peltiers take a lot of electricity. from people ive seen do it they had an extra 250watt psu just to powet the peltier. you also have to worry about water condensing, and you have to water cool the cold place because of the extreme heat produced. i things its more of a hassle than its worth, id just do a good water cooling setup
A peltier setup will work much better with a watercooled setup than an aircooled heatsink. First, you need to clamp the peltier element between a cold plate and heatsink(whether watercooled or aircooled), then attach the assembly to the proc. Then, you need to power the peltier, which means a dedicated psu that supplies the right voltage for your pelt (24v or 15v). Np computer psu is powerful enough to power both a plet and the computer and I doubt that any computer psu could handle the load of a high powered pelt (172-225 watt). I have messed with a peltier/watercooled setup and they can also be tricky in that the cold temps on the cold side mean that you need to insulate components to prevent moisture condensation too. If you want to know more about it, go to Dangerden's site. He has some links to some articles on pelt cooling.
I've read online that people that use Peltiers usually spray around the CPU socket with silicon. So in case it does build up any condensation then it will be less likely to hurt the motherboard/cpu.
Me personally, I think It'd be better to just stick with a Watercooling system, unless your going to be doing some hard-core overclocking.
One advantage of Pelts that you don't often here addressed is their controlability. All you need is a variable voltage power supply. You can use sensor and a controler to keep what ever temp you want. We use pelt coolers on lab equipment to prevent temp related drift.
There is no reason why you couldn't set one up with a good air cooler and aim to keep the cold side at 60F, or some temp that is above the dew point of the air. That would still be a lot colder than you would get with air or water cooling, but spare you the problems of condensation.
Yes, pelts are inefficent. If your CPU is drawing 75W, the pelt to cool it will draw 2-3x that power. They are fun to play with.
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Me personally, I think It'd be better to just stick with a Watercooling system, unless your going to be doing some hard-core overclocking.
There is no reason why you couldn't set one up with a good air cooler and aim to keep the cold side at 60F, or some temp that is above the dew point of the air. That would still be a lot colder than you would get with air or water cooling, but spare you the problems of condensation.
Yes, pelts are inefficent. If your CPU is drawing 75W, the pelt to cool it will draw 2-3x that power. They are fun to play with.