Coolit Freezone & Eliminator

[TantrumusMaximus]

I'm really suprised I can't find a single thread on these 2 products here?

Anyone own one? I personally am interested in the Eliminator (which is a later lesser revision of the Freezone which is a little more powerful and more $) unit.

I haven't seen one bad review on these self-contained peltier watercooling products and am pretty much excited & ready to buy the Eliminator and be a guinea pig for all of ya however nobody has one!

Some Reviews:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-327-1.htm
http://www.extrememhz.com/freezone-p1.shtml
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/CoolIT_Eliminator/index.shtml
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/coolitelim/
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/CoolIT/index.php
http://techgage.com/article/coolit_freezone_cpu_cooler/4
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=reviews&id=541&page=5

I contacted some vendors and they haven't received them from the factory yet.

http://www.coolitsystems.com

 

[Zepper]

Not many here are Peltier cooling enthusiasts. Water or air is about it.

.bh.

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

These units break the mold of the old peltier school of thinking where the peltier was put on the cpu and then condensation became a problem. Not with this design.

I think these units are going to be very successful and also look to be well made.

People here are also either AMD or Intel.... if a newcomer came along with a CPU that blew the doors off of the performance of both those and the price was right would you buy their chip?

 

[Noubourne]

I believe Anandtech reviewed one of the new peltier coolers, Monsoon II Lite or something, and were able to get a whole 200Mhz more out of the chip over the top end air coolers.

So, $200 vs. $50 for another 200Mhz plus monthly power costs and increased rate of failure and more noise...

No brainer.

 

[Milque]

Would help if they'd get around to actually RELEASING the Eliminator..

I bought one for my C2E, they were supposed to be shipping by end of January.. Nada..

 

[VinDSL]

The Freezone is 5x the price of a Tuniq Tower, cools about the same, uses 50-60 watts of power, is noisy, and has no bragging rights...

What's to like about it?

 

[996GT2]

yea seems like not enough performance for the price

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
I believe Anandtech reviewed one of the new peltier coolers, Monsoon II Lite or something, and were able to get a whole 200Mhz more out of the chip over the top end air coolers.

So, $200 vs. $50 for another 200Mhz plus monthly power costs and increased rate of failure and more noise...

No brainer.

You just made the argument for why W/C is a waste of money too and refer to an article that has NOTHING to do with this save using a peltier.

I don't understand.... people are willing to blow tons of money on custom W/C setups yet from what I've been reading in reviews even the watercooling setups barely touch these numbers on a "loaded" system. I'm not talking about IDLE... who the F cares about that? The dangerzone is when your system is cranking. Don't get how so many sites can toss awards at this piece of h/w and people here don't see any merit in it... so does this mean watercooling is a waste too?

Honestly not trying to be a jerk about it or call out the W/C users or anything... just a little disappointed in the responses.

 

[Noubourne]

Originally posted by: TantrumusMaximus

Originally posted by: Noubourne
I believe Anandtech reviewed one of the new peltier coolers, Monsoon II Lite or something, and were able to get a whole 200Mhz more out of the chip over the top end air coolers.

So, $200 vs. $50 for another 200Mhz plus monthly power costs and increased rate of failure and more noise...

No brainer.

You just made the argument for why W/C is a waste of money too and refer to an article that has NOTHING to do with this save using a peltier.

I don't understand.... people are willing to blow tons of money on custom W/C setups yet from what I've been reading in reviews even the watercooling setups barely touch these numbers on a "loaded" system. I'm not talking about IDLE... who the F cares about that? The dangerzone is when your system is cranking. Don't get how so many sites can toss awards at this piece of h/w and people here don't see any merit in it... so does this mean watercooling is a waste too?

Honestly not trying to be a jerk about it or call out the W/C users or anything... just a little disappointed in the responses.

Not really, no.

A good water kit is going to run more than $200, will be quieter than these peltier hack kits and use a lot less power. Plus a good water kit is fully custom and sexy, and every one of these peltier things are identical and the picture of ugly imo.

