Peltier cooling GTX480 SLI and i7 suggestions

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xkon

[H]ard|Gawd
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So I've done a little research on the peltier stuff, still am researching it, and would like to get a little insight. I'm building a small SLI system specs:

sx58h7 mobo
i7 920 c0
6gb ddr3
2x 480gtx
3x ocz vertex or 1x 160gb intel x25m

I want to use peltiers for the GPU's and the CPU. ~320w for the GPUs and a ~220 for the CPU. Does that sound about right? Or do I have things backwards here? i7 920 = 130w TDP, GTX480 = 250w TDP... Overkill? Totally wrong way to calculate? Polite suggestions are very welcome.

If I'm running it that way, what sort of PSU should I get? I'm planning to run the system with an Antec SG-850, possibly adding a meanwell PSU if needed. Or, might I use my 1200w Thermaltake instead? I'm trying to avoid using the Thermaltake as it's a bit big. I'm also thinking about trading it in for a 1000w unit that is smaller, would that work? How about a 65A 12v rail PCP&C 750w silencer running on it's own just for the peltiers with the antec 850 (I can stack the two, but the length of most 1000+ units are just too long?

Cooling will be sufficient I think. I have 2x 240 radiators, and will be adding a 480 or 2x 360 rads. That's enough I hope? The mobo and video cards will have plenty of insulation. FC waterblock + peltier = bad?

Writing this stuff down just gave me a bunch more ideas... but that can wait for later. Let me know what you guys think.
 
FYI, so many of these threads pop up and get shot down. Pelt cooling is not efficient in the slightest as it takes so much to cool the hot side and they drink power. You'll be better off sticking with high-end water cooling.
 
I don't really understand your figures.
You'll need peltier elements rated to transfer the given amount of heat.
Since the only even marginally sensible reason for using peltier in the first place is a desire for massive overclocking, the heat provided is somewhere above the original TDP.
You'll probably looking at peltiers rated for 200W transfer for the CPU and 300W for each GPU.
Each peltier can be expected to require up to thrice the amount of heat transferred in order to get it done, so you'll need to be able to feed those suckers up to a total of 200A 12V.
Then you'll need some means to remove all of those 3.2 kW of heat, plus the rest of the heat generated by the computer...

In short, those numbers should be enough to keep you away from any form of peltier cooling, not even starting to get into all the technical problems stemming from having below ambient temperatures...

Cheers
Olle
 
Olle P said:
I don't really understand your figures.
You'll need peltier elements rated to transfer the given amount of heat.
Since the only even marginally sensible reason for using peltier in the first place is a desire for massive overclocking, the heat provided is somewhere above the original TDP.
You'll probably looking at peltiers rated for 200W transfer for the CPU and 300W for each GPU.
Each peltier can be expected to require up to thrice the amount of heat transferred in order to get it done, so you'll need to be able to feed those suckers up to a total of 200A 12V.
Then you'll need some means to remove all of those 3.2 kW of heat, plus the rest of the heat generated by the computer...

In short, those numbers should be enough to keep you away from any form of peltier cooling, not even starting to get into all the technical problems stemming from having below ambient temperatures...

Cheers
Olle
Click to expand...

Ding ding
See what i mean?

You'd be better off going for a double rad on the cpu and atleast triple on the 480's and leave it at that. The only extreme option as such is to fork out a heap of money for phase change.
 
Olle P said:
I don't really understand your figures.
You'll need peltier elements rated to transfer the given amount of heat.
Click to expand...
full cover waterblocks for the gpu's. will those work?
Olle P said:
Since the only even marginally sensible reason for using peltier in the first place is a desire for massive overclocking, the heat provided is somewhere above the original TDP.
You'll probably looking at peltiers rated for 200W transfer for the CPU and 300W for each GPU.
Click to expand...
Yes, all I want is overclocking power, and those numbers look like what I was expecting to have to buy.
Olle P said:
Each peltier can be expected to require up to thrice the amount of heat transferred in order to get it done, so you'll need to be able to feed those suckers up to a total of 200A 12V.
Click to expand...
This number really hasn't hit me yet; how much power it's actually going to take to do this. I'm just staring at that number, once it processes in my head I'll probably be blown away and cry in the corner for my dreams have been dashed from me!
Olle P said:
Then you'll need some means to remove all of those 3.2 kW of heat, plus the rest of the heat generated by the computer...
Click to expand...
not too worried about this. where there's a will, there's a way.
Olle P said:
In short, those numbers should be enough to keep you away from any form of peltier cooling, not even starting to get into all the technical problems stemming from having below ambient temperatures...

