Thermalright HR-03 GTX Review!

With my new spanky Thermalright HR-03 GTX GPU cooler arriving today I thought I'd make a proper user review seeing as I can find as few as 2 other reviews on the net.


So, on to the cooler! This cooler is designed for the GTX 260 (65nm) and the GTX 280 primarily, however is installable via additional heatsinks + ram sinks to both the newer revision GTX 260 (55nm) and the new GTX 285. The cooler comes as a passive solution, however Thermalright strongly recommend use of a 12cm fan to aid cooling ability. In the following review, I shal detail:

1. Steps of installation

2. Performance - the HR-03 GTX with a 12cm fan

- Performance tests will be idle temperature, Synthetic load temperature (Crysis benchmark utility, 3x 3 pass runs, average highest temperature, ATItool scanning for artifacts, 10 minute runs, average) and Game temperatures (Games include Crysis, COD:4, Test Drive Unlimited and Team Fortress 2 - this is a broad spectrum of games each varying in intensity, from crysis down to TF:2 - short periods of gaming, max temperature recorded).

So, as soon as the cooler arrives, ill do a step by step installation account and then the ever important thermal tests. How fun will today be?!

So, the step by step guide . . . oh boy . . .

So, you of course need to start out with your graphics card of choice - mine being my Gainward GTX 260 (192), and your tools - 2 philips headed screw drivers (one regular, one precision), a sharp device such as a stanley knife or a fine flat head screw driver.



First port of call - remove the rubber plastic SLI bridge protector thing.



Then I set about removing all 10 of the screw holding the back plate to the GTX itself - not such an easy task as these screws can be stripped very easily if you use a bit too large or go too hard, so take your time and do it right so that in the event of having to replace the stock cooler, you can do so easily.



Once you have removed all the screws, you will need to use your very fine flat headed object to prise the card back-side cooler away from the clips holding it to the main section of the HSF. go slowly and dont use an excessinve ammount of force, once you have seperated the two and removed the heatsink you will be left with a nice mess to clean up



After a thorough cleaning, you should be left with something along the lines of . . .



Its important you clean everything thoroughly as the ram sinks will not stick to gunked up surfaces for very long, if at all.

Now you need to remove the small screws that are holding the main card onto the large heat sink, twist gently from side to side - DO NOT USE A TONNE OF FORCE OR ELSE YOULL DAMAGE YOUR CARD! BE WARNED!!!



Then you'll be needing to clean all the chips on this main side of the card too - you should also clean off the TIM on the main core and replace it with either your own thermal grease or the supplied Thermalright "The Chill Factor" (I have used MX-2).

So, after your card is prepped, its time to break out the goodies, and I must say, despite this thing only being a cooler, its a gorgeous thing, it really is:





Everything is packaged extremely well in a slick black cardboard box - all the ramsinks, screws and bits are secured in tough plastic bags, and the GTX itself is protected by a thick foam at the top to prevent fins being bent during transit:





. . . remember when I said guide ish at the start? Yeah well this is where it ends im afraid. My camera decided to crap out at this point and my BlackBerry doesnt take decent enough pictures to warrant using it, so I am apologising to you lot

The installation itself was very simple, the instructions are actually quite good - as long as you have cleaned the old thermal pads off thoroughly, the installation is a breeze. Out of 10 for difficulty? Id give it a 6, purely because when installing the bolt through bracket to hold the cooler to the card, I could really have done with a third hand as it was quite fiddly - up until that part is was very simple.

So, the next update on the post below will be gaming performance - where you will see the utterly brilliant performance of this cooler. Again, I apologise for the lack of install instructions / pictures, just blame my camera

Bear in mind that this is using the GTX with a single, slow 12cm fan (pictured below):

The fan in question - a single stock Coolermaster fan, mine was included with my old Cosmos, its a slow turner that shifts an Ok ammount of air, id recommend a more powerful / higher cfm fan if you have the funds.



