[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]A TEC element moves heat from one side to the other. Therefore it has a cold side and a hot side. If you want the cold side to remove a bunch of heat, you need to remove a bunch of heat from the hot side. To do that you either need a much larger than normal sink, or a water cooler.What, you thought the heat just...vanished? TEC's aren't 100% efficient, they actually make more heat as they're moving heat from one side to the other. There are TEC-equipped air coolers, but they can't remove much heat because the sink isn't big enough for that purpose.It's explained in more detail here:http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1565.html[/citation]
Thank you very much for the info, kinda changed my mind about going thermoelectric; used to think it was the best of both worlds. I'll give that review a read tonight, how would a TEC stand against one of these more modern HSF solutions? Or even an H50? had my eye on that one for awhile until I saw the Sunbeam core contact freezer pretty much destroy it..