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Just received my Thermalright HR-05 - Review

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ps2cho

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2004
Hey guys,

I ordered my Thermalright HR-05 after I was uncomfortable having the stock Northbridge heatsink my Biostar TForce6100. It made a very disturbing crunching noise when moved and was not on solid.

Test System:
Socket 754 Athlon64 Venice 3200+ @ 2600MHz
Si-97 /w 90mm fan - CPU VCore 1.5v Full load 48c
Biostar TForce6100
1GB OCZ Gold PC4000

Ok so first I removed the board as I had to get at underneath unfortunately...

Some pics first :)

hr1.jpg


hr2.jpg


hr3.jpg


Now I took off the original stock northbridge heatsink...look what I found...
hr4.jpg


hr5.jpg

^ Here is the cause of the crunching. It is missing one of the black buffers and also...there seems to be a hair present? It sure isn't mine.

Now onto the Thermalright HR-05 Northbridge Heatsink :)


hr6.jpg

^Boxed very simply, but I do actually like it!
hr7.jpg

^I like how it is packaged as we can be sure when you buy Thermalright, no damage will occur during shipping. Very good.


Continued on next post:
 
hr8.jpg

^Pretty shiny, but not mirror finish. Not extremely important for a NB heatsink as it is for the CPU heatsink.

hr9.jpg

^Pretty tall for a northbridge heatsink :) I like! It goes well next to my Si-97 don't you say so?


And sitting down in place:
hr10.jpg

hr11.jpg


hr12.jpg

^I couldn't help myself but stick a fan bigger than the recommended 70mm to fit on it. The zipties they provided were small and could not reach fully around so I wanted to use my longer ones, but the small gaps in between the fins could not fit my bigger ties through, so I resorted to rubber bands. It works fine :)


I actually ended up with a full load temperature for the CPU at 45c. So a 3c drop was a nice addition because I have another fan blowing at the CPU. I planned this so that it also draws heat away from the 7900GS, but the cold air coming behind would not raise temperatures on the CPU.

Conclusion:

This NB heatsink I would give 8/10. My motherboard has no built in temperature sensor for the NB, so I used a thermal gun to test it. On the original heatsink during prime95 I would see a temperature of 37c. (It must be higher as this is not as accurate as at the core itself and so I would personally add ~7c higher to reach some figure plausible. With the HR-05 in place, the gun reads 28c. That is a good drop!

There are plenty of different levers. There are three different sizes for the straight ones, and one bent lever (I'm guessing for LGA775) so it should fit all the latest sockets out there.

It looks very sweet and does not take up much space so dimensions will not be a problem.

The only thing that did not make this 10/10 was that it is not tied down as tight as I would like, but far better than the stock I had. It won't go anywhere, so it is safe, but it would have got a perfect score if it were a little tighter.

Thanks and enjoy to those who might consider getting this!
 
You can see from the last picture how close it is to the PCI-E slot...its pretty close so its dragging some heat away from the back of my 7900GS. It gets pretty hot at the back.
 
I have the SLI version and it's very nice!!
ps2cho said:
I couldn't help myself but stick a fan bigger than the recommended 70mm to fit on it.
Yeah, I was the same stuck an 80mm fan on aswell so it's cooling better than stock and quieter. It's blowing up towards the graphics card and gave me ~2°C temp drop. Hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine :)
 
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gocartman2 said:
yea lol, how do they recommend putting it on? as long as it does the job who really cares

They provide 4 zipties, but they are too short for a 80mm fan and don't hit the first like clip on the ziptie to hold it, and larger zipties do not fit through the fins so I just used elastic bands to hold it as it works :)
I could have just used one, but I decided to go on the safe side and use three.
 
I love my dads camera it really does take some sick pictures.
 
ps2cho said:
Just received my Thermalright HR-05 - Review
Great review! Nice job!

I recently bought a HR-05 for my DS3 and I came to the same conclusion as you: the retention mechanism is weak. The plastic push pins and springs are lame. I'm thinking about purchasing the MAZE4 Chipset Stainless Steel Hardware Kit to replace the push pins. For a picture, click the link below:


The downside is that after shipping, it costs $12 bucks. That's almost as much as the HR-05. I suppose I could go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy the parts. It's just more of a hassle...
 
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Yes, I should probably formulate a plan to get springs with more tension, or a better push pin design. But for now it works and I'm happy :)
 
I am really happy with this new processor and motherboard. My only regret is that they removed the chipset voltage adjustments from the BIOS in the latest.
With this good heatsink on it, I wouldn't be afraid to give it a few extra volts to help with maxing out the motherboard.
 
Hi Ps2cho,

how was the base of your hr05? My hr05,hr05-sli & ultra120 are all crap... They have machine marks all over the base in circles. Had to lap my ultra120, looks like i'll have to do the same to my NB heatsinks......
 
Do machine marks really make a difference before and after lapping? I would guess that only bending or the base not being flat would cause a huge difference,
 
Allygash said:
They look & feel like a nail file but in circles, can't be good for a bonding surface.....

In reality, it makes almost no difference at all and if it did, the thermal paste would have not been administered correctly. That is precisely what thermal paste is supposed to do.

As for my HR-05....there was no noticable machine marks, just very small curvy lines, not circles though. It was the same on my Si-97, but it feels very smooth and the ketchup test was almost perfect on both.
 
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