Peltier becomes commodity for CPU cooling

EVEN THOUGH THE cooling needs of CPUs of today are showing great improvements in the field of power consumption and dissipation, with AMD leading the way with its new 65nm CPUs, you still need efficient thermal control for the fastest CPUs.

Ultra Products just launched the ChillTec cooler, which combines classical aluminium-copper cooler with solid-state active Peltier element. Peltiers, or TECs (Thermo-Electric Cooler) are bi-metal heat pumps that use electrical current to pump the heat from one copper plate to another, cooling the first, and heating the second plate.

ChillTec looks monstrous... will be interesting to see how it works

Each plate has four heat pipes that lead to large fan cooled radiator. Since one of the main worries for TEC cooling is actually sub-zero temperatures and so condensation, Ultra will not power the TEC until CPU reaches a certain temperature, which is controlled either by software of by yourself, if you are certain that you know what will happen such as keeping the Kentie at 3.60 GHz at 40C.

The only worry we have is the massive weight of the ChillTec cooler. With 120mm fan, this baby will load the motherboard with almost one kilogram (0.98kg) or just above two pounds (2.16). Motherboards supported are all Socket 775 ones and your regular AMD's bunch - 754, 939 and 940 in both original and AM2 variants. This of course, means that the cooler will be compatible with upcoming AM2+ and AM3 sockets, giving this cooler a nice life-span of at least four years. We are not sure is this cooler compatible with Socket F, though (Opteron, Quad FX).

The price is set at $150, which touches complete watercooling products such as brilliant Corsair Nautilus 500, so we'll be taking an in-depth look when a review sample arrives. µ