I've been checking out TEC tech (hah) lately, and it has me wondering if it would be possible to implement on a smaller scale to supplement a standard water cooling loop.
My goal is to have a standard liquid system absorb most of thermal output from the CPU (and perhaps other components), dissipate that heat with a standard radiator system to bring the coolant back down ~ambient, then have the coolant enter a TEC-chilled CPU block to reach further reduced temps before entering the actual CPU block to be warmed back up again. Since this is a 24/7, I'd like to do this with using as little power as possible and hopefully avoid having to use an additional PSU. I don't really want to be paying out the nose in my electricity bill every month. I'm just a hobbyist, after all
I know TEC experts have a dim view of using rads in their setups, but most people using TECs are chilling their systems to where temps at full load are (significantly) lower than ambient. In that case, using a rad would simply RAISE the coolant temp closer to ambient. This I understand. But, I'm trying to use TEC to push the water in my loop down modestly below ambient - as it hits the CPU, at least - to further bring down my processor load temps. After the coolant hits the CPU, it will naturally be warmed back up to above ambient once again, and the rads can do their job.
I'm hoping to get my 4.7ghz 3770k max temps down from:
99c peak on ITB set at Max Stress, Xtreme Stress mode
~95c peak on Prime95 blend
to somewhere in the 70c-80c range. (I know those load temps are high, but this is only during benchmarking. day-to-day load temps are between 60c-80c peak)
I've seen people try to do this before and they got pretty disappointing results. IIRC, something like a somewhat-beefy TEC only producing 1 degree cooler @idle, 7 degrees cooler @load. I'm wondering if this was the result of poor implementation (ineffective block or TEC hot-loop) or if this is just a pointless endeavor in the first place.
My question to the experts is this: What's the lowest-wattage TEC I could use to achieve somewhat decent results? How much power would that TEC ACTUALLY draw irl? Is this even worth the effort?
My goal is to have a standard liquid system absorb most of thermal output from the CPU (and perhaps other components), dissipate that heat with a standard radiator system to bring the coolant back down ~ambient, then have the coolant enter a TEC-chilled CPU block to reach further reduced temps before entering the actual CPU block to be warmed back up again. Since this is a 24/7, I'd like to do this with using as little power as possible and hopefully avoid having to use an additional PSU. I don't really want to be paying out the nose in my electricity bill every month. I'm just a hobbyist, after all
I know TEC experts have a dim view of using rads in their setups, but most people using TECs are chilling their systems to where temps at full load are (significantly) lower than ambient. In that case, using a rad would simply RAISE the coolant temp closer to ambient. This I understand. But, I'm trying to use TEC to push the water in my loop down modestly below ambient - as it hits the CPU, at least - to further bring down my processor load temps. After the coolant hits the CPU, it will naturally be warmed back up to above ambient once again, and the rads can do their job.
I'm hoping to get my 4.7ghz 3770k max temps down from:
99c peak on ITB set at Max Stress, Xtreme Stress mode
~95c peak on Prime95 blend
to somewhere in the 70c-80c range. (I know those load temps are high, but this is only during benchmarking. day-to-day load temps are between 60c-80c peak)
I've seen people try to do this before and they got pretty disappointing results. IIRC, something like a somewhat-beefy TEC only producing 1 degree cooler @idle, 7 degrees cooler @load. I'm wondering if this was the result of poor implementation (ineffective block or TEC hot-loop) or if this is just a pointless endeavor in the first place.
My question to the experts is this: What's the lowest-wattage TEC I could use to achieve somewhat decent results? How much power would that TEC ACTUALLY draw irl? Is this even worth the effort?
