While Intel and AMD might be doing more to lower the operating temperatures of their processors, overclocking them still causes some high temps, especially if the case is chockfull of other performance components. This generally causes builders and buyers to switch to effiecient-yet-costly liquid-cooling systems. Vigor Gaming, a small gaming PC vendor, has been investing in another solution, though: the Monsoon Active TEC CPU Cooling System. Here’s Vigor’s explaination on how it works:
The thermoelectric cooler (TEC), or Peltier Cooler, is a solid-state heat pump that uses the Peltier effect to move heat. The modern commercial TEC consists of a number of p- and n- type semiconductor couples connected electrically in series and thermally in parallel. These couples are sandwiched between two thermally conductive and electrically insulated substrates. The heat’s pumping direction can be changed by altering the polarity of the charging DC current.
Did you get all that? Well, just know that it’s an efficient way to cool an overclocked processor without the headaches or expense of setting up a liquid-cooling system inside your PC. At least it is according to a review on ExtremeTech. The site says while the first version was less than impressive, the second-generation pulls off dropping the temperature as promised. Albeit, at the cost of $149 and some above-average fan noise.
Vigor Gaming Updates Its Peltier-on-a-Chip Cooler [ExtremeTech]
Vigor Gaming Monsoon II [Product page]