Ultra ChillTEC CPU Cooler

[Rob Williams]

With the summer heat right around the corner, you need to figure out a good way to keep your CPU cool. Has Ultra come to the rescue with their ChillTEC cooler? As the name suggests, it uses a Thermo-electric Chip to help moderate the temperature of your CPU. The big question is though: Is this Totally-Enormous-Cooler worth your $130?

You can read the full review here and discuss it here.

[THUMPer]

that things ugly

[madmat]

I think it's kinda cool looking since there's a shroud covering all the unfinished funky parts you see on so many heat pipe coolers these days.

To each his own though, one man's spirit is another man's poison and all that.

[Greg King]

I honestly think it looks good. I am just left wanting more out of it's performance.

[jonnyGURU]

I've taken one apart. Tried tweaking when the Peltier gets juice, how fast the fan spins, etc. Basically completely Frankensteined the thing.

I gave up.

If I ran the Peltier too long, the Peltier would overheat and ceased working. If I ran the fan too low, the cold side would overheat. This caused the Peltier to kick in and then the hot side would overheat!!! Aaaarrrghgh!!!!!!

I first looked at this thing with the same "could've done this", "could've done that" attitude. But finally concluded that MACS (the OEM) actually did put some thought into this thing. It's not their first TEC assisted air cooler. A Couple years ago, they had another version of this cooler and this is supposed to be the "improved" version.

[Greg King]

One design aspect if this cooler was that of the four heatpipes on the ChillTEC, two were attached under the peltier. One would think that the closer the TEC is to the CPU block, the better it would perform. This is also assuming that it is working far more than it does in the ChillTEC design where it's an on again off again type situation.

It's good to hear that you at least attempted the modification but unfortunate to hear that it didn't work out as well as we all would have hoped.

[jonnyGURU]

Originally Posted by DarkSynergy

One design aspect if this cooler was that of the four heatpipes on the ChillTEC, two were attached under the peltier. One would think that the closer the TEC is to the CPU block, the better it would perform.

Of course, but if the TEC fails or the control unit needs to shut the TEC off because it's going to overheat (the TEC, not the CPU), you need to have the pipes there to maintain a decent temperature on the CPU.

And that's the whole point of the temperature number on the LCD. It's the temp of the probe located between the coldplate/heatpipes and the TEC. It's not meant to be a CPU temperature. If you see the number go up, then hear the fan kick in and then see the number drop significantly, you know the TEC is working.

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

With the summer heat right around the corner, you need to figure out a good way to keep your CPU cool. Has Ultra come to the rescue with their ChillTEC cooler? As the name suggests, it uses a Thermo-electric Chip to help moderate the temperature of your CPU. The big question is though: Is this Totally-Enormous-Cooler worth your $130?

You can read the full review here and discuss it here.

Yesterday was hot, very hot! It was 88deg F in my Room. The Ultra ChillTEC kept the CPU Core temp at 98deg F. When playing Halo 2 it climed to 110deg F, not too dang bad.
As for the worthless controll Unit, mine works fine and even though I'd like to see something other than the little Guy digging, He does grow on you.
I would like more controll over how things work but it works well without me tinkering with it.
Ultra is a Co based out of Ohio. I don't know where they make the Unit, probabaly China or some 3rd World Country like all the rest.
All in all I'm glad I chose this Unit over Water cooling. It just works great and doesn't need Baby Sitiing when the Rig is running.