What happens if you don't insulate?

[L33T]

Ok this sounds like a pretty silly question, but I'm still asking it: what happens if you don't insulate? I suppose two things would happen: condensation, and your block wouldn't be as cold with heat "escaping". Lets suppose I don't care about the latter. The former I'll deal with by spraying the mb and gfx card with conformal spray. So if water does condense onto it, it won't matter.

Is this plausible?

[Sin]

You will end up with a puddle of water in the bottom of your case. No doubt, regardless of how well you conformal coat the board something will get ruined. By insulating (sealing from air) your TEC you eliminate condensation. Trust me when i tell you it will be a huge mistake not to use every precaution you can to avoid condensation. I sealed my 9800 pro when using a little 80 watt pelt that ran at -20c and got a tiny bit careless fiddling around in the system and slight bit of condensation gathered and Poof went the magic card.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

if you don't want to insulate run water or air cooling other wise yes you have to. Not plausible.

[epion2985]

You can not spray anything you want, caps, mosfets and a lot of other components rely on air cooling and do need to be cooled. And while this is not ever thought of because they get rid of the heat on their own if you cover then with spray etc you might have some problems.

Either way though you will have a little river flowing from under your computer every time you turn it off, if you don't short something else you will at least promote mold growth in your floor and case and other bacteria. If you want to turn your room in to a swamp there are easier ways.

Also your temperatures will be poor. You might loose over 50% of your systems capacity due to no insulation, don't underestimate it.

Just insulate its not that hard and really is trivial once you do it once.