Concept Arctic: 5L RGB Console-Sized Liquid-Cooled Case

Necere

Shrink Ray Wielder
NCASE
Feb 22, 2015
1,719
3,281
Fair point.

But what single GPU and CPU combo consumes 700w? Max this will need to realistically cool is 350w I would have thought?
The total system - CPU+GPU+TECs - is what will consume 700W+. TECs need a ton of power to pump heat, and it scales with both the heat load and temperature difference.

How a TEC performs is referred to as its Coeffecient of Performance (COP), and it varies based on heat load and delta-T (hot side minus cold side). Here's an example of a COP graph for a typical TEC:



A COP of 1.0 means it takes as much power to move the heat as the heat load. That is, if the heat load is 350W, the TEC needs 350W to move that heat. We see that on this particular graph, it hits a COP of 1.0 at a delta T of around 32C. The higher the delta T, the lower the COP, such that at a 50C delta T it's now below 0.5, or twice as much as the heat load being moved.

Now remember, any power being used by the TEC is heat that will need to be removed. So at that 50C delta T we now have the original heat load (350W), plus 700W being used by the TEC. That's 1,050W of heat that you now need to get rid of. You see how this quickly becomes a problem, and why "below 0 cooling" in a 5L case strains the limits of credulity?
 
Last edited:

Bryce

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Nov 12, 2017
8
1
I think Necere's point is that the thermoelectric devices generate also generate their own heat, potentially hurting the cooling potential more than they would help.

The reason why you don't see thermoelectric fridges all over, except in commercial locations, is because they're fairly inefficient. The cooling system in this case could cool up to 600W, however at peak it could create as much as 200W of additional heat, generating 800W of total heat. This is a major disadvantage of thermoelectric cooling vs. compressor systems.

However I work with compressor-based systems regularly, and I know first-glance that one powerful enough to continually cool 600W would not only be even louder while active, but also would never fit into such a small space. We could always make a bigger (and much heavier) version that uses compressor cooling, though, if anyone wants that.

EDIT: Oh, you already replied.
 

K888D

SFF Guru
Lazer3D
Feb 23, 2016
1,483
2,970
www.lazer3d.com
If your building a bespoke custom cooling solution into the case, why not just design a custom water loop that is part of the case itself with a massive heatsink? Seems bonkers to be introducing an extra 200w of heat and power consumption just so you can say you made a case out of a fridge.
 

Bryce

Cable Smoosher
Original poster
Nov 12, 2017
8
1
That would be the backup plan.

The idea is to get better overclocking potential. Even if your heatsink can keep up with the heat output of the card, you can still only go so high. You can go higher if the chip is kept cooler than ambient.
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,582
I don't think there ever will be. I don't doubt this projects legitimacy, but the pushy attitude, physics defying engineering, and Lack of true explanation make me believe this never can, or could, become a reality.
 

Duality92

Airflow Optimizer
Apr 12, 2018
307
330
There's no way he can dissipate 1kw of heat in a 5.3L case without him showing us anything relevant because if we take in comparison a regular watercooling loop, an Alphacool UT60 360, with high speed push/pull fans, is able to dissipate that much heat. That's 6 high speed 120mm fans and a radiator with a volume of 3L, 5.5L with fans...

Let's do some simple math, a short GPU with low profile waterblock would be approx 0.45L (170*130*20) (would be 0.65 for full length card like he's saying (250*130*20), plus a motherboard with LP block 0.87L (170*170*30), leaves 3.98L (3.78L for normal length GPU) for a PSU and entire radiator/fan setup.

An HDPlex DC-ATX 400W takes up 0.25L (160*51.5*30), so it's safe to assume this one will be AT LEAST twice that at 0.5L. That brings us to 3.48L (or 3.28L).

Riser cable will take up at least another 0.05L, 24-pin, 8-pin EPS, 8-pin PCIE (or two for higher end cards), SATA SSD, one single slot, with wires is at least 0.75L and we're down to almost 3L already.

That's not counting the rest of the wiring, which is an easy 0.5L.

AFTER all that, we're down to 2.5L scattered everywhere in the case. for cooling 1000W. I claim it isn't possible. Oh, I'm an engineer too and studied thermodynamics.