Until CoolIT Systems started to really make a name for itself a couple of years ago, “thermoelectric cooling” was a term often met with guffaws or laughter in enthusiast circles, particularly those discussions involving water cooling. After all, it was inefficient, difficult to use on your own, and was largely relegated to fanboy followings. But when CoolIT burst onto the scene with their new take on thermoelectric cooling technology, something interesting started happening: the chuckles quieted down and some of the guffaws became converts.
CoolIT’s flagship product at the time, the Freezone, was quite revolutionary not only in its technology but also in design; a self-contained, low-maintenance thermoelectric (TEC) solution that could fit entirely inside a normal case setup. The Freezone led to its successor, the Freezone Elite, which was later followed by the behemoth Boreas, and then onto traditional non-TEC products such as the Domino and ECO. But the Freezone Elite was, and still is to an extent, the backbone in their product lineup. The Elite wasn’t without a few drawbacks, however, as the pump was a bit weak and noisy for typical case setups. Further, since that time CoolIT has developed new technologies and introduced new software that’s been designed to strengthen the thermoelectric lineup.
To that end, CoolIT has released an update of the Elite, the Freezone Elite v2. It is aptly called a revision since the design has not been overhauled; it’s more of an evolution and includes tweaking in specific areas. the TEC technology is still the same, and the overall setup generally remains unchanged as well, but there are a few minor changes. So, what improvements are found in the v2 and how is the cooling performance in this new Freezone Elite? Let's take a closer look at the Freezone Elite v2 and find out.
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In this section, I will show the performance result of this cooler..
Test Setup:

Performance Result:

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Thermoelectric Cooling 101
First off, a brief explanation of thermoelectric cooling. Thermoelectric cooling, also known as Peltier or TEC, consists of a set of plates separated by two semiconducting metals. The TEC cooler or heater is a solid-state active heat pump which transfers heat from one side of the device to the other side against the temperature gradient (from cold to hot), with consumption of electrical energy. By simply connecting it to a DC voltage over one of the plates, it will cause one side to cool, while the other side gets hot. This creates a transfer effect whereby the "cold" side draws heat away from contacting surfaces and the "hot" side dissipates heat to contacting surfaces.
The effectiveness of the transfer in moving the heat away from the cold side is entirely dependent upon the amount of current provided and how well the heat from the hot side can be removed. Which means that the more heat dissipated on the “hot side” then the colder it gets on the opposite side and the more heat needs to removed over a small space then the more power it requires. As we know, however, hot surfaces contacting with cold ones creates condensation. And condensation and electronic components do not play well together.
To avoid the problems of condensation, CoolIT solves these problems by placing the TEC away from the CPU. This also creates a positive effect because the TEC doesn't need to occupy the same space as the CPU, thus allowing a much larger space to be used for the TEC unit. And since the contacting areas is an integral part of cooling efficiency, the larger area means the overall temperature gradient doesn't need to be as large. The advantage of this is the power requirement is then much lower, which ultimately avoids the problems with EMF (electromagnetic field) interference from using PWM for power regulation. In the end, the disadvantages are essentially eliminated, thus making TEC cooling a much more convenient alternative. This is where the CoolIT Freezone Elite comes in.
Since the contacting area is much bigger now, multiple low power TECs can be used in series for increased cooling efficiency and reducing the power demand. This means you don’t need a dedicated power supply for the Freezone Elite, just a single reliable PSU is good enough to power this cooler. Now, the TEC is away from the CPU so how will it cool the hot, overclocked processors? That is when liquid chilled cooling come in play; coolant will be used as cooling medium and Peltier as heat exchanger.
As you can see below, the Freezone Elite is a sort of hybrid in a manner of speaking, as it uses liquid cooling technology in conjunction with TEC to avoid the problems traditionally posed by this type of cooling, but achieves the benefits of water cooling to an extent.

So what you end up with is a product that operates like a self-contained water cooling kit, but with thermoelectric cooling enhancements, presumably the best of both worlds. However, in order for the TEC and Freezone Elite to be very effective, the heat MUST be dissipated quickly, otherwise a heat buildup will occur and cooling efficiency will be lost. There is a thermal limit for each TEC setup as well, so a highly overclocked Quad Core CPU, for example, can produce a tremendous amount of heat that becomes increasingly difficult to dissipate for a TEC unit. As amazing as the technological strides with the Freezone Elite are, this is simply a physical limitation that cannot be avoided by current technology.
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CPU FHE (Fluid Heat Exchanger)
Materials: Nickel plated copper, Split flow micro channel
Dimensions: 43mm x 42mm x 16.5mm
Weight: 175g
MTEC Control Center
Full featured system status monitors and control module
Heatsink
Materials: Dual dissipation plate, anodized alloy
Dimensions: 121mm x 92mm x 65mm
Weight: 800g
TECs (6)
Materials: Six ceramic solid-state heat pump wafers
Power Consumption: 72 Watts max
Dimensions: 40mm x 40mm x 3.5mm each
Weight: 20g each
Chiller FHE's (2)
Materials: Dual anodized alloy multi channel
Dimensions: 121mm x 41mm x 12mm
Weight: 80g each
Fan
Power consumption: 8 Watts max
Airflow: 120 CFM
Noise: 40dBA max
Bearing Type: Dual ball
Life Cycle: 50,000 hrs
Dimensions: 120mm x 120mm x 38mm
Features: 3rd Wire Tachometer
Pump
Power Consumption: 8 Watts +/- 0.5W max
Features: 12vDC coreless outrunner pump with integrated expansion vessel
Noise: <15dBA
Life Cycle: 50,000 hrs
Dimensions: 50mm x 50mm x 75mm
Flow: 3.5L/min
Weight: 205g
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Taken from www.pureoverclock.com, for full review of this cooling please click here
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