Revolutionary Cooling?

At first glance, at the Armageddon would appear to have a traditional water cooling configuration. However, if you take a closer look inside, you will see a massive cooler with four water blocks attached to it. Looking even closer at the blocks, you can see what appears to be a substance or material between the block and the cooler.

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The cooling process was developed in cooperation with CoolIT Systems. The design is similar to the company's Freezone series of coolers but on a much larger scale. Between each block and the cooler is a series of thermoelectric cooling (TEC) devices. Peltiers have been used in the past to remove more heat from a device than a traditional air or water cooling system could natively provide. It does so utilizing a ceramic substrate that creates a hot side and a cold side when a charge is applied. The cold side is cooler than ambient temperatures and the hot side is warmer than ambient. Picture it as a heat pump moving energy from the cold side to the hot. As long as the thermoelectric device stays far enough below the maximum temperature and voltage for the device, a good Peltier can wick heat away from a component.

The main drawback to TECs (as well as phase change cooling) is that more heat is created in the process. It takes energy to transfer energy, and this ends up as heat in your system. This excess heat needs to be dissipated, so many have turned to very large coolers. Water cooling systems are good at moving excess heat far away from the heat source. Ultimately this heat makes its way out of the case and raises the temperature of the room, but this is something that you just have to live with if you wish to cool your components below ambient.

The innovation of the approach that the Armageddon uses is the location of the TECs. Instead of putting the cold side on the device that needs cooling, it is located between the water block and the radiator fins. This means that the water in the system has the potential to become cooler than the ambient air temperature. Theoretically, this would continue to be possible until the Peltiers reached their failure temperature.