Vigor Gaming TEC CPU cooler

1

#1Filipino

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 25, 2008
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94
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835702002

Does anyone have experience with this TEC cooling? Also is there a chance of water condensing with a TEC cooler? If this type of cooling is just as efficient as Liquid cooling I might just use this on the cpu on a new planned build and just air cooling the graphics cards. So whats your opinions on TEC coolers, and their positives and negatives.
 
I own a Coolit Eliminator (coolit website) and I do not suffer from condensation building up on the processor. It is just like a regular water loop pre-built and the cooling mechanism is located near the pump.

The major con of using a TEC cooler is the power consumption. I think the unit I own uses 52 watts at the highest setting. That doesn't seem to be a big issue for you though seeing you have some power to put behind it. Also, the pump is kind of bulky and requires a place to mount it on a 120mm or 90mm fan port.

Temperature wise, processor stays at 30c idle and 41c on load in an air conditioned room roughly 70F. The product you're looking at though I never had an experience using it.
 
Had one when I built a dual core e6600. Cooled it effectively, but fell flat when I hooked up on my quad core. Overall, I did'nt see much difference between that and High end air cooling.
 
If your not going for extreme overclocking, i'd have to agree with zipdrive on this one
Only if your itention is to OC crazy use tec/ phasechange cooling.
For the mild over clocks theres nothing that a nice simple copper HSF cant handle for a fraction of the costs and it wont ante up ur cost of hydro much =)
 
My wife uses one for cooling a P4 3.73EE and has had no problems with it. Is it better than other options? Maybe/maybe not she used because we had it laying around not being used.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
My wife uses one for cooling a P4 3.73EE and has had no problems with it. Is it better than other options? Maybe/maybe not she used because we had it laying around not being used.
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TECs are good for some very specific applications (ie extreme overclocking with a good phase change or at least WC system to back it up). For mild to moderate overclocks, the TEC adds a lot of complexity with little to no benefit. The TEC will transfer heat from the chip to the heatsink faster than just having a heatpipe setup, BUT it also take energy to move that heat, which in turn produces additional heat. This means that in the end, you're still limited mainly by the amount of heat that the heatsink can dissapate (and you're going to have more heat being produced than without the TEC). Basically, that's why a TEC will never perform much better than a high end air cooler in MOST applications.
 
I know how and why they work. I make TEC based enclosures to regulate the temperature of our fish tanks ;) For her application I can't say specifically if it is better since I have not compared two or more data points.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
I know how and why they work. I make TEC based enclosures to regulate the temperature of our fish tanks ;) For her application I can't say specifically if it is better since I have not compared two or more data points.
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Well, I was explaining for the benefit of the OP, and looking back I have no idea why I quoted you in my post.

My point in that for most applications it won't be better than a good air-cooling system because it is ultimately limited by how well the heatsink attached to the TEC can dissapate heat. In most air cooled applications, the heatsink is already dissapating heat cloe to or at its maximum capacity when under load, so the addition of a TEC only generates more heat that must be dissapated. The real advantages of TEC become apparent when you used something like phase change cooling that has a much higher thermal capacity.
 
#1Filipino said:
So i have to hook up a liquid cooling system for this?
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The TEC you linked to uses air cooling, so you would need a different TEC designed for water cooling, IF you wanted to go that route. My point is that a quality air cooling solution (such as the TRUE) will perform just as well as the Vigor TEC, while costing much less.
 
Its just fine to buy stuff because you want it though. TEC does not have the be the best cash investment around, however it definitely adds an extra trick into your PC that you would not otherwise have. Tons of people spend $ to buy cases with windows, fan controllers, panel mount LCDs readouts, and none of that stuff really adds any extra performance. Its all just one more fun thing to have, just like this TEC cooler is to some people. Its not like this TEC is worse than most air coolers.
 
ocellaris said:
Its just fine to buy stuff because you want it though. TEC does not have the be the best cash investment around, however it definitely adds an extra trick into your PC that you would not otherwise have. Tons of people spend $ to buy cases with windows, fan controllers, panel mount LCDs readouts, and none of that stuff really adds any extra performance. Its all just one more fun thing to have, just like this TEC cooler is to some people. Its not like this TEC is worse than most air coolers.
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Okaaaay, but the OP asked about it's effectiveness. Why would you spend an extra $100+ to get no real-world benefits, no aesthetic benefits, and only the ability to say that you now use more power than you need to, create more heat than you need to, but have AWESOME TEC YO!!!11!eleven!!11 At least with windows, LCDs, etc. there is some sort of aesthetic factor at play, as well as some usefulness in the case of LCDs and fan controllers. I spent more money on my P182 than I needed to on a case, but I liked the way it looked, and my computer is something I have to look at every day. You may feel okay spending money on something just because you feel there is some mystique surrounding it, but I like to get something from the products I buy.
 
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