During CES 2009 Corsair displayed their forthcoming TEC-based water-cooling solution for memory modules. We were able to take a good look on this system.
TEC, Thermoelectric Cooler – also known as Peltier –, is a technology that uses an electric cold plate that pumps heat from one side to the other. The main problem with this technology is the amount of condensation that is generated, i.e. humidity around the cold plate. What is new on this forthcoming product from Corsair – which doesn’t have a commercial name yet – is that it has a humidity sensor to avoid the formation of water drops around the cooler.
But first Corsair will launch a DDR3-2000/PC3-16000 Dominator GT memory module featuring support for water cooling solutions, portrayed on Figure 1. This launch is programmed for this month. After that, Corsair will launch the TEC cold plate, which will come with the above mentioned controller. This launch is scheduled for February.
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Figure 1: DDR3-2000/PC3-16000 Dominator GT memory module featuring support for water cooling solutions.
The TEC component is to be installed between a passive heatsink (installed on the pegs present on top of the memory module, see Figure 1) and the water-cooler cold plate, see Figures 2 and 3 (the black and red wires are connected to the TEC and the wires that are cut on the left are connected to the humidity sensor).
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Figure 2: TEC-based memory water-cooler from Corsair.
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Figure 3: TEC-based memory water-cooler from Corsair.
The controller you can see on Figure 3. For maximum performance you can disable the humidity sensor, but in this case condensation will form around the heatsink.
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Figure 4: Controller.
We saw a system with this solution working (Figure 5). We were impressed to see that temperature on the memory module heatsink was only around 10º C (50º F)! See Figure 6.
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Figure 5: Corsair TEC system in action.
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Figure 6: Temperature on the memory module heatsink.