Right, on to the synthetic tests - Ill be using the Crysis benchmark utility and ATItools artifact scanner. (I cannot for the life of me get furmark to run, something about open GL2.0, something crazy)

First up, the Crysis benchmark utility - this program runs a high speed pass of a section of the island and measures your systems performance. I will run this test on stock - 1280 x 1024, all settings on medium with no AA (this is a very typical lineup of settings), Medium (1680 x 1050, all medium, no AA) High (1680 x 1050, all high + 2xAA) and Ultra - (1680 x 1050, all very high with 16xAA). The utility will run in loops of 3 in DX10, fullscreened for maximum validity. The highest temperature will be recorded and used as a guide for the resolution / settings in question.

So, first round - stock:

*PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT MY IDLE TEMPERATURE IS 35 DEGREES CELCIUS THROUGHOUT ALL THIS TESTING, AND MY QUAD IS CLOCKED AT 3.6Ghz. THANKS!*



The temperature, as you can see, peaked at a lowly 43 degrees - just 8 degrees higher than idle.

Next, after allowing the card to return to idle temperature, Medium:



Just a 1 degree increase over the previous test with quite a hefty resolution increase. But surely these next 2 runs will bring the cooler to its knees?

Next up, high - this is the configuration I personally use whilst playing crysis.

A small jump this time, up to 47 degrees.

Now, for the monster test, the ultra trial.



Wow. At the highest settings I can go, the temperature only hit 48 degrees, which is absolutely staggering. Remember, my old reference cooler kept my card at 50 degrees IDLE, thats how good this thing is.

The next synthetic test will be our very own ATITool running on the artifact scanning mode. This will run for approx. 10 minutes.



So, next up is actual down and dirty gaming temperatures.

*ALL GAMES PLAYED @ 1680 x 1050, FULL AA ON HIGHEST DETAIL AVAILABLE! (Apart from crysis, 1680 x 1050, 2xAA all high)*

Ill start out with a personal favourite of mine, Team Fortress 2.



A brief online playing session results in . . .



An impressive result, but lets remember its a low graphical intensity game

Next up is Test Drive Unlimited:





Again, this cooler just wont allow my GTX to break into the 50 degree mark!

On to the second highest graphically intense game in this short review - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.





Again, not nearly enough of a challenge for the GTX.

On to our final game, Crysis:



An extremely graphical and CPU intensive game. During this test my processor is running @ 3.2Ghz, the GTX completely on stock:



Even the mighty crysis cannot bring down the HR-03. I am truely staggered with this result, and have yet to see temperatures to exceed 50 degrees!




This graphics card cooler is truely epic. To reduce the idle and load / gaming temperatures of such a hot running card as well as it has really is an amazing achievement. Granted the installation was a little bit fiddly, but thats one con against a huge line of pro's:

1. Runs so cool it unreal

2. Runs silent (results may vary on fan used)

3. Looks awesome

4. Isnt too expensive - at £45 I could think of worse things to spend that ammount on

5. It isnt nearly as heavy as I assumed it would be, and its alot smaller than youd think too!

All in all, id give this cooler, the Thermalright HR-03 GTX a 9/10, with a single point being knocked off for the at times fiddly install.

Thanks guys, and I have a treat for you all, its uploading now . . .

Still waiting on the postman - yes, its 1:20 and he still hasnt been, and citylink for the GTX. Im getting annoyed now.

Thermalright HR-03 GTX

*edit*

If you meant via the post, im waiting for my carbon fiber vinyl and my psp pandoras battery.

Just a quick teaser - Its all installed, im off to work but will upload the full (ish, youll see why lol) review. The teaser? Crysis used to make my stock cooler hit the 80's - the GTX? 46 degrees thats close to half cut off by this amazing cooler.

Ill be back after 8!

Bump for the review being 2/3 done!

alexp999 said:

Sweet, just want to see the thing on the card now!

Click to expand...

Ill take it out my case, fix the camera and get some pictures up for you tomorrow

Those are coming today after I sort the camera out. Oh and my CF vinyl just arrived