So I've been reading quite a bit on the concepts of TECs and how to raise efficiency in loops, and most people seem to point to two things-air-cooled hot sides and using them as chillers made up of multiple smaller pelts rather than one large one on the CPU. First off, if I'm wrong there, please stop me and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

So reading around a bit, I've been kicking about making a pelt chiller and using in place of a rad in my system (I have nothing but time here to mess with something. It may as well be something fun.) System consists of i7-2600K (currently stock cooled and underclocked, it's hot as three hells here in Alabama) and would also cover mosfet block and RAM. Currently GPU is air cooled, if I replace it I may or may not liquid cool it, but for now it's ok as is. RAID card has its own cooling system (I told you, I have a lot of time to play) though it may not stay in the system.

From what I gathered with multiple perusals of multiple chiller threads, my setup should consist of a copper block with low pressure drop on one side for my liquid to flow through for chilling, multiple TECs laid out in a grid with high clamping force, and a heatsink and fan either for each TEC or an extrusion and large fans. The latter looks more like what would happen here, so I could use the heatsink extrusion to apply more even pressure to the TECs.

The first question is on what TECs should I choose? Should I do an array of 10 or so small TECs, or should I do something like 3 or 4 of the large 62mm pelts? I'm using 12v max for this, mostly so I can use more easily sourced and modded ATX PSUs (modding a PS for 12v only is rather easy for me, did it for my Arima already) or even one of the 12v only VGA PSUs. With many of the larger TECs being 15V or more, this would already be underdriving them.

The second is what kind of general temps should I expect? For the sake of conversation, let's say that I'm staying stock clocked on CPU. At that point, is there a way to guess at what temps I would be likely to achieve? If so, would I be able to take that number and determine what it would be if I OCed? I know I'm full of questions. I'd never learn if I didn't ask.

I'm already well cognizant of things like having to insulate possibly, using TIM on pelts, using more power and that phase might be easier, but it certainly won't fit in my case like this could. This is just as much about "because I need something to do" as it is about the actual temps. If I was simply able to cool to the equivalent of a standard 3x120 in a bit smaller space (as that's my biggest issue in the case) I could call that a success. Anything past that is just plain great.