So if I were to actually argue the two (vs. having you put words in my mouth), I would say this:

Water = quiet, custom, sexy, expensive, efficient cooling.
Cheapo Peltier hack kits = loud, ugly, expensive, inefficient cooling.

That's just my opinion. But at least now you have it.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
Water = quiet, custom, sexy, expensive, efficient cooling.
Cheapo Peltier hack kits = loud, ugly, expensive, inefficient cooling.

WeRd!!!

 

[VinDSL]

Don't mean to beat a dead horse, but...

Look at this pathetic Coolit Eliminator pic. Gak!!!

Then look at this sexy Mountain Mods W/C setup.

Which one would you rather own? Really! Be honest...

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

Now those were the responses I was looking for... thanks. Makes perfect sense to me now.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: TantrumusMaximus
These units break the mold of the old peltier school of thinking where the peltier was put on the cpu and then condensation became a problem. Not with this design.

I think these units are going to be very successful and also look to be well made.

People here are also either AMD or Intel.... if a newcomer came along with a CPU that blew the doors off of the performance of both those and the price was right would you buy their chip?

actually i consider myself a near expert in h2o cooling. And the freezone is a sad example of a TEC gone to waste.

To achieve its good performance the unit has to be left on at high. This in turn causes a LOT of noise. Theres a lot of reviews out on the freezeone and they all say the same thing. Theres cheaper and quieter and better solutions to cooling that computer.

If you dont believe me, Here is my AMD setup. The pricing should be almost on par with that freezone kit. MAybe a TAD bit more because i swaped to EK GPU blocks instead of the old D4.

My Loop

My Load Temps


As i said, you can get FAR better, quieter, solution for the same price.

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

aigomorla, very nice.

 

[herbiehancock]

Probably the best comments about T.E.C. coolers I've read:

T.E.C. probably competes with decent watercooling in some situations. However, they do have thermal limits that can be reached with extreme overclocking due to the limited thermal dissipation of the T.E.C. used. Therefore, these coolers are not really recommended for really heavy overclocking. Might be a good choice for medium overclocking in hotter environments or maybe LAN parties. However, you still need good case cooling/ventilation. Also, not much better than regular high-end air coolers with no overclocking makes this a niche product with questionable price/performance ratio.

In addition, go to XtremeSystems.org's forums and look at the cooling forums.........

They're broken down by type....air, liquid, TEC, liquid nitrogen, phase change......

Water/liquid is the most popular by far followed fairly closely by Vapor Phase Change, then air cooling, with TEC a distant fourth......of course chilled liquid and dry ice/nitrogen are the least popular, but chilled liquid is close to even with TEC's. TEC's just aren't popular or cost-effective enough for the type of overclocking that those guys do.....and that group on those forums are constantly trying for world OC records by chip type, benchmark, etc.


You'd think that ultra-hardcore overclockers would flock to TEC's, and a very small segment do use them, but they are largely ignored in favor of phase change and ultra-cooling wiht nitrogen/dry ice. Water, though, is dominant.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: herbiehancock
Probably the best comments about T.E.C. coolers I've read:

T.E.C. probably competes with decent watercooling in some situations. However, they do have thermal limits that can be reached with extreme overclocking due to the limited thermal dissipation of the T.E.C. used. Therefore, these coolers are not really recommended for really heavy overclocking. Might be a good choice for medium overclocking in hotter environments or maybe LAN parties. However, you still need good case cooling/ventilation. Also, not much better than regular high-end air coolers with no overclocking makes this a niche product with questionable price/performance ratio.

In addition, go to XtremeSystems.org's forums and look at the cooling forums.........

They're broken down by type....air, liquid, TEC, liquid nitrogen, phase change......

Water/liquid is the most popular by far followed fairly closely by Vapor Phase Change, then air cooling, with TEC a distant fourth......of course chilled liquid and dry ice/nitrogen are the least popular, but chilled liquid is close to even with TEC's. TEC's just aren't popular or cost-effective enough for the type of overclocking that those guys do.....and that group on those forums are constantly trying for world OC records by chip type, benchmark, etc.