Cheers
Olle
Click to expand...
Thanks for the push away. I was hoping it'd be easier to swallow, but now i'm thinking chilled liquid cooling instead. Would that be any better?

Rossi~ said:
FYI, so many of these threads pop up and get shot down. Pelt cooling is not efficient in the slightest as it takes so much to cool the hot side and they drink power. You'll be better off sticking with high-end water cooling.
Click to expand...
Yep. A lot of FAIL in the peltier world. I don't think I've seen many that were WIN, if any at all. I guess I should look for other alternatives. I just want sub ambient temps! What will I have to do? run tubes into my freezer? hmm.... there's an idea....
Rossi~ said:
Ding ding
See what i mean?

You'd be better off going for a double rad on the cpu and atleast triple on the 480's and leave it at that. The only extreme option as such is to fork out a heap of money for phase change.
Click to expand...
eh, that takes up too much space, and phase change was already considered but I didn't approve for some reason. So then, what's more efficient, peltier cooling or chilled liquid?
Thing is, I want to do sub ambient but don't need it on all the time, or if it is on all the time i don't need it at -200 degrees below.
How about some peltiers between two copper waterblocks, running parallel. one for the hot side to the rads, and the chilled side to the system? ahh.... thanks for making me stew on this. I just remember that I saw this somewhere. /w double TRUEs
 
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If you go chilled liquid, how are you going to chill that liquid? That will require similar space to phase change.
 
Spare-Flair said:
If you go chilled liquid, how are you going to chill that liquid? That will require similar space to phase change.
Click to expand...

yes it will consume a lot of space, but the main gripe with phase change wasn't the space. I think I'm just prejudiced towards it, mostly because last time I looked it'd be $800 for a single phase unit. I'll have to rig up 3 in order to cool the gpus and the cpu. either that or make a rig for one, but i'm not sure if that'll do any good. So cost is just a bit over the top. Plus running them constant would just be ridiculous.
I think I may just go with the sandwiched peltier idea. Unless the power draw is immense. 3.2Kw of heat is a lot of heat to disperse.
 
J32P said:
Is there a certain version or brand(the' brand)? Just wondering.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Some guys over at XtremeSystems forums will build you a custom setup, or there's Prometeia (Mach series) and Asetek (VapoChill) (if they're even still in business?). If I were going to put the time and money in I'd pay up and get a custom built, custom tuned system. I'd love to build it myself, but the manifolds and such required are way too pricey -- the guys building these things are almost all professional HVAC technicians, so they already have the equipment on hand and have the licenses necessary to obtain and use the various gasses necessary. Of course, if you're crazy enough propane works too... There's just the whole "explosive" issue.

If you go standard prebuilt (VapoChill Lightspeed, Mach II GT or similar) it's going to run you ~$600-700. If you go custom prebuilt (lower evaporator head temperatures, better cooling) it'll probably run closer to $1000. If you get a full custom setup, tuned to your system, possibly with multiple heads, it could run anywhere from $1000 to $3000, depending on what you want done. Phase isn't cheap. Then again, neither is a good water loop once you start adding things up, but that normally covers all your heat producing components, where phase is almost always CPU only, and on rare occasion GPU as well.
 
