something on swiftechs site thaqt said with a tec you basically just get a better overclock at lower voltages, and with water you have to bump up to higher volts. But the tec does a poor cooling job at high voltage. So to me this means you dont really get a better oc with a tec? Also how does your cpu operate faster on lower voltages. I mean the elecricity still has to run across the processor at a hi enough voltage for your clockrate so the spu doent confuse the vcore and 0 voltages signals.
 
If you cool a CPU further, the semiconductor material it's made out of conducts better and the CPU can be overclocked further. Also if you cool it further you can add more voltage safely, this also can increase your clock.

A TEC is inefficient compared to a compressor based setup but uses less space depending on the size of your watercooling. In terms of efficiency at a specific voltage, a TEC is more efficient at 1/2 voltage than it is at full voltage, so it's usually a good idea to get a massive 24v TEC and run it at 12v. A 480W TEC @ 24V will run at around 240ish watts at 12v but not add as much heat of it's own to the loop as compared to a 12v 240W TEC.... i.e. at 100% voltage the TEC will be 60% efficient v.s. 75% Efficient at 50% voltage.
 
I'm running a TEC and yes it is not for heavy overclocking, but it is definitely a good alternative to watercooling/high end air cooling. More specifically you need to research before hand at the thermal output of your CPU and the max dissipation of the TEC. My Ultra ChillTEC runs a q6600 @ 3.4ghz with 1.22vcore usually 40c idle and 60 load. The other thing you have to look at is intel's future CPUs are not going up in thermal output, their going down due to the decreased die size. Such as for example my q6600 G0 at stock has a 95w thermal output, the Q9450 has the same stock 95w output but operates at a higher clock on stock. Theoretically as proven with the E8400s this could make it an outstanding overclocker, but then again the 8 multi is like a slap in the face.

Boiling down to it, yes TECs are more expensive and could probably be beat by a blazing air cooler. I've had both water and air, my pump died...so I looked for something that was a failsafe. If my TEC completely stops.... it still has a gigantic heatpiped air cooling system which does a good job. If your pump dies, your SOL.
 
If my TEC completely stops.... it still has a gigantic heatpiped air cooling system which does a good job. If your pump dies, your SOL.
As an FYI, if your TEC stops, your processor will heat up faster than if your pump dies. It is a good insulator when it isn't working. ;)
 
Pump dies, your BIOS sees max temp get hit and you shut down. Pelts can go wrong and fry you up after shutdown. Ask krag what happened to his video cards... leads melted right out...
 
Not the UltraChillTEC.... the heat transfer between plates is still there due to metal to metal heatsink grease. The idea of the TEC is it's quicker to provide power to transfer the heat than let it dissipate like air cooling. Mine also has a visual and audio warning if the peltier plate fails to activate.... and unless your stupid enough to turn off the Intel thermal protection in bios, the CPU will shut itself down.
 
Not the UltraChillTEC.... the heat transfer between plates is still there due to metal to metal heatsink grease. The idea of the TEC is it's quicker to provide power to transfer the heat than let it dissipate like air cooling. Mine also has a visual and audio warning if the peltier plate fails to activate.... and unless your stupid enough to turn off the Intel thermal protection in bios, the CPU will shut itself down.

TEC = $20

ChillTEC = $160
 
Yep....little difference there, basically the peltier plate on the ultrachilltec doesn't activate until the CPU hits a certain temp.

Which is also one of the reasons it doesn't cool as well as it can.

I'm just saying I'd rather buy a $15 TEC, $5 copper block, and put my HSF on it.
 
Yep....little difference there, basically the peltier plate on the ultrachilltec doesn't activate until the CPU hits a certain temp.

More like 'deactivates' when it hits a certain temperature which is close to when CPU heat output exceeds the Qmax of TEC.

Stop defending your POS cooler (refering to your other thread as well). It's weak TEC is not even designed to handle 120W+ of OC'ed Kenty let alone getting a 92mm-class HSF to handle all that heat. In fact I'm amazed you haven't burnt up that TEC yet.

The only way to use TEC more efficiently on modern processors outputting more than 100W is to use a water-chiller setup and not direct cooling. Like that sandwiched Swiftech thing or build your own.
Sure you can use 437W for direct cooling a quad, but it's efficiency will be very very low with just ambient cooled water.
 
More like 'deactivates' when it hits a certain temperature which is close to when CPU heat output exceeds the Qmax of TEC.

Stop defending your POS cooler (refering to your other thread as well). It's weak TEC is not even designed to handle 120W+ of OC'ed Kenty let alone getting a 92mm-class HSF to handle all that heat. In fact I'm amazed you haven't burnt up that TEC yet.

The only way to use TEC more efficiently on modern processors outputting more than 100W is to use a water-chiller setup and not direct cooling. Like that sandwiched Swiftech thing or build your own.
Sure you can use 437W for direct cooling a quad, but it's efficiency will be very very low with just ambient cooled water.

It doesn't deactivate when it gets higher... currently I'm OC'd at 3.2ghz 400 x 8 idle is 33-36c depending on ambient. Load with 5+ hours Prime95 is 60-61c on Coretemp. Now I could go by my ASUS PC Probe which shows idle from 23-26c, and load 45-46c. Either way you can definitely tell when the peltier kicks in because the fan speed continuously changes. The point in which the peltier can't keep it cool enough at least for me is 3.8-4ghz. I was able to run prime for 30-40mins and pulled a few 3dmark tests on 3.7ghz, the idle according to coretemp was 45-48c and load was 64-69c.

The one thing I don't understand is why the ASUS PC probe is lower on CPU temps, I know that coretemp is supposed to be the sensor on each core, but the inconsistency makes me wonder.

Your referring to the Chilltec as a piece of **** CPU cooler, well that's your opinion. Compared to my aquagate, and my asus evo square....it's pretty damn good. I didn't say it was the best, in fact I made the comment that the chilltec is not for extreme overclocking. Although it could probably do really well on a dual core setup like an E8400. Thus far I can take my quad to 3.7ghz and it can handle it, the temps are not cool by any standard... but it does not crap out as you put it.

So let's calculate here .... max 50w heat dissipation on the TEC according to ultra's site. I'm pushing what 126-130w thermal output? This means the chillTEC is not entirely based on the TEC... it utilizes air quite well.
 
Last edited:
The one thing I don't understand is why the ASUS PC probe is lower on CPU temps, I know that coretemp is supposed to be the sensor on each core, but the inconsistency makes me wonder.
Because it reads using a motherboard sensor instead of using the on die sensor (which is the correct one).

You have me interested in this cooler. I am going into the review business and would like to test this out. :)
 
So let's calculate here .... max 50w heat dissipation on the TEC according to ultra's site. I'm pushing what 126-130w thermal output? This means the chillTEC is not entirely based on the TEC... it utilizes air quite well.
That is good.
 
Last edited:
It's still chuggin along for me, I switched over to an E3110 and am running 4ghz. I recently purchase a 72w TEC so I can switch the peltier out, since it is limited to 12v I should be able to get alittle more cooling from the new peltier. I'll post updates!
 
It's still chuggin along for me, I switched over to an E3110 and am running 4ghz. I recently purchase a 72w TEC so I can switch the peltier out, since it is limited to 12v I should be able to get alittle more cooling from the new peltier. I'll post updates!
I think most tec's are rated for around 14v. If that is true for that tec, it should be around 61w after the voltage drop.
 
Yep... we'll see how she rolls, I did see someone talking about buying a 226w peltier and runnin it on 12v. That could be the next step, just gonna havta test it out and see.
 
Back