You'd think that ultra-hardcore overclockers would flock to TEC's, and a very small segment do use them, but they are largely ignored in favor of phase change and ultra-cooling wiht nitrogen/dry ice. Water, though, is dominant.

couldnt say it better myself.

and to let you know, TEC > chilled water.

Reason is because you dont have to insulate your water tubes to obain sub degree ambients.

Also TEC when pair'd with water can fit all nicely internal inside a case. You can never put a full blown sub degree water chiller inside a case.



However i think energy expense for the two maybe near wasteful lvls.

 

[r3zon8]

I too, was surprised to only see 1 thread(this one) when i search the forums for CoolIt threads. Given all the buzz that the web reviews were saying about the CoolIt Tec coolers i wouldve figured that forums would be going nuts over it.

heres my take on the Eliminator kit, and why i purchased it. Keep in mind in not a cooling expert...

I feel TEC/Water hybrid kits such as the eliminator/freezone are a first of their kind. Traditionally, as a previous poster noted, TEC's were sandwiched betwwen the CPU with a heatsink attached on the hot plate, then a fan on the heatsink. This was inadequate. Reason we attach heatsinks to heat sources(cpu in this case) is to dissipate heat.. the larger the heatsink, or more fins it has, the larger surface area the cpu has to transfer heat across. this is why heatsink used to be thick chunks of metal, and now they are thinly sliced fins of metal. larger surface area for heat to spread across. the Coolit products try to remedy this by attaching the tecs to a large spherical heatink, the size of the heatsink is large, much larger than anything you would be able to place over your cpu. this remedies the shortcomings the 'tec on cpu' application we normally see, the tec now has a larger heatsink to pump its heat onto and so can work more efficiently. in order to do this they they had to relocate the tecs/heatsink elsewhere in the case..so now how to cool to cpu if we are not right on top if it? Water tubes was their solution. the hybrid system was born and the Eliminator/Freezone was the result.

another problem i saw, is that of all the reviews i found online that were looking at the Eliminator/Freezone, i dont recall any of them pitting it against the most popular/powerful air coolers like....tuniq, sycthe, and the likes. This was a huge drawback in my opinion, because if someone is considering to purchase a Coolit cooler then
1. This person is obviously not going to run their machine at stock speeds(that is what the stock heatsink/fan is for)
2. you are looking for the best of the best cooler...everything else aside..that means you are willing to sacrifice noise, voiding your warranty, whatever it takes to squeeze that last bit of power from your machine. so for the previous poster who said something about the coolit being loud..cmon man..stfu. were not in this for quiet.

So IDEALLY the review should compare the coolit cooler to the BEST OF THE BEST air coolers there are out there, and best water cooling kits there are out there COMMERCIALLY available.

YES, i said commercially available...this means those of you with custom water or air builds should look the other way, it is impossible for the general reviewer/reader to know what your super custom water kit is capable of because it would be next to impossible to for them to replicate it and then benchmark its score against other coolers.

So why didnt they throw on a Tuniq tower or Scythe ninja into the mix? who knows...i blame ****** review sites. this is why i had hope for coming onto Anandtech and finding a review worthy of my time.

i bought the eliminator because ive never built a water cooled system. i had no intention in trying to figure out how to do it and like a previous poster mentioned, it is very difficult and costly to get a plain water cooled system below ambient degrees. The eliminator does that in a simple, compact, slightly noisy, and elegant unit.

pic of eliminator

and it looks cool!

 

[aigomorla]

*sigh*

So you bought into the hype and got one?

That thing will do well if you plan on keeping it near stock voltage. Infact it will beat most AIR heat sinks on stock settings.

The moment you throw overclocking in, you'll run a wall faster then you would of on a thermalright ultra120.



And watercooling AINT that hard. You should read my sticky linked at the bottom. All you need is about 2 hours of time, and some dedication to get it done. Also a lot of patience, because #1 mistake noobies make in watercooling, is rushing the leak stage. They want to go LIVE ASAP, that they dont put a good enough time to make sure your parts are infact okey.


