Thermalright's new VGA cooler, the HR-03

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:04 am

According to NokyTech Thermalright is about to release a new VGA cooler, named HR-03. It has four (4) heatpipes and is to be sold as a fanless solution, altough it will allow mounting of a 92mm fan.

Also on Matbe

Oh and although this is a dual slot solution BESIDES THE PCI-E/AGP SLOT OCCUPIED BY THE GRAPHICS CARD, adding a fan will make it a three slot solution, as you can see from the picture above.

cass · Post by **cass** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:39 am

seems a bit strange that its pitched as a fanless solution, but the heatsink hangs underneath the card, restricting any convection currents...

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:54 am

It seems to have only 30-32 fins, and the fins are a bit thick, so heavier.
Since two of the heatpipes make double contact with the fins, they distribute the heat more evenly, but efficiency of the heatpipes decreases with lenght.
I would have preferred a 6 heatpipe design, but the base would have had to be larger.
It would have been better to carry the heat to the back of the card, like the Aerocool VM-101 solution, but maybe Aerocool have some patent on this?
At least a third of the fins are beyond the area obstructed by the video card, so they would get their share of case airflow.
There is some torsion applied to the GPU die, but less than the horrible (IMHO) Aerocase Condor, I hope it's well fixed by four bolts.

Correction: I counted again and found 34 fins.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:47 pm

Well, for those of you needing an SLI/Crossfire configuration, here's your answer. Two of these, with some ducting and a fan or two...

aburgard · Post by **aburgard** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:26 pm

Looks like I can finially mount a heat pipe cooler in my inverted Lian Li.

Post by **Rusty075** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:40 pm

What a missed opportunity. If the baseplate was disassemblable you could flip the fins around to the CPU side of the card.

If you put another card in the #4 slot you're going to block off all the airflow to it, so it probably won't even work that well for SLi'd rigs.

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:17 am

Hmm... I reckon that if you opened up the pci blanks at the back of the case, and mounted a nice quiet 120mm fan across the front of the GPUs, then you could duct off your SLi setup, exhaust the hot air out the back of the case, and run the whole thing surprisingly quietly.
Well, quiet for an SLi rig, anyway

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:08 pm

Bobfantastic wrote:Hmm... I reckon that if you opened up the pci blanks at the back of the case, and mounted a nice quiet 120mm fan across the front of the GPUs, then you could duct off your SLi setup, exhaust the hot air out the back of the case, and run the whole thing surprisingly quietly.
Well, quiet for an SLi rig, anyway

Exactly.

St.J · Post by **St.J** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 11:45 pm

Would it be better to use a card sold fanless with its own heatsink or to take the fan off a card and use one of these?
Many thanks
St.J

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:39 pm

Tzupy wrote:It would have been better to carry the heat to the back of the card, like the Aerocool VM-101 solution, but maybe Aerocool have some patent on this?

Aerocool having a patent on this? Don't think so...

omgy · Post by **omgy** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:34 pm

There website says "Two types of installation methods for better compatibility and easier installation".
Does this mean it can be mounted like the vm-101?
Or there are different methods for different video cards?
Or it can be fanless or fanned?

thadford87 · Post by **thadford87** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 3:47 am

Hi guys,

just a quick unrelatd question - Does anyone know where i can get ram h/sinks like in the original picture from the start of this thread?!

P.S. i was thinking of getting these sinks for my PC (X1900 crossfire edition and X1900 XTX) then enclosing them with some acrylic (with a few vents) and ducting out to a 140mm fan attached to the side of my 830 stacker!

. Think this could be a possible solution to improving cooling!

Cheers, Thad

thadford87 · Post by **thadford87** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 3:50 am

by the by i meant the VGA Sinks when referring to the ducting!

Thad

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:30 am

thadford87 wrote:Hi guys,

just a quick unrelatd question - Does anyone know where i can get ram h/sinks like in the original picture from the start of this thread?!

P.S. i was thinking of getting these sinks for my PC (X1900 crossfire edition and X1900 XTX) then enclosing them with some acrylic (with a few vents) and ducting out to a 140mm fan attached to the side of my 830 stacker! . Think this could be a possible solution to improving cooling!

Cheers, Thad

The CPU, DRAM, NB and video heat sinks in that photo are all Thermalright products.

Don't bother putting VGA RAMsinks on your card. Modern video memory doesn't get hot. Ducting might be fun, but it won't improve the cooling. Invest in a better GPU heat sink instead.

teh_robbie · Post by **teh_robbie** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:31 am

Bobfantastic wrote:Hmm... I reckon that if you opened up the pci blanks at the back of the case, and mounted a nice quiet 120mm fan across the front of the GPUs, then you could duct off your SLi setup, exhaust the hot air out the back of the case, and run the whole thing surprisingly quietly.
Well, quiet for an SLi rig, anyway

Yup, my soon to be 2 7600GT's with these babies in a P180 with the Cliped on 120mm on the drive cage, and the back slots open, should stay cool and quiet easily!

