Thermostat controlled Tec chilling a water loop

How do you expect to cool the hot side of the tec`s ? What size tec- what processor- what psu ?. A lot of variables, but sort of a waste because you will not be able to cool the hot side of tec`s in a tiny case with your idea. Sorry, but rad needed far exceeds case capability.

EDIT: Like gdesmo said, You'll need radiators too cool TECs of any worth. They aren't magic

So you are set on chilled liquid that will keep ambient, or rather above Dew Point. The reason people like to go direct die is because it requires less hardware to make it work. With Liquid chilling you'll need to have an extra pump, tubing and a CPU block (probably already knew about that).

Arqtik makes water chillers with the driver built in. Found here:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1263258/single-tec-chiller-cube-with-integrated-electronics-mosftet-drivers

The controller is what measures humidity, ambient and calculates dew point to keep you out of the condensation range.


Lets start with the heat aspect (I'm assuming you're current rig is the one for reference):
Not sure about your clock rates but without overclocking, you're looking to cool about 245W (CPU 95W + GPU 150W). A single water chiller can't do anything better your watercooling can do with 245W. But two water chillers would be able to hold 245W at about 24°C below water temperature. Now you said you're not looking for super cooling so the controller would keep you out of condensation and depending where you live, you're CPU could be being hit with 10°C liquid (if you live in a dry environment). If you are overclocking, I'll just assume 200W on the CPU, you'll need to cool 350W. Two Chillers would get the temperature of the chilled liquid down to about 11°C below water temperatures.

The next thing to look at is heat removal.
Depending on the voltage of a TEC, the devices from Arqtik are set to about a 1:1 (1.04 to be more exact) ratio of Power Cooled to Power Used. They cool a little more than they use in power. Each of the Water Chillers use about 144W to move 150W of heat. So that's Chillers (288W) + CPU (200W) + GPU (150W) = 638W you need to remove from your water loop with radiators as a worst case scenario. The rule of thumb for Arqtik's Single TEC stuff is, a triple radiator(120mm) for ever TEC. As with all watercooling, push/pull configuration will be the best.

You'ed also need a decent powersupply. Because those TECs are designed to run off PCIe 6Pin you'ed have to make sure you have enough cables.

And then the next obstacle would be keeping your room cool. Can be easy, can be hard. I wouldn't suggest air conditioning your room with a system like this in it. You would need to be loaded to pay for the power bill.

If you have any questions, just ask! I don't mind em.
Edited by Krow - 7/7/12 at 3:48pm

The problem with air cooling TECs is when a TEC with any power behind it is used, it generates as much heat as a CPU. Most of the time, it's as much as an overclocked CPU. A Heatsink itself can get fairly warm from just cooling a CPU, but it'll have to cool the load of a CPU, a GPU and a couple TECs. A good quality Air Cooler is like 70 - 80 bucks each, so you're lookin at about 4 air coolers over 2 TECs. Of course you can undervolt TECs but by doing that, you lower their ability to move high amounts of heat aswell as their ability to lower temperatures. The reason people don't do air cooling is it's just not as powerful as watercooling.

Now that is not to say; don't attempt it. If it works well, I'd even eat my words. But if you think of it logically, to cool the mentioned 638W, you'ed still need 3 of those Accelero GPU Coolers as their max cooling capacity is 300W TDP. From what I can see, they don't look that space friendly if you have more than 2 of them.

I don't mean to have such a pessimistic attitude, infact I'll be checking up on the numbers for this, and seeing if I can come up anything to help you out. One question I'd need answered is what kind of overclock are you looking for if you did something like this? And what voltage were you looking to run these at? The standard 12V?

I took a look at and so far it seems like your best bet is three of these http://www.customthermoelectric.com/tecs/pdf/12711-5M31-15CQ_spec_sht.pdf (They are the run of the mill eBay TECs, might be labeled as around 230W TEC).
At 12V they pull 11.75V each, so you would have to get something beefier than a Molex connector. Might even have to use something beefier than a 6pin PCIE.

If you do not overclock, you're total load that needs to be cooled, is about 245W. With 3 of these running at 12V, you would be able to achieve about a 24°C difference from the hot side (the heatsink) without losses taken into account. Now depending on how well the Accelero preforms, you will still need 3 of them as the total heat than needs to be removed is:

TECs: 12V * 12A * 3TECs = 432W
CPU: 95W
GPU: 150W
Total = 677W = 226W per HeatSink

The question is, how warm will the Accelero be.

The °C/W of the Accelero is about 0.0558 according to this review.

GTX 470 = 215W
Stock 470 Temp with Cooler = 37°C - 25°C (ambient) = 12°C Delta

12°C / 215W = 0.0558°C/W

We can calculate what the cooler temperatures should be with the °C/W by:

226W (Per Heat Sink ) * 0.0558°C/W = 12.6°C + 25°C = 37.6°C (This is a theoretical number and is probably not that accurate).
Not taking losses into consideration, with the approximate 24°C delta of the TECs I found earlier, you will get a minimum coolant temperature of 13.6°C at full load with no overclock.

If you got a mild overclock on your CPU (135W), you will have 239W per Heat Sink and that will result in 38.3°C on the hotside and 22.3°C on the cold side. This isn't as bad of performance as I thought it would be, and if this is your goal, it seems plausible but really not much better than watercooling.

Just for giggles, if you had an extreme overclock on your processor (200W), you would have 39.5°C hotside, and 31.5°C coldside. Probably less preformance than watercooling with a single triple radiator.

You have to remember, this is without losses taken into account! Depending on your craftsmanship and certain factors, you may get 5 degrees or higher in your end temperature. Meaning it will be warmer than what I've calculated. Other factors could be that the °C/W is not correct (could be higher or even lower).

My recommendation is if you were to do this, get a 4th TEC and a 4th cooler and you should be set. It would result in (for a 200W OC) 37.9°C hotside, and 17.9°C coldside.

EDIT: I took a look at the numbers doing the correct math, and I found I wasn't that far off with my previous numbers, but I did manage to get lower numbers that previously.
Edited by Krow - 7/8/12 at 11:54pm

I've seen too many people on this forum that are pretty high and mighty, we're here to help each other out. Not slap em up side the head when they think differently. Having your ideas heard builds encouragement and is the first step in building something awesome.


Actually that's almost true of phase. Phase is intended (usually) to just cool a CPU, and it's usually a 1:1 Power Ratio (same as a well planned TEC System). Phase just results in a whole lot higher Deltas.

You could squeeze more preformance out of a rig like this if you used the 62mm 400Qmax TEC from customthermoelectric, but you would also have to use copper plates to get the Accelero cooling the entire surface of it. I would be surprized if the Accelero isn't any bigger than 50mm x 50mm on the coldplate. It would generate nearly as much heat, but it would move almost twice as much heat transfer capability. If you want me to the calculations with those, just let me know.

EDIT: I did the numbers for it anyway, without taking losses into account, using the 62mm 400Qmax TEC, assuming a 200W OC on the CPU.

You could achieve a cold side temperature of 22.5°C with 3 TECs and 3 Coolers, or you could achieve a cold side temp of 7.9°C with 4 TECs and 4 Coolers.
Edited by Krow - 7/9/12 at 12:14am

I`m sorry but how are you going to fit all this into a micro atx case ? I`m perplexed .

Up the side of the case lol I was wondering that too, but I figured I'd just leave that part to him.