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Thermalright HR-05-SLI


Date
: 10/27/06 – 05:13:28 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Thermalright, Inc.

Price:
$26.95 MSRP / $15.39 USD (Newegg.com)

Thermalright is back in the O2 house without much delay from their last visit. Considered to be the king of coolers for some years now, Thermalright is not about to rest on their past achievements which date back to the Socket A days with such copper cooling solutions that have evolved from the SLK-600 and SLK-97.

Thermalright has always embraced the heatpipe, even in the early days. It was apparent that Thermalright understood the importance that heatpipes would play in future cooling designs. I don't think I have to mention that they were on the right track with almost every CPU, VGA, and Chipset cooling device elevating performance with the inclusion of heatpipes today. Other manufacturers have since seen the light and heatpipes are everywhere, including chipset cooling where the heatpipes have not only helped with performance but have begun to play an important role in functionality and fitment.

In steps the Thermalright HR-05-SLI, the complimentary chipset cooler to the already popular HR-05 of the High-Riser series that Thermalright has been promoting as of late. The differences between the HR-05 and HR-05-SLI are small yet so very significant. The bent heatpipes offset the cooling fins from the base allowing for a multitude of positioning options to avoid large video cards, primarily in an SLI configuration; hence the addition of SLI to the name tag it sports on its chest. Today we will find out if Thermalright has matched the success of the HR-05 with the HR-05-SLI.

Page 2 : Package

Like all the Thermalright products I have reviewed and purchased over the years, the HR-05-SLI showed up in the not-so-exciting brown box.

I wasn't lying when I said "not-so-exciting", in fact, it is about as plain a package as you can put out. With that said, the package does everything it is supposed to do. It is well constructed, has the name of the product on the side to identify what is inside, and it certainly protects the goods it carries.

I had to show one more photo from another angle so you get the full picture on just how plain this package is. Don't think the plain brown box is a bad thing though. I mean, what Thermalright doesn't spend on flashy packaging, we as consumers save in price. So this reviewer is all for the rugged brown box approach.

The fun starts once we get inside and it is clear that the interior of the package is not about to let the cooler get damaged. Where the exterior fails on flash, the interior exceeds with substance. I also have to mention that the box itself is not comprised of flimsy lightweight cardboard, this is a heavy duty box. I would easily be comfortable with dropping this package from a couple stories up without fear of any damage to the contents inside.

There are plenty more photos of this little guy in the section following the specifications.

Page 3 : Specifications

With a heatsink that doesn't come with a fan, there arent a whole lot of specifications or features but I pulled what Thermalright has at their web site and quoted it here:

The feature list hits all the highlights of this setup but the one thing that caught me off guard was that the base was copper and just plated with nickel. I assumed for some reason that aluminum would be used. This makes for a very effective cooler with plenty of weight on the base and being copper, it should transfer heat to the heatpipes quite well.

The size and dimensions really don't paint a clear picture of what this chipset cooler really looks like. The span of the fins is quite wide. In the dimensions the L is listed at 78mm, this is actually the wingspan of the fins with the W of 19mm being the depth. Here is a diagram that portrays the dimensions a bit better:

This large size and height caused problems with some CPU coolers as well as video cards on the original HR-05, hence the new design of the HR-05-SLI with the bent heatpipes. Speaking of which, it is time we had a good look at this evolved design.

Page 4 : Package Contents

I have scavenged everything from the interior of the package and will be laying it all out for the world to see. I start with the accessories package.

Aside from the instructions and Thermalright sticker, this is all that comes with the HR-05-SLI but is everything you need to mount the cooler on any motherboard. There is plenty of thermal paste that should allow multiple applications as well as four cable ties for fan mounting. The black square in the bottom right corner is to be placed on the underside of the cooler and the three metal brackets are obviously the mounting hardware for the two different types of mounts.

The instructions are very clear and easy to follow with instructions for securing the cable ties to be used as almost bumpers to keep the backside of video cards from shorting on the metal fins or to secure a fan. The instructions for mounting a fan are on the other side of this sheet and just as detailed.

The second sheet that comes with the package contains the instructions for mounting the cooler. This side outlines the push-pin mounting procedure while the other side illustrates the hook type mounting method. Again, the images and instructions are top notch and should make this a simple installation for anyone.

Now it is time for the main show featuring the silver and shiny, HR-05-SLI. The quality of this unit is incredible, like every Thermalright cooling unit. The fins are absolutely flawless and very sturdy on the heatpipes and the finish to the base of the unit is a perfect mirror finish.

With this upright photo you can see that the construction method for the fins isn't much different than a number of other coolers Thermalright has released like the XP-120 and SI-120. The fins interlock and don't have any ambition to separate from the rest of the pack.