I'll be getting my second 480 in today, honestly this heat issue is being WAY overblown I think, definately for one card but we'll see how two do. But I had three 280s in this rig and the combined heat from 3 280s can't be that much less than 2 480s. All I'm going to do is crank my side fan from medium to high and put in a VGA slot cooler, that will control things I think. And I'll have them side by side.
 
xkon said:
FC waterblock + peltier = bad?
Click to expand...
I missed this one the first time.
It's not only bad, it's impossible! The peltier should be placed between the GPU and the cooling block. For full cover of the card you'll either need a specially designed block with a peltier built in to cover the GPU, or a GPU block plus a separate block that covers everyething except for the GPU area. AFAIK neither of these exist as off the shelf products.

xkon said:
How about some peltiers between two copper waterblocks, running parallel. one for the hot side to the rads, and the chilled side to the system?
Click to expand...
That could work in theory, but it will take a couple of high power peltiers side by side to transfer the >800W of heat produced while under load. (And the separate 3.2kW 12V to feed them. And the ability to cool off the 4kW while keeping the hot side of the pelts at a reasonable level.)
The nice part is that you can use valves and Y-fittings to make it two separate loops when using the peltiers while running it in a single loop, bypassing the pelts, when you don't want them in use.

xkon said:
This number really hasn't hit me yet; how much power it's actually going to take to do this. I'm just staring at that number, once it processes in my head I'll probably be blown away and cry in the corner for my dreams have been dashed from me!
Click to expand...
With pelts your computer (while at 100% load) can be expected to draw about 4kW from the PSUs, which at 80% power efficiency means 5kW off the wall sockets.
That's enough heat produced to keep a full size living room (properly insulated) warm and cosy when it's -40 outside!

xkon said:
I just want sub ambient temps! What will I have to do? run tubes into my freezer? ... Thing is, I want to do sub ambient but don't need it on all the time, or if it is on all the time i don't need it at -200 degrees below.
Click to expand...
Why not do it the way it's often done around here in Scandinavia: Regular water cooling with long tubes for an external radiator. Anti-freeze agent in the water. When it's winter and sub-zero temps are required for the computer the radiator is placed outside the window. Done!
 
you guys sure are good at depressing me. now i'm thinking cooling with a phase/compressor system. i'm also on xtremesystems asking them, but there are far fewer willing to help. i think they love bashing on pelt cooling, and i can see why. thanks for all the info! steered me clear of a high electric bill. any other options i should consider?
 
Personally, a dual loop watercooling system would be my first choice.

A quad 120mm radiator for GPU and a triple, or quad for CPU, one pump for each and full cover blocks for the GPU's. That would be a great setup with plenty of bling to boot.

Alternatively you could go Cryo-Z for the CPU, and that will really only run you about $100 more than a good CPU watercooling loop. And still do water for the gpu's.

Keep in mind Cryo-Z was not designed for the heat output of the i7 CPU's, so don't go into it expecting amazing temps. A highly overclocked i7 on a Cryo-Z can expect -10c evap temp on idle and loads barely in the negatives if not single digit positives. Still good compared to straight water or air, but not what most are used to expecting from a single stage phase unit.
 
Yeah, you could try the Cryo-Z for your CPU and Water loop for your GPUs. The thing about Peltier cooling is that it's power intensive and noisy to boot, because one side of it still needs to be fan cooled. Take a look at the Coolermaster V10 if you want to see a classic example of Peltier cooling for the CPU.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/774

Phase Change isn't perfectly quiet either, but it sounds more like refrigeration hum, because in essence it uses the same tech.
 
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1509883 - Here I posted some TEC-cooling links. Summary: TECs can be used to chill water when multiple (8+ of the largest kind) are run in parallel at low voltage. This is costly (require custom chiller blocks, more radiators, more space, voltage-adjustable PSU or simply a chosen static low voltage (12v rail can be split to 6v easily)), but it's the only way to use TECs efficiently.

