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Thermalright HR-07


Date
: 03/24/07 – 03:35:24 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Thermalright Inc

Price
: 24.99 Each @ Newegg

Thermalright has always been a fan and reviewer favourite here at Overclockers Online. We have, in the past, reviewed various CPU coolers but this is our first Thermalright memory cooler. I've been approached by many vendors to review this type of product but when TR dropped me a message, I jumped on the opportunity of bringing TR back into our spotlight.

The Thermalright HR-07 is like many of the High Riser coolers – big. It also doesn't come cheap, and TR acknowledges that on their own press release! So is it worth it?

Page 2 : Package & Package Contents

There's never too much to see in a Thermalright package. They are doing the environment good by keeping their packaging plain, simple, and minimalistic. When you buy the HR-07, you need to buy them individually as not everyone will need dual memory coolers.

The cellophane window gives you a glimpse of the cooler and the orthographic drawing gives you a good idea of what an assembled cooler looks like. Flipping the package to the side we see the company name and product model.

The backside of the package gives you a larger orthographic drawing. We see some features and dimensions provided by Thermalright. I'm surprised by the fact that it states no tools are needed for assembly. It begs the question of how secure the memory modules will be once the HR-07 is installed.

The top of the package is simply the word "High Riser". As you can tell, the package box itself is pretty simple but what matters most is what is inside the box.

Once you open up the top of the package and pull out all the content, you realize there really isn't much to it. Inside the box we have a single sheet of paper detailing the installation process, a bag for mounting and securing the memory and optional fan and the heatsink.

Page 3 : Specifications

The Thermalright website has always been a second priority to the company but that's perfectly fine as what they have is everything you will need. There's a menu off to the side that details every product they have and a menu along the top of basic contact information. Finding the HR-07 is quite simple, go to the left menu, click on RAM Cooler, and then on HR-07. A pictorial installation guide was made by Thermalright along with a list of Frequently Asked Questions and a PDF copy of the installation sheet seen on the page before.

The HR-07 is compatible on with both DDR1 and DDR2 modules and the installation process will vary with the type of stick you have. A list of features and a very brief note on the specifications can be found on the Thermalright website.

Page 4 : Installation

As I mentioned on the earlier page, there are several installation guides provided to you on the Thermalright website. It clearly states that in order to install the HR-07, you must remove the existing heat spreader on your memory stick. This typically voids your warranty and neither Thermalright nor Overclockers Online can be held accountable for your actions. Please take
extra
care when removing the heat spreader!

I took my memory modules from the Patriot Memory 2GB PC-5300 and removed the heat spreader by prying them off with a blank DVD. Slowly but surely they came off and I was ready to install the new HR-07s.

With the naked modules, the first step is to apply the .3mm thermal pad to protect the ICs from the bare face of the heatsink. This will improve contact and prevent the heatsink from damaging the IC or shorting out any protruding parts.

On one side of the module I stuck a thermal probe between the face of the memory IC and the thermal pad. I will use this to measure the temperature of the IC. Once the two layers of thermal pad have been laid on top, slip the memory module between the heatspreader and wiggle the cooler around to make sure the module is centered and is pushed as far down as possible. I also taped a second thermal probe on the top of the heatsink for temperature monitoring.

If you want to add a fan to the heatsink, Thermalright has provided a fan adapter with screws so you can create supports for either a 70mm, 80mm, or 92mm fan. Too bad they didn't make it big enough to support a 120mm fan!

The first step is to install the fan mounting brackets onto the HR-07 using the small screw provided in the HR-07 mounting accessories.

The next step is to get your fan and select the appropriate screw to hold it down on the fan bracket. For my 80mm Silenx fan, I needed the 1.25" screw.

Holding the fan on top of the bracket, align the holes and fix the fan down with the screw.

Now you could do this to ever corner the fan, but I found two is more than sufficient to hold the fan onto the two HR-07s.

If you only have 1 stick of memory to cool, the HR-07 is designed such that you can still mount a fan to it. It is absolutely not necessary to have a fan installed during testing. I'm confident that the HR-07 will provide a significant temperature drop without any extra cooling.

Once you've fitted your memory modules with the new heatsinks, you simply install them like regular sticks. If your motherboard has dual channel capabilities on DIMMS 1&2, you will not be able to use the HR-07's in a dual channel configuration. I also found out that if you don't orient your heatsink properly, you might find out that your DIMM slots are too close to your PCI-e X16 slot!

To remedy this I pulled the memory stick off my motherboard and flipped the orientation of the heatsink. It was a matter of 30 seconds worth of work.

With the memory modules now installed, it's time to get testing!

Page 5 : Performance

In order to test the performance of the HR-07, I will be comparing temperature of a stock set of heat spreaders to the HR-07's. Here's the specifications of my machine:

Temperature monitoring was with a Thermaltake Hardcano 2. I taped one thermal probe onto the side of the heat spreader and wedged a second probe between the face of the IC and the thermal tape on the heatsink. With the HR-07, I wedged a probe between the face of the IC and the thermal pad and taped a second probe on the face of the heatsink. An idle temperature of the two probes was taken after the system idled for 8 hours and a load temperature was taken after Ortho blend mode ran for another 8 hours.

Here are the results:

Heatsink Face

IC Face

I was quite shocked to see such a large temperature difference between the regular heat spreader and the HR-07s. Ten degrees without any noise is a huge gain you can't complain about! A simple fan knocks it back a few more degrees and with SilenX fans, you can still barely hear them!

The only thing you really must worry about is buying the HR-07 when some memory kits already come with fancy heat spreaders that would be extremely difficult to remove. One such example would be the OCZ PC2-9200 FlexXLC or Corsair XPERT family that have either elaborate cooling systems or additional micro processing systems to monitor performance. If you are not OK with voiding your memory's warranty by having to remove the heat spreader, it won't be long before we start seeing the HR-07 as a standard option on memory kits. Jody will be reviewing such a package very shortly!

Page 6 : Conclusion

The entire Thermalright High-Riser family has been a huge success. The HR-07, the latest addition to the family, easily outperformed the stock cooler much like the other High Riser products.

The high performance of double digit temperature dropping by the HR-07 does come at a cost. While thirty dollars per cooler can be bared by any enthusiast, the cost of buying a new memory kit because you accidentally pulled too hard and yanked an IC right off the face of the PCB would be a path I'd much rather not have to walk down. Where does that leave you? As Robert Frost said, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -/ I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference… in my overclocking experience. Okay, so I added a bit to the end, but here at Overclockers Online, the path should be an easy one as we all take the extra mile to get one more MHz out of our overclock.

Advantages

Amazing cooling performance
New bling for your memory

Disadvantages

You risk damaging your memory modules on OEM cooler

Overclockers Online would like to thank Thermalright Inc for making this review possible.