what is...?

[AFIsoldier]

what is phase change or peltier cooling, read about it a little but not enough to know exactly what it is...i don't like water cooling but those look like alternatives that involve good trust air cooling too...

 

[tgp]

phase change is using a compressor found in freezers, refridgerators, air conditioners, ect to either cool water or a copper block instead of the evaporator (part that gets cold) that is normally used.

peltiers or more scientific end. its 2 small pieces of ceramic (i think) with a circuitry of bismuith or lead or some type of metal inside, when a current is passed thru it one side gets cold, other side gets hot.

thats as 'summed' up as your gonna get.

laters.
t

 

[Deathknight]

Well I will take an attempt at explaining phase change for you. Basically it involves the changing of a liquid to a gaseous form (which absorbs heat) the gas is moved and returned to a liquid state. Air conditioners work the same way. There is gobs of info on this site and elsewhere that explain it far better than I can. I don't have all of my bookmarks here but this is a decent explanation:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1124222,00.asp

There are premade phase-change kits on the market, such as prometia and vapochill. They are not cheap but they work well.
This site has some good info on building your own phase change cooling system:
http://www.phase-change.com/


Here is a good writeup on peltier cooling:
http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/cooling/peltier-1.html

The thing about pelts is that the hot side of the pelt produces a great deal of heat which needs to be cooled somehow. Typically this is done with water cooling, although it is possible to air cool a peltier.

Both of these forms of cooling need to deal with condensation issues since the cooling is below ambient temps. There are numerous guides on how to protect your equipment from condensation here.

 

[LtBlue14]

you need a fan no matter what, unless you have a massive passive radiator
you gotta get rid of the heat somehow!

 

[nunez1980]

what i said is that if you are not an extreme overclocker, plain water offer the best ratio of performance and price,

air-too low
water-about right
water + tec-needs too many extrass
phase change-expensive, cheap if one has the knowledge

it seems that you are afraid of water, but when you take all of them in comparison, air is the safest, then the vote goes to water, a sealed system will be always ok with water, leaks are the problem, but that goes to anything,

then the rest you need to worry about electric bill, and condensation which can be a ***** sometimes

but if you want the best and the extreme one, (you are in extreme section) that can be used anytime, it would be phase change all the way

 

[AFIsoldier]

phase change doesen't look my my cup of tea...but peltier does sound good...so if i wanted ot cool a CPU wiht peltier i would need to? put a heatsink and fan on the hot side?

 

[IceMan3928]

phase change doesen't look my my cup of tea...but peltier does sound good...so if i wanted ot cool a CPU wiht peltier i would need to? put a heatsink and fan on the hot side?

yes... but air cooling a peltier of any decent power is usually difficult because of the amount of heat it throws off, also you will have to seal off your socket and mobo with silicon and dielectric grease to prevent condensation (though you will have to do that wether you use air cooling for it or not).

 

[nunez1980]

phase change doesen't look my my cup of tea...but peltier does sound good...so if i wanted ot cool a CPU wiht peltier i would need to? put a heatsink and fan on the hot side?

no you can't, in order to do peltier with todays cpu, you will need water, they ain't a work around

so you get the picture of what I'm talking about, take a overclock cpu, around 100W or a little more, at to that a tec of 169w@12v, that 235w with a low end tec, now take a decent 220w tec and thats close to 276w, can a puny heat sink with air cool that, the only thing you could do with that, is to cook some bacon and eggs