sooooo i want to make a chiller

Originally Posted by M4goo

Dont put a radiator in the cold loop. This would be working to re-heat chilled water from the tec-chiller. Put the extra rad' in the hot-side loop.

Originally Posted by flak-spammer

Ah but you see a well engineered chiller doesn't need the added support of a radiator on cold side, and potentially has almost as much surface area to cool as an average radiator.

Originally Posted by flak-spammer

You have to remember that the intent of a chiller is to have it chill and completely cool the hot stuff. Then the radiators completely cool the chiller.

Originally Posted by un-nefer

I honestly doubt a 40mmx40mmx10mm TEC block can achieve the same surface area as a 360mm radiator, especially a home made TEC block. Muffy's block is arguably the best designed block for surface area atm, and even it would not have the same surface area as a decent 360mm radiator.

However considering the better thermal conductivity of copper, it doesn't have to have as good a surface area - it could have half the surface area and be as good - but a 360mm rad still has at least 20x more tube/fin area then even Muffy's block

Or put it this way, a 360mm radiator can remove 600watts of heat - the better 40mm TEC can remove around ~226w at full power.


I totally understand, which is why I suggested both options to the OP in the post you replied to

BUT, if the water temp exiting the last GPU waterblock goes above ambient with the chiller in place, then using a radiator to cool that water temp back to ambient is definitely a good option.

Remember, we are not talking about a simple TEC chiller cooling a can of cola or something - to remove the heat generated by modern a CPU/GPU you need A LOT of qmax from your TEC chiller as you need to remove a lot of heat:

ie.
AMD 955 @ 4ghz = ~220w
HD5970 OC = ~440w
HD5870 OC = ~220w

That's ~880w of heat

Say your chiller's blocks are 75% efficient, you'd need TECs with a qmax total in the region of 1200w just to match the heat being generated - and I don't know of any group of 4 40mm TECs that can achieve that much qmax.

Now consider a decent 240mm radiator can remove 400w of heat - you will now only need TECs with a qmax total in the region of 800w, and that is quite achievable with 4x TECs.

You can see how adding a radiator to the cold loop can be of benefit, depending on your system.




EDIT: Just wanted to say that the above is very oversimplified, and I'm sure others will go into detail and correct me if needed

Originally Posted by Ultrasonic2 (muffy)

well then your better off having more rads than a chiller and a rad in the same loop THE WHOLE point of the chiller is so you can go below ambient but if your unable to do that then there's NO point in .it

Originally Posted by Ultrasonic2 (muffy)

Oh and dont for a second suggest you should degrease the low rate to create a DELTA that DOESN'T help at ALL it actually makes the situation worse