Looking through the fins reveals a really good fin density to dissipate heat well, all the while maintaining a good amount of room for air to flow through to provide an easy path that should not lead to a lot of noise from disturbance.

I took many photos of this cooler at every angle because the photos just kept looking better and better. The symmetry and impeccable build quality of this unit make it very esthetically pleasing just sitting here, it is sure to enhance the look of any system while mounted.

Concentrating on the base we know that it is nickel plated copper from the specifications section and like the rest of the cooler, it is near flawless. The heatpipes are curved to mirror one another and then sandwiched between too halves of the thick base.

The heatpipes are simply pinched at the ends and barely sticking out the rear of the sandwiched base plates. Each half of the base has a semi circle tunnel to provide a perfecting surface to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatpipes, again, construction is absolutely perfect down to the last detail.

We saw the near flawless mounting surface in the first photo but here is another good close up to show absolutely no imperfections in the finish. Thermalright has impressed me once again with the quality of the construction and despite being a small little cooler, it should be able to handle a hefty load.

Page 5 : Installation

I will be installing the Thermalright HR-05-SLI on a number of motherboards that should cover most of the possible mounting orientations one would encounter when using this chipset cooler.

Before getting started, however, we must do a little preparation. This black foam pad that comes with the accessories is simply used for protecting the core of the chipset by keeping the cooler from rocking while mounted on the core. It is secured to the cooler by way of adhesive like a sticker. With it secured, we are ready for the first mount.

The only motherboard I have with hook type mounting is the recently reviewed Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H. I found this mounting method to be extremely easy. Simply setting the cooler down on the north bridge and holding the bracket in-place over the dimple on top with one finger while using my free hand to push down on each side to clip the hooks accomplished this task in about 10 seconds. The hooks hold the cooler very secure and it showed no signs of wanting to rock or move at all.

I have also mounted the Thermalright Ultra-120 here just to show that not only is the HR-05-SLI great for mounting in an SLI setup to avoid video cards, but it can also be utilized to avoid large heatsinks on CPU coolers when the north bridge is close to the socket like on this LGA775 board. There is clearly plenty of room on both sides of the cooler for the heatsink to the left or a video card in the green slot to the right.

The next three motherboard mounts all utilize the push-pin type mount and all use the short bracket so the first thing required is to simply mount the push-pins to the bracket by popping them through the holes.

The first motherboard that I test-fitted on was the Asus P5B-Deluxe which, again, has the north bridge near the CPU socket and not in-between GPU slots so I will use the Thermalright Ultra-120 to demonstrate how it can help with large coolers. There is no way the HR-05 would mount with this combination if the CPU cooler was in this orientation. The HR-05-SLI makes this setup possible with the offset heatpipes.

This setup did cause some problems with video card mounts though. The backplate of my HIS X800GTO IceQ II is for securing the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer cooler and there is absolutely no way to use this card in the top X16 PCI-E slot as the HR-05-SLI is just too wide.

Even a video card without a backplate makes this a tight fit and without taking extra steps, could lead to shorting or grounding the video cards backside on the cooling fins.

An easy way to fix that issue though is to use the included cable ties as seen in the photo above. Two minutes later and this setup is more than secure keeping a nice gap between the card and the cooler. If you look at the very bottom of the photo you can see that the memory module retention clip also comes into contact with the video card when opened. This is a good indication that the top video card slot on this motherboard is way too tight to the CPU bracket and obviously the chipset so I am faulting Asus here with a poor board layout.

This is just a wider angle of the complete setup and you can see the video card is leaning slightly towards the bottom of the motherboard but not nearly enough to interfere with operation or the ability to secure it to the back of a case. If you have a P5B Deluxe though, you might want to get the regular HR-05 and ensure it will fit with your CPU cooler as there really isn't a lot of room up top to work with.

Moving over to the AMD side of the world I start off with our first true SLI capable motherboard, the DFI Ultra-D…don't tell DFI mine is SLI capable and I won't tell them either. This is where the HR-05-SLI was designed to work, where space is tight behind the GPU units and any cooler more than a centimeter tall won't fit.

Again, the fit with the HIS X800GTO IceQ II is tight but there are no issues with the mount. The backplate actually does the job of the cable ties and the lean is more pronounced in this photo than it really is. Mounting this setup in a case would be easy enough.

The last motherboard I will be taking some installation photos of is another DFI LanParty motherboard and this one is actually SLI capable out of the box. I will also be using this, the NF590 SLI-M2R/G, for testing so that is why I saved it for last. You can see in this photo that the MCP is extremely far south on this motherboard, most nForce 590 motherboards for AM2 have the MCP higher up than it is here. With that said, the HR-05-SLI is still the perfect companion and a must if you are running an SLI setup here and want to replace the stock chipset cooler.

