[O/C]Thermalright HR-02 Review

Today, I am taking a look at Thermalright's new offering for the quiet computing crowd, the HR-02. This is a bit of a change for me, as I really don't insist on a very quiet cooling solution since I have a dedicated room for computers in my house. There are many people out there that have to live very close to their computers and noise does bother some people. So Thermalright has stepped up to the plate and has given us an updated offering that can be used totally fanless.

​

Click to expand...

... Return to article to continue reading.

Nice review Mudd!

Thanks David. Like I said in the review, if you want silence and overclocking, this is a "must have" heatsink for your needs. If it can handle a 930 at 4 GHz without a fan installed, it can pretty much handle anything out there you might want to run. And installing a low cfm, quiet fan gives you even more headroom.

Was HT on during tests? I just noticed that wasn't listed...my bad...

Is it just me or is the temp scaling with fans not very good? 78.6C fanless or 71.4C w/ H1011 at full blast? The temp difference definitely isn't worth the fan noise for 24/7, in my opinion. Even the low speed Noctuas only net up to a 4.5C decrease. To me, this sink is only worth it if you are going fanless or the fans used literally cannot be heard at all. If the fans can be heard, you might as well just go fanless.

So, yeah, this is THE heatsink for high-end systems built with silence as a high priority. Good job as always

Yes, HT is always on unless specified. And the only reason why I would turn off HT is if I would run into a thermal stability problem when testing a heatsink. So far I haven't run into that problem yet in my testing on i7 with the various heatsinks and LCLC systems I've tested.

And you do see a moderate drop in temps when you add a low rpm fan to it. And the Noctua with the ULV resistor added inline is pretty much inaudible when installed inside a case. And with the LV resistor inline it's not much louder. I also think one of the lower rpm Gentle Typhoon fans would be an ideal choice for this sink if you did want active cooling on it.

I presently still have the HR-02 installed fanless and left the system running, crunching Rosetta when I left to go offshore. I first put it back on Rosetta about 12/13 and the highest Rosetta crunching temps I saw before I left on