Planning out cooling on next rig

[Spawne32]

So im gona be doing an on the cheap rig, of course theres gona be some oc'ing, im looking at cooling options. Ive been doin all air all my life, never even experimented with water, but i have one of those Ultra ChillTEC's downstairs, and the thing really fascinated me. So what i was thinking on doing was putting a tec in-between a good air cooler, but i was wondering what the cooling capacity of small tecs are? Im only looking at low power tec's, between 80watt and 120watt, but even with those, would i have to worry about condensation and such?

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u47/Spawne32/tec.png

What are your thoughts on this? Would i need a dedicated PSU for such a small unit?

[littleowl]

air and tec don't go hand in hand! and yes depending on your due point at your home a tec of only 50w can condensate!

[Spawne32]

air and tec don't go hand in hand! and yes depending on your due point at your home a tec of only 50w can condensate!

thats not what im asking, i primarily need to know how much load can a 80watt tec handle.

[littleowl]

80w would handle maybe 60w of heat

[initialised]

What are your thoughts on this? Would i need a dedicated PSU for such a small unit?I ran a 226W off my PSU, the insulation on the terminal block I used and some of the insulation on the wiring (harvested from a PSU) melted. Be careful if you don't use an auxiliary PSU.

[ZL1Killa]

I'm looking into this, as to get more out of my current setup which I know i can but heat is an issue. above 1.5v vcore on my setup i'm getting to where heat is affecting overclocking on my Black edition 5000+

what all do I need to buy? i already have a complete watercooling kit. So I need a PSU, a peltier, foam/sealer?? need some help here,...srry newbie to this

I would reckon around a 200w+ peltier, a good PSU...and then..

[Jon Boy Deluxe]

In answer to the q - how much load can a 80watt tec handle - i'd say sweet F.A.

Reason? I had a 320w tec on my e6600 in my last rig, I used a FSP 300w BoosterX psu to power the tec, simply cut off the pci-e connectors, use a big juicy connector block (20a) to attach it to the tec.

You need a compatible waterblock, I ended up with the dd maze as I didn't have the tools to mod my existing block. Compatible = you can bolt a cold plate on (copper plate).

Dielectric grease, neoprene and i sprayed around the socket/back of mobo with a clear plastic spray... I'll dig out a link later if required.

I never really got on with the tec setup. I was using a dual and single rad at the time and had my gfx card (7900gto at that time) in the loop. It held the proccy at -13 so i removed the single rad and gfx from the loop. My temps got worse! In the end I gave up.

One thing to note is REALLY clamp the tec between the block and coldplate.

It's not hard to set up/insulate but I totalled up the cost of my existing loop plus all the tec gear and concluded I could have gotton a decent phase. Tec's are costly and inneficient imo, water or phase, tec is the middle ground best left alone.

[initialised]

Check what your projected CPU heat output is with the calculator I used in the TEC'n'Quad thread. Allow 10-20% for motherboard seepage then add as much as you want. e.g. 200W of TEC on a 200W chip will be close to your loop temperature, 300W of TEC on a 200W chip should be cold.

Pick a TEC, the biggest available is the 62mm, 463W from Arctic Spider (http://www.arcticspider.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=2) 350W TECs are plentiful on eBay.

Choose a block with a big enough base to accomodate your TEC. DangerDen take 40mm TECs, D-Tek Fuzion & Swiftech Apogee take 50mm, Swiftech MCW6000 (flat base) and the ArcticWeb will take 62mm. Bear in mind that the block needs to shift both the TEC wattage (IxV not Qc) plus the thermal output of the CPU. So consider modding the block to larger bore barbs or adding ports and you might need a stronger pump and bigger radiator or more airflow to cope with the extra heat. If you also have your GPU/motherboard components in the same loop it might need rearranging.

PSU's are available at a variety of voltages and wattages so buy one that best matches your TEC, again either go with the 320W Meanwells that cooling shops sell or find one on eBay, KitsnParts (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/KitsNParts) usually has a good range. You can run TECs off the 12V lines of your PSU but it 's risky and not necessarily optimal. I melted a terminal block this way.

Insulate the cold side of the TEC to prevent losses to air (especially if you have airflow in your case) and if you are likely to go sub-ambient coat the area around the CPU with a sealant.

Oh and check the stickies and guides here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=164384).

[littleowl]

I'm looking into this, as to get more out of my current setup which I know i can but heat is an issue. above 1.5v vcore on my setup i'm getting to where heat is affecting overclocking on my Black edition 5000+

what all do I need to buy? i already have a complete watercooling kit. So I need a PSU, a peltier, foam/sealer?? need some help here,...srry newbie to this

I would reckon around a 200w+ peltier, a good PSU...and then..

you would want to get either a 226w tec (look on ebay for a 320w) make sure your water block has a flat 50mm X 50mm base for the tec to sit on!
also look for a meanwell psu. You need a dedicated psu for the tec.
You can get everything off of swiftech's site. As for insulation use armflex(sp) and dielectric grease as well as conformal coating from danger den.

Hope this helps some if you have any more questions please make a new thread and we will try our best to help you out. :D
Also take a look at the sticky tec section for more info! :)

[ZL1Killa]

thank you greatly and thank you littleowl!

[littleowl]

thank you greatly and thank you littleowl!

You are very welcome if you have any other questions feel free to ask and we will be more than happy to answer to the best of our knowledge! :D