I had these blocks set up with two 150W 16V pelts, and one 80W 9V pelt. Running the two 150W pelts at 12V(pumping approx. 115W) and the 80W pelt at 5V(pumping 50W), I had water temps between 40 and 45F, depending on the ambient temp. My CPU(Athlon 2500+ at 2.3ghz) was cooled with the cold loop as well as my NB with a custom made block. My CPU would average 10-20F below ambient temp. with this setup. I generally had to disconnect one pelt on humid days to avoid condensation.
As far as my electric bill, I watched fairly closely and compared bills from prior to and during use of the pelt. cooled system. My electric bill increased by about $4-6 per month during heavy computer useage(averaging more than 12 hours per day). On the average when I had my PC on for 4 hours a day or less, the difference in electric bill was negligible.
I ran all three pelts off of a single computer power supply made by Antec(model 510D).
The only thing I had insulated was the cold chiller block. I could have easily lowered temps. by a decent amount by insulating everything, including the tubing. That was not my goal. I was never interested in anything but obtaining ambient temps. and this setup got me way beyond that.
With larger pelts and a large radiator, these blocks could easily chill water below freezing if setup properly.
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