Can Anyone Explain Peltier Cooling?

[Vehementi]

Well basically I know nothing about it.
Is it better than air or liquid cooling?

This has always bugged me...

Anyone, care to enlight me and everyone else what the heck it is?

 

[Julio Franco]

Ars Guide to Advanced Cooling: Peltier Edition
http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/cooling/peltier-1.html

 

[Vehementi]

While a retail Peltier unit is rather large, with power cabling, a heat sink, and fans

Erm, isn't Peltier completely silent??

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

The Peltier element itself is silent but you will need active cooling to cool the element - unless it's really small.

 

[Julio Franco]

Don't use active cooling and all of a sudden there won't be any more cool and hot sides in the peltier unit, heh, so you can burn your CPU in no time . Read the complete article and you will better understand how it works, that was the idea of pointing you there.

 

[Vehementi]

Yeah, I did read the whole thing, just paused at that part to question that...

Thanks for the link Julio, quite helpful!