But im glad your happy with your freezone. Thats all that matters if you like it or not. But yes, i dont think a 300 dolar price tag is worth it, when you can crush it with an air sink that only costs 60 dollars. ie. Tuniq Tower or Thermalright Ultra120 extreme, Thermalright IFX-14

 

[r3zon8]

I suppose i did,

is the Freezone worth $300? hell no...
is the eliminator worth $160? maybe..

when you factor in not only the cost to source out parts for a custom water kit, but your time spent, shipping/handling, and as a member mentioned above, the cost of mistakes that can be made when building your own, i strongly feel that i am close to the $160 i paid for my Eliminator kit.

aigomorla, please elaborate on how i will hit a wall when overclocking with the eliminator? couldnt the same argument be made for ANY cooling solution, hence the reason why everyday we see larger and larger copper heatsinks to stack on our cpus?

in the end, is it working as i expected it to? most definitely...
system1: c2d e6400@3.2 400x8 idle:32C, load:46
at stock speeds, idle:18C, load:25C

sure, were not breaking any records at overclocked speeds/voltages, but it holds its ground.

i completely agree with your argument on price/performance...were just a few deg's away from an air cooler that cost half as much..but hey, it stills nice to see a watercooled system

 

[jonnyGURU]

Originally posted by: TantrumusMaximus
These units break the mold of the old peltier school of thinking where the peltier was put on the cpu and then condensation became a problem. Not with this design.

No... These are just pelt cooled water loops. Nothing "breaking the mold" about that.

I only have experience with the Freezone, so I'll share....

With the CPU overclocked, the very short water loop required additional cooling to maintain a barely sub-ambient temp. This barely sub-ambient required the hot side of the Peltiers to get VERY HOT. This required the fan to run at almost (if not) full RPM, which was VERY LOUD.

So after about 72 hours, the Freezone was ripped out and regular air cooling installed in it's place, simply because I couldn't tolerate the noise any longer.

If you want fancy sub-ambient cooling, customize your own water loop with a Peltier. Then you can add components into the loop and you can incorporate longer hose runs which equals more water. More water == more cooling. You can cool your water and your Peltier over more surface area with larger radiators and heatsinks and use slower and/or additional fans instead of one 120MM running at full blast.

 

[Doctahg]

I just tried the Freezone myself.....first I'll say it's probably great for a cooler chip like the Fx60 and lower....I did a new build with a QX6700. First Freezone unit turned out to be DOA...of course I foudn this out byt my CPY going higher than 100C. and agian close to 100 while figuring it out in the bios...whya it shutdown on me... Second unit worked OK the first day. The I started having temp fluctuations. Idles tmep were great...sub 30...OC temps in the low to mid 40's. The Wednsday I had it on all day, not really using it. Idle temps good but I noticed them up to the 30's later in the day. After the kids went to bed I returned to find the CPU lockedup. I rebooted, temps were int eh high 40's...I was barely overclocking at this point. Then the burning started! the Freezone was VERY hot at the cooling units. So off it went, now I have a Thermalright Ultra Extreme...COOLit says the QX6700 should run 40 at idle as they get hot...the freezone IMHO just cannot work with the new Intel chips well. Doesn't have the horsepower to deal with prolonged high temps like these chips can put out. I had alot of problems after the CPU got cooked, so I am RMA-ing this ...just threw in a 6600 duo. for now....

