TEC n00b questions

[ZaVkE]

Sorry for the stupid question, but i'm a n00b on TEC's and i would like to start with the right ideas :)



1. What's better, a high delta T or a lot off Watt displacement?
cons, pros, ...

2. coldplates: how thick? how large? and in what shape?
Is is better to have one that on the bottom just have the surface of the core (maybe a bit more) and on top the surface of the pelt? Or will a regular one work as fine?

3. One or Two pelts?



Thnx guys !!!

[KnightElite]

Welcome to Xtreme ZaVkE.

To answer your questions:

That depends what you're doing, and what you are trying to cool. If you're cooling a fridge, where there is no heat source on the inside that you want to cool, and your goal is to get the temperature as low as possible, then high Delta-T is good. For CPUs, it depends on how much heat output you will have. Generally, people are using 226W TECs since they are better at handling the high heat loads of modern overlocked processors, though it is required that you have a beefier cooling system to remove the heat.
In terms of cold plate shape, it really shouldn't matter whether it's the exact same shape as the CPU on the one side, since the heat will spread from the CPU to the entire cold plate in fairly short order. Thickness seems to be a matter of some debate, and not being a mechanical engineer, I can't give you the mathematically idea thickness for a given situation. But, particularly for Athlons, with their small surface area, a thicker cold plate allows the heat to spread more evenly along the cold side of the TEC.
If you stack pelts, you can get a higher temperature difference, but you use a lot more power, and the top TEC needs to remove the combined heat of the bottom TEC and the CPU. Parallel TECs let you remove a huge amount of heat, but you can't get the huge temperature gradient. Personally, I'm fairly impressed with the MCW4000-T from Swiftech, and it's really the only practical dual-tech block on the market.

I hope that helps out somewhat.

[ZaVkE]

Thnx

I'll be using a Kryotech Renegade (slot 1 version)

so i don't think that getting the heat removed will be the real challenge :)

I'll probably go for a dual setup since it is a slot 1 coldplate on the renegade.


Might go for a stacked solution, not sure yet ...:confused:
ooohhhh the choice ...