I have mounted my largest and most awkward video card in the bottom slot to simulate an SLI setup and again, the HIS X800GTO IceQ II, demonstrates that even dual slot coolers will work well with the HR-05-SLI. I didn't need to add the cable tie for protection but figured I might as well, just for fun. With this exact setup, the passive HR-05-SLI is almost being actively cooled as the AC Silencer cooler draws air over the unit on its way into the GPU cooler.

I didn't have a 70mm fan to test fit for active cooling but I did easily mount an 80mm fan with a couple of cable ties. I initially mounted the fan on the other side of the fins but was disappointed to find that the extra weight actually rocked the cooler backwards enough that I would be concerned with the cooler not making good contact.

The push-pin mount wasn't as secure as I would have liked and I was a bit disappointed that Thermalright didn't address this mounting type a little better. I personally would have preferred a screw type mount instead of push-pins because push-pins just can't get that real secure mount of any cooler, let alone an off-set one like the HR-05-SLI. With that said, there is certainly no problem with the mounting and sitting a motherboard upright wouldn't even begin to cause an issue with the push-pin mounts so I really can't complain as it does its job well.

Page 6 : Performance & Testing

We have already seen the installation photos on a number of motherboards in a vast amount of situations with various hardware, but the list below will be the system setup that will be used for testing the performance of the Thermalright HR-05-SLI:

The reason I choose this system for the thermal testing is because the DFI board and the ITE IT8716F-S offer a temperature reading of the actual chipset and not just a "system" temperature reading that comes from a sensor somewhere on the motherboard. I wanted to add a thermal probe to the underside of each heatsink during testing but the gap between the coolers and the northbridge would not allow this so our testing results will have to rely on the software reading provided by the ITE chip.

I decided that since I had an 80mm fan mounted to the HR-05-SLI, I might as well do testing with and without it. I was not planning on doing so but the opportunity presented itself so it was a no-brainer to spend the extra few hours to test with the fan in place. The 80mm fan was used at full speed and when testing the DFI stock chipset cooling option I set the RPMs of its tiny fan to a steady 6250RPM. The included Thermalright thermal paste was used for testing on all the coolers as the tube that came with the HR-05-SLI had plenty available.

For the thermal testing I loaded the system with Orthos Beta which is a program designed with Prime95 at the heart of it for extensive number crunching and I have found it to be a great way to test coolers on both the CPU and chipset. Orthos was run on Blend Stress Test for 4 hours and I took 3 random readings of the temperatures then averaged those out for the chart below. The voltage of the chipset was raised to the motherboard maximum of 1.50v from the default of 1.20v to provide as much of a heatload as possible for testing. Let's look at the results…

The results are pretty much what I expected but I think the narrow gap between the passive and actively cooled results of the HR-05-SLI indicate that it wasn't being pushed nearly to the limits of its potential. The narrow gap between the two might also be a result of the relatively cool ambient temperature of 22-23C. Either way, the HR-05-SLI clearly out-performs the stock cooling unit which was improved upon from the nF4 boards by DFI but still tends to be quite noisy at the set RPM of 7000. Based on these results, I have to say that the HR-05-SLI is definitely something to look at if you are trying to rid yourself of a noisy chipset fan spinning at a very high RPM.

Page 7 : Conclusion

I think it is safe to say that the HR-05-SLI is a specialized product and one that won't be required by everyone because of its unique design, that is a job for the Thermalright HR-05, which does its job well for standard cooling situations. The HR-05-SLI is for those users that need a bit of a twist on a traditional upright cooler because of various motherboard layout reasons.

The SLI acronym in the name is intended to attract those running multiple graphics cards and to provide a cooling solution where one or both of the video cards will be hanging over the chipset on the motherboard not allowing for a tall cooling solution to fit. The HR-05-SLI certainly works well there, but I think I demonstrated that the HR-05-SLI can also be used in situations where an SLI/CrossFire setup is nowhere to be seen; such as on Intel motherboards with large over-hanging CPU coolers.

The testing results also dictate that the HR-05-SLI can be added to a system to simply remove a noisy chipset cooling solution with a silent passive one while retaining all the cooling power if not providing more. I was impressed with the HR-05-SLI for both its cooling ability and the flexibility it provides to unique layout issues. Thermalright has always been a favorite of mine with a wide range of cooling products. Introducing the HR-05-SLI after the HR-05 proved to be troublesome in certain setups, shows that Thermalright are dedicated to helping every single user that has cooling needs.

Advantages:

• Passive cooling is music to my ears
• Flexibility is the key with this unit
• Complete package with excellent instructions…typical Thermalright

  Disadvantages:

• The HR-05 may be a better choice for some
• The push-pin mounting could be a little more snug

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Thermalright for providing this sample for review.