questioning the possibility of i7 with TEC

I'm wondering could if I could benefit from using a TEC along with water cooling on an overclocked i7 920 at 3.8 +- .2 GHz. At that clock speed it would be consuming 255 Watts at idle and 435 Watts while under load. from what I understand in the TEC guide I'd need a monster TEC plate... like one that produced 1638.5 watts if my math is not off.

Has anyone tried TEC with the new i7's? and if they have how well have they done with it? I doubt it is feasible, but I just haft to ask

wattage source http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-phenom-ii,2119-9.html

I think you numbers are a bit off there. i7 is a wattage pig, but it can not be nearly that bad.

(Ahh those links are for an entire system. The load tests include both prime95 (for maxing CPU load) and vantage to round out everything else, albeit one bit at a time.

ur right my #'s are off as i though does this sound more reasonable?

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/13/intel_core_i7_920_overclocking_power

I have heard soo many different inputs on the wattage the i7 actually uses. I err on the high side to calculate watercooling rigs. If we had some way to verify that XX cooling at XX ambients with XX cooling device at XX voltages etc, then by measureing the Core temps we'd at least have a 80% solution.

I go with a max of 250 watts for an i7 overclocked to non-phase change values. It's high but why does my Realtemp say max at 340.8 watts? I got an i7 965 at 3.66. I dunno. I just will NOT underwatt for userssake. Hate to say a 120x2 is enough when it might not be.

I haven't seen a TEC solution with a TEC hotplate on the CPU and the hot side cooled by air or water yet. The i7 has been out for how long now? If all these really top notch overclockers haven't done it yet, I'm not going to even think about it. Gabe at Swiftech (CEO) announced months ago he's making a TEC watercooled block for the i7. Then it died.

If they can't do it. I'm gonna not even try to think about it. To get even close to sub ambient, it's phase change all the way.

thanks Conumdrum for the good input on this "idea." well now I guess i will consider phase change in the future. I'm not looking to freeze my i7, but rather to OC it to some where around 4.5MHz and keep is at ambient or slightly lower. the room it is in is roughly 70-75F for the most part and sometimes gets as low as 50F in the winter. I know people can OC the crap out of the i7 920 on air even, but I would like to do it on water and keep it stable for gaming and folding @home. I dont need HT unless i'm folding.

Thx for the input Neuromancer and Conumdrum!

From what I've seen the I7 platform tops out on water cooling of all things 24/7 clocks wise.. it doesn't give alot of Mhz more for phase.. It is some but not much.

IE even if you could execute a TEC I'm not so sure it would produce alot of results in more stable Mhz for the cost and trouble.

ps.. I understand this statment might be borderline slander in this fourm :0

greenmaji said:

From what I've seen the I7 platform tops out on water cooling of all things 24/7 clocks wise.. it doesn't give alot of Mhz more for phase.. It is some but not much.

Click to expand...

Really ?

I must be imagining this then

greenmaji said:

ps.. I understand this statment might be borderline slander in this fourm :0

Click to expand...

Misguided maybee, but probably not slanderous

Yea, you can get more. That 975 probably would do 4.1 on air easy, 4.3 on good water. Ya got it to 4.7. Some decent gains. I'd be happy with 4.3 at a much lower VID for sure.

When benching every mhz is a gain, no matter how costly it is to achieve it. It's like drag racing.