SubZero4G™ cooler by Thermaltake

[bum_jcrules]

Anyone looked at this thing yet. I don't like peltiers but this has some promise. <A HREF="http://www.thermaltake.com/products/subzero/subzero4g.htm" target="_new">Thermaltake SubZero4G™</A>

I wonder if anyone (Good reviw sites) has done some testing yet. Anyone seen anything? I haven't.

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[Quetzacoatl]

Wow, I didn't know it was out already. Well, it can't be that bad, most peltiers have very good cooling performance, although it also highly depends on the fan/water cooling that disipates the heat.

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

 

[svol]

Totally waste of money and energy. Why? Look here: <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=656817#656817" target="_new">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=656817#656817</A>

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3200 RAM!
--- PM me for information.

 

[bum_jcrules]

[steps onto soapbox]

Here is the thing. Like I said before... I am not a fan of peltiers due to the heat disipation problems thus the meltdowns. Why then is Thermaltake looking into this as a solution to use with the public?

What is it that they are trying to do with them? Why the reintroduction of this form of cooling?

I think that with the right design that it could be a viable cooling solution. Now would I still rather have a water or air cooling unit. Most likely. But this could have some promise.

The 0.17C/W is a nice figure at 75W.

Think about it from this direction... As dies get smaller it will continue to become harder to cool them with the conventional cooling methods that we have now. First you have a shrinking surface area. So it is getting harder to disipate the heat of the die across to the heatsink. Secondly you have increasing masses for HSFs on an ever shrinking die. You now have higher chances of damaging that die.

So I think what they are after is getting a way to get more heat off the die, onto a larger surface area, and then onto a HSF combo. Same idea as from the begining. But I think that as the dies shrink in size we will need better ways to get the heat away from them.

Again I am not saying that this is the best soluton but I would like to see some sites review this product. I would love to see Tom, Anand or Kyle put it on any one of their die simulators and crank it up to 125W. See if this thing fails. If it doesn't, then it could be a viable solution now and going forward. Would you not agree? I don't want to pass final judgement on it until I see it in action.

There has to be a reason that they have put it throught the UL, FCC, CE, and VCCI saftey approval process.

[Steps down from soapbox]

Back to you...

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[svol]

There has been a review of a smiliair system here:
<A HREF="http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=43" target="_new">http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=43</A>

Only a decrease in temp of 3C at full speed isn't worth the enormous power and heat generation inside your case. But yes the idle temps sure rock... however they don't say anything.
And please remember that we are talking about an peltier around 75W. Which means the peltier can only move 75W from cold to hot side. If the CPU generates more then the peltier will start heating the cold side too. Say the CPU runs at full power 75W and the peltier runs that high too... that makes 150W at the hot side.
Now this stupid cooler cooling the cold side (stupid because they use aluminium instead of copper) only has a heat disapption rate of 0.38C/W (that is the value for the Volcano 9... and they look very similair to them). This means a heatsink temp of 57C + 20C ambient makes 77C. Do you want something like that in your case?
And a peltier at max power with his max heat input (Qmax) doesn't have a deltaT of 69C anymore... but just something around 25C (depends on which peltier they use). So that makes a cold side temp of 52C.

Peltier with aircooling as future cooling isn't possible without enormous aircooling. The peltier needs to be 80W for a 3.06GHz... and how much will it be in the future? 100W? Try to cool that with aircooling.

No, you can only use peltiers on your CPU with watercooling if you want to OC.

And the surface of the core can be easely increased by placing a full copper coldplate on it as factory default.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.

 

[JAGedlion]

The other problem with peltiers is that they're not close to 100% efficient, the last # I heard was 10% from an electronic engineer, hey maybe there have been advaces but i doubt its even 50% efficient.

 

[svol]

Well IIRC they do have close to 100% efficiency with no heat input at the cold side... but that degrades with higher heat input.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.

 

[JAGedlion]

What in the world is IIRC?

A cpu puts out more watts than a light bulb, do you know how much the performance will degrade?

 

[LtBlue14]

If I Recall Correctly =)
you'll find it all over the boards

and it depends which light bulb
--------------

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq&notfound=1&code=1" target="_new">mubla otohp eht ni ecaf ruoy teg</A>

 

[Paul2200]

COUGH... thermalright slk-800 works fine... cough cough...

No, seriously though... I've never been a fan of peltiers (pardon the pun ). But then again, I've never been too fond of water-cooling either. Basically, I'm very much a believer of "if it ain't broke, dont fix it." Besides, there's a reason that the majority (a VERY large percentage) of pc users use air-cooling...

But of course, I too am eager to see reviews of this product.. no sure way to tell until the reviews come out. Who knows? Maybe they hit a home run with this thing...

-Paul<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by paul2200 on 12/17/02 09:35 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[svol]

What's wrong with watercooling? I love it.

And most PC use aircooling because it is the cheapest and most simple way.

My PC eats so much money that I'm in 'desperate' need of it to buy PC3500 RAM, help Svol with his OC project!
--- PM me for information.