Are there very compact water chillers?

[jamesavery22]

Thats kool. If you dont want subambient temps then just forget about chillers all together. That coolit setup in the ALX really won't do much past a normal radiator. TECs are usually gain or no gain results. No middle ground. If the coolit device did what it was supposed to then that large radiator in the top of the ALX case would be defeating its purpose

From what you just said I would focus on getting a new case, one which would fit a good watercooling setup. At the same time look into a good watercooling setup.


For a TEC chiller to be your radiator you need a large one. There have been a handfull of projects where people had huge TECs on very huge heatsinks for chillers. Never heard any final results. Looked like a ball of wax IMHO.

If you have a very good watercooling setup you can always go with blocks that are TEC friendly, i.e., can be used with TECs with hold-down plates etc. So in the future you can have a normal TEC setup.

 

[GV2NIX]

So, in your opinion, this freezone won't do any better than a BIM-II? I know the BIM-II isn't the best rad, but I'm reluctant to give up this case because I'm so impressed with it in spite of it being not very accommodating to big water cooling setups, haha!

Do you think they would let me try it then return it if I'm not satisfied (assuming I don't damage it of course)?

 

[jamesavery22]

So, in your opinion, this freezone won't do any better than a BIM-II? I know the BIM-II isn't the best rad, but I'm reluctant to give up this case because I'm so impressed with it in spite of it being not very accommodating to big water cooling setups, haha!

Do you think they would let me try it then return it if I'm not satisfied (assuming I don't damage it of course)?

I seriously doubt it. I searched for awhile and I couldn't find any ratings on the TECs or the power consumption. It has to be some pretty weak TECs to not warrant any "12v line must be able to supply this many amps" warnings. Even if it had some giant TECs and some revolutionary controller it would just come down to surface area. You aren't going to be able to dissipate much heat from that simple fin design thats a right at 92x92mm. TECs move heat from one side to the other by consuming heat. So ontop of the heat you are taking away from the CPU you are adding the heat of the TEC (in most cases doubling the load) so that tiny radiator has to dissipate it all...
For $400 that thing is a bling magnet. It might be able to give you stellar temps on a 1.6ghz Pentium-M. And even then its a waste.
I dont know frozenCPU.com's return policy. Would be kool if you could do that though. And if you do you should go over to procooling.com and ask what tests you can and should do to get a decent review of it.

If you don't want to mess around with stuff and just want to buy something you know will perform, I'd forget about it.

edit----

eh I forgot you are looking at the 80mm x 2 thing... Unless you dont care about noise, Id really look into a new case so you can get atleast a 120mm x 120mm radiator.

 

[GV2NIX]

Maybe I'll see what I can do about sorting out a return arrangement over the summer and sit down for a few days and write a review.