The Cooler

When I first saw the cooler at CeBIT my impression was "schweeett", and it was even more so sweet when I took it out of the box for this review. The unit is a sealed loop water system; meaning you just pop it in the case, fasten a few screws and you're good to go. There's no task of having to add coolant, bleed the system, do a leak check or any maintenance.


The pump is mounted on the front of the cooler in front of the massive heatsink that is used to cool the TECs. The pump is rated for about 210 liters/hour and has a small reservoir built into it to bleed air in the system. When I first looked at the cooler, I did notice a fair amount of air in the system - probably about 2.5" inches of the piping had air. Once the pump was turned on, this air got bleed to the reservoir and wasn't an issue. On the back, there's a massive 92mm fan which is 38mm deep instead of the regular 25mm and is used to help cool the heatsink and vent hot air out of the system. All this rated to handle up to 170 Watts of heat.


The block is made of Nickel plated Copper to prevent oxidation of the Copper and is shined to a mirror finish on the base. It comes with a pre-applied thermal paste with a strong plastic cover to protect the base and thermal paste job when packaged. All of the water loop is connected via 1/4" ID (inner diameter) hosing which is rapped in a wire coil to prevent any kinks.


These blue blocks are where all the magic takes place. Underneath each of these two blocks are three TECs wired in series with a max power of 56 Watts. On the top of the topside block, there is a temperature sensor which connects to a thermal control board to regulate the temperature of the TECs.


A better look at the giant heatsink with the TECs attached to it. The heatsink is made of anodized aluminum painted black and weighs in at a heavy 850 grams. This monster is a necessity to keep the TECs in line, or they will defeat their own purpose.


I decided to take the blocks off to give a better view of the TECs.


This is what CoolIT likes to call the "Thermal Control Module". Its purpose is to supply and regulate the TECs' power. It also acts as a fan controller, with support of up to three fans. The fan on the unit plugs into this board as well. A four pin Molex plugs into the board for power, and the other connector at the opposite end is for the TECs. The board is mounted on a plate of Aluminum with two sticky pads on the bottom so it can be placed anywhere in the case. On the board is a small trimmer that is used to adjust the performance of the cooler. Clock wise makes the system run quieter, and counter clockwise sets it to run cooler.

The Workings

To help explain how this cooler works, I will first give a quick explanation on how a conventional water cooler works. The whole purpose of using water is because water takes more heat to heat up than Copper and Aluminum. Water is flushed through a block - usually made up of Copper - and then through a radiator to help keep the water at a relatively cool temperature compared to the ambient temperature. The water is circulated via a pump, and a reservoir is used to bleed air and store extra water for extra thermal resistance.

The way the Freezone differs is that it does not use a radiator to cool the water. Instead it uses Thermal-Electric Coolers (TEC) or Peltiers to chill the water. For anyone who does not know what a TEC is; It's basically a plate made up of two different semiconductors or metals in a ceramic casing with an electrical current being passed through it. One of the metals gets hot, whilst the other cools off. It is known as the Thermal-Electric effect or the Peltier effect - hence the name TEC/Peltier. TECs can come in different powers, generally rated in Watts, and the higher the wattage, the more cooling potential the TEC has. With TECs however, where one sides gets really cold, the opposite gets really hot and needs to be cooled, or it will start to overwhelm the cool side and break the TEC down. TECs are usually used in conjunction with a water cooling system, or a very large heatsink. With the Freezone, it uses a large heatsink.

Water is circulated by a pump through two large blocks which are very similar to a CPU water block, just larger in size. The blocks are mounted to the top and bottom of the large heatsink, and between the blocks and heatsink are six TECs (three on each block). Once the TECs have power on them, they start to chill the blocks with the water in them, and the hot side is regulated by the large heatsink. A 92mm fan keeps air moving over the heatsink and also acts as an exhaust for the rest of the computer.