Die_Allianz · Post by **Die_Allianz** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:06 am

omgy wrote:There website says "Two types of installation methods for better compatibility and easier installation".
Does this mean it can be mounted like the vm-101?

yes

omgy · Post by **omgy** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:25 am

If so, that's awesome.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:46 am

Using this HR-03 with a 92 mm fan that can be temperature controlled may be the only quiet solution for the upcoming GeForce 8800 GT (the GTX will be watercooled according to rumours).

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:23 am

The TR HR-03 is in stock at www.pc-cooling.de at 45 euros.
Just as a sidenote, the Scythe Ninja 1100 plus Rev.B is too in stock at 40 euros.

omgy · Post by **omgy** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:56 am

For you US people, it's in stock at Heatsinkfactory at 49.99.

A bit expensive.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:29 am

Here is a link to the Thermalright HR-03 + Papst 92 mm U Silent (1,150 rpm):
http://www.pc-cooling.de/en/VGA-Chipset ... 1b1978#top

Poodle · Post by **Poodle** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:48 am

Installed it today and I'm getting some really good temps running it just on the case fans (no mounted fan). Seeing at some 5 degrees C lower compared to the noisy stock cooler.

I had to loose the silicon fram for the GPU though that comes with the cooler as it made the gpu block (shiny!!) to have bad contact to the gpu.

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 12:55 pm

Official website:
http://www.thermalright.com/a_news/main_news_hr03.htm

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:40 pm

Is it just me or does it look like it will be difficult do put a CF/SLI bridge between the cards? Not that I care since I'd only use one card, but it's really stupid since they' even use a SLI setup in that pic, but there's no bridge...
I know that they can be used without a bridge.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:14 pm

As shown in the picture in the first post of this thread the cooler can be mounted with the fins on the other side of the VGA, so there should be no problem to put a SLI bridge between the cards.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:42 pm

Tephras wrote:As shown in the picture in the first post of this thread the cooler can be mounted with the fins on the other side of the VGA, so there should be no problem to put a SLI bridge between the cards.

Well I forgot to mention that possibility...
Still, that's not a good solution either. It will only reduce amount of combinations you can use the cooler, which gives a smaller chance that the remaining free slots actually are the ones you need (PCI vs. PCIe).

Poodle · Post by **Poodle** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:27 pm

Well it's the best performer I've had. In my case it's in passive mode and beats the Vm-102, but the enviroment might not have been the same at the two tests.

IMHO it will be hard to keep up with when ducted and fan on the HDD cage with the cooler hanging under the card blowing out the pci-openings. The Vm has a much smaller top heatsink with its fins in the rÃght direction so when active the Hr must beat it even more.

The build quality is amazing it's really sexy and shiny.

The engineers at Themalright have been listening to my prayers.

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:05 am

With one of these above and one below the graphics cards, you could use passive SLi on a motherboard that doesnt have two slots between the cards (their example above does).
And there'd definitely be no problem plugging in the SLi bridge either, the coolers would both be out of the way.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:09 am

Bobfantastic wrote:With one of these above and one below the graphics cards, you could use passive SLi on a motherboard that doesnt have two slots between the cards (their example above does).

My point was that if that's the only way of using it you may end up without the slots you need, just because Thermalright forgot to make room for the bridge. I hope I'm wrong.

Bobfantastic wrote:And there'd definitely be no problem plugging in the SLi bridge either, the coolers would both be out of the way.

Yes, in your example.
But what about the setup in the pic? It's a bit strange that Thermalright have a pic showing how it works, but it's not fully assembled (no bridge).

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:26 am

They appear to be using two different models of card as well- the differences in the position of the cooler and the VRM capacitors are making me wonder whether their example shows an SLi system, or whether they've just put two test cards into the same motherboard to save time.
With the difference in length between the cards, I'd reckon that the top card is something like a 7950GT, and the bottom card a 7900xx or something along those lines.

Anyway, if Thermalright did somehow make a massive mistake and produced a cooler that would severly limit its own usefulness, (and judging by their previous products that seems pretty unlikely) it would be trivial to make up some double-sided-PCB extenders to stretch over the coolers. If you're that short of slots on your motherboard, you might need to reconsider using two graphics cards, each with a massive cooler, anyway.

Thermalright's new VGA cooler, the HR-03

Thermalright's new VGA cooler, the HR-03

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