- To direct-cool with TECs, you'd need to run a 600w Q TEC (or dual 62mm TECs if you can fit them. One guy on Xtremesystems did this a long time ago with a huge rectangular block... fit on his mobo somehow) + a custom waterblock. You'd need more radiators to deal with the heat output of the TECs... not worth it on modern CPUs.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1506552 - In this thread I discuss various cooling solutions, and then provide a little DIY phase-change cooling guide, complete with some of the better links on the subject. The easiest route is to convert an A/C into a water-chiller. If you don't want to deal with condensation, you can chill to just above the dew point, and the efficiency won't be too bad at all.

My opinions:

- TEC-waterchilling would be awesome, but it's too expensive, and to maintain decent efficiency we're limited to about 20-25C below ambient water temps (which is pretty good I suppose).
- Phase change is very effective, and a phase-change water-chiller is the most versatile route to cool the entire system. I wouldn't want one for 24/7 duty, however, and they can be loud. I've recently become obsessed with quiet-computing...
 
With pelts your computer (while at 100% load) can be expected to draw about 4kW from the PSUs, which at 80% power efficiency means 5kW off the wall sockets.
That's enough heat produced to keep a full size living room (properly insulated) warm and cosy when it's -40 outside!
Click to expand...

Holy shit! :eek:
 
TEC cooling is extremely inefficient.
I've done extreme watercooling, TEC cooling, and phase change cooling before companies even had commercial units out (days danger den was just starting out).

Playing with peltiers was fun, but in the end phase change was way better and more efficient.
 
Mr. Baz said:
TEC cooling is extremely inefficient.
I've done extreme watercooling, TEC cooling, and phase change cooling before companies even had commercial units out (days danger den was just starting out).

Playing with peltiers was fun, but in the end phase change was way better and more efficient.
Click to expand...


This is about the era where my cooling history started too. Vapochill had just came out and everybody was snapping the lugs off of their Socket 370 & Socket A motherboards :) And we were getting bitchin overclocks off of P3's and AMD T-Birds. *sigh* ahh the good old days.

Peltier cooling has always been extremely inefficient power wise. Most i saw had to heavilly insulate the socket area to keep condensation away. And even at that point you have to basically put a good watercooling rig together to cool the pelts anyway. I actually owned a Vapochill and it was good stuff but it was heavy as hell so no lan parties.

I mirror what others have said and just build 2 loops, 1 for GPU and 1 for CPU and it'll be great. or if you want to go for the gusto get the OCZ setup for the CPU and water for the GPU's.
 
If you are intent on TEC, I would just use peltiers to chill liquid for a WC loop as you can build it separately and isolated and it's a lot less messy even though you don't have much more reduced cooling potential.
 
Not sure how you would use Pelts to cool any modern system to be honest with you.

I messed with cooling old Celeron 500's back in the day, and even at just 110w each the amount of cooling that was required to get the hot side cool enough to sustain CPU temps under load was very hard to do.

In the end I ended up with twin external power supplies, twin external water cooling loops, HUGE radiators, and just general insanity. In this setup I could hold CPU temps at about 50'F under load, and get down to 28'F at idle. If you wanted to cool a modern CPU, the size, power requirements, and cooling needs of the TEC would be pretty scary to say the least. It will be easier, cheaper, and safer to go phase, not to mention you would have much better results.
 
I ran a pelt on my AMD 1600+ which ran at 1.4GHz stock.
I was able to O/C the CPU to 2GHz and run at 42 F.
But like the guys said before me, they use A LOT of energy and cooling this is tough.
I had a car radiator mounted outside my window with a push/pull fans.
It also helped that the temps outside were below freezing.
Plus you have to deal with sweating hoses.

It's fun to play with, but a nightmare to maintain!!!!!
 
The Boreas TEC from Coolit is what you are looking for. No water cooled set-up can compete with it, period. If you want to run it at 100% all the time and are worried about condensation, I can give you a simple fix for that as well. Follows is a screen of what to expect from a Boreas...;)

ScreenHunter_01Apr182208.jpg


DSC00346-2.jpg
 
Here is a Thuban/Crosshair being prepared with Dragon Skin...no condensation worries here. :)

DSC00459.jpg
 
OK, I'm going to need more info on this setup!
I have no problem running a pelt at work!:D:D
 
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