PC Cooling Options

I am currently planning the construction of a new PC from scratch (dual Itanium2s) and am in the market for an alternative cooling source. I have done quite a bit of research, online, in magazines, in scientific journals and through various engineers I am in contact with. I have come down to two possible cooling units: either a water cooled or with a Peltier element. For those who are unfamiliar with these two types of cooling, I have included two links below which may be of interest to you. Anyway, I have more information than I could possibly ever want regarding these cooling systems, but I want first-hand experience. Have any of you ever used either a water cooled system or the peltier element? If so, what do you think of it? Would you recommend it to anyone else?

Peltier Element Information
http://www.heatsink-guide.com/peltier.htm

Danger Den Water Cooling
http://www.dangerden.com/

AJ

Well, I'm planning a single-processor machine running an AMD, and I was planning to go with Air. I suppose you could do watercooling, but you'd need a large case, and it may run up to $200 for cooling components. Tom's Hardware had some good primers on it a while back. I dunno about peltiers, but if you plan to pack a ton of things into a case and cooling is important, and you have the dough, go with water. Otherwise (I don't know how hot dual Itaniums run) maybe go with a heavy-duty aircooling solution.

your peltier link didn't work...but here's one i found yesterday...

http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/cooling/peltier-1.html

until yesterday i hadn't heard about peltiers....but i was looking at a color ccd for my telescope and it comes with a peltier cooler...which cools to -15c ...chilly :eek: (although i do most sky watching in winter...so technically...in our area this would be a ccd "warmer"...hehe...

I want to go water cooling. If you are planning on overclocking pretty extremely, I'd go with a water cooled peltier. This does require an extra PSU, or power source because as you have read they require a lot of power. If you just want your PC optimal w/o OC'ing, get a couple nice heatsinks/fans and you'll do fine.

Normally, I'd recommend a KryoTech case, but apparently they're in-between projects right now. Which is too bad -- it's the best solution IMHO, but also pricey. But from what I've seen, water cooling is better, but I don't know if I'd trust either. One is a powerhog and overheats itself. The other put water in your computer -- it just makes me a bit leary.

the problem with peltier coolant systems is you can hardly ever shut off your machine, if you do you run a major risk. its much like a refrigerator in that it gets as cold as your processors heat up. when you turn off the computer, condensation will arise underneath the cooling pad, so you run the risk of shocking your machine and causing a meltdown. While not always the case, it does happen.
The same could be said of water cooling systems.
Personally, I would use lots of air. the right fans matched with the right heatsinks would do fine.

what about an ice-box...
www.vapochill.com

Quote:

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1,7GHz Intel Pentium 4 thermic accelerated to 2363MHz!

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(no hardware tweaks, just the fridge)

max

<edit> damn, didn't realise this was a poll, but i would have voted for the fridge anyway.

heheh...FREON! HARD CORE COOLING!