 

[bluefoam]

I went through 3 eliminators about a month and a half ago. The first was friggin awesome until a week later when the fan starting whining and rattling like crazy. Returned it, got a new one. The new one was a perfect case of "what not to do" at the quality control line. This thing's pump was DOA and the heat spreader had a MASSIVE bulge on one corner. Sorry Chuck... it went back to the store for a 3rd. The last one was actually great on my E6600. The thing had me in the high 20's to low 30's idle and mid 30's load @ 3.4Ghz. Honestly... the thing was pretty solid. Until... my electricity bill came in. About 8-10 bucks more a month from this thing. So... while it lasted about a month fully running and REALLY working well... I decided to take it back for a second WD Raptor to complete the RAID I had been longing for. I threw the old Thermaltake Silent 775 on it (which is just about par with the stock HSF) and immediately noticed 10-15 deg increase on temps. I brought the FSB, Vcore, and Vdimm back down for a modest 3.0Ghz OC and am waiting for my Thermalright Ultra Extreme to arrive tomorrow. I can say though regarding the Eliminator, that the Power consumpion and the noise of the TEC's/Pump are about the only downfalls. Other than that, the thing delivered just as advertised. Oh... and it DOES look just as "sexy" as a custom loop... but without any nursing home, pee bag changing, like maintenance.

 

[JEDIYoda]

So in reading the above verything else "being" equal--even though it is not equal it would appear there are quality control issues that in and of themselves make purchasing this unit kind of scary...

Peace!!

 

[aigomorla]

As for the freezone TEC product:

I'll state this one more time. And if you want to flame me for it, i wont fight back this time, because i know its coming my way once i state this:

There is only 1 proper/efficient way to use tec. Thats with a Waterblock to cool the hotside, and the cold side touching a piece of copper to evenly distribute the coldness. The copper then directly on contact with the CPU.


Puting air sinks on top of the hotside/Using the cold side to chill liquid is a complete and totally inefficient method in using TEC's. This unit wont handle an overclocked quad. If an overclocked quad can burn out a SS Phase unit. Theres no chance in hell this setup would last an overclocked quad.

*another disclamer* when i use the word overclocked quad i ment vcore ranges of 1.4-1.5.

Good luck touching 1.6, thats even my upper limit to my water setup. You want higher, you need a compressor/phase change unit.

This post dates back a while ago, b4 i had my quadcore.

You can not cool a Quadcore with a 226W TEC to date right now. Maybe on the G0 steppings, it might be possible, and even more doable with penryn. But as for now, the Q series can not be cooled with a TEC unless you want to mod a 430W TEC. Then good luck in designing a block because the coverage area for that tec wattage is VERY difficult to find.


Stay away from TEC's. There seriously NOT worth it.

 

[bluefoam]

I think I have to agree with aigo on the instability or... inefficiency of the pelts. That is... when working with four cores of course. Tec's have and have had potential and still have a LONG way to go when it comes to playin with the big boys. I like the idea, Aig, about cooling the hot side with h20. But... seems a bit in haste when really.... we are still pretty much bottlenecked with the software.

I think the decision of installing this product really has to do with the personality type. Many like to completely immerse themselves in a neurotic guilty pleasure, then theres the occasional modder with other responsibilites on the side, then theres people who just want to put some thing together with the least amount of effort and the least amount of follow up. Everyone else buys their ish from Dell, Circuit City, or Best Buy. To each his own. Im not one to judge anyone but myself so I think I probably fall in the "one shy with many other responsibilities" group and that makes me no better than any of the others. I think the Eliminator is a REALLY good choice to drop it in, slam the lid and forget about it until the next build.... FOR A DUAL CORE. But.... I can sense even a little neurosis from within and... so had to ditch the thing. Whatever makes the builder happy... let em live with it. These days with so many "individualists" you can only preach to the choir and if an outsider hears your mess and changes.... good for them.

I think I read from Aigo in an earlier post something about if you dont have patience to fab a custom loop then why not just hook up a tuniq tower or a thermalright ultra? Even on my ghetto MB the Thermalright Ultra SPANKED the eliminator!!! hahaha.... listen to the dude when it comes to keepin the dies cool. The temps so far on my "old skool" DUAL CORE keep me in the smiles too.

I think the units I picked up might just be "eliminated" from the equasion. I mean... have you been to Frys and seen the lurps stickin their funky digits in the box and then just set it back on the shelf???? Could have had a little to do with the pump thing. No excuse for a massive bulge on the HS though.

Anyways, great input guys. Ima go get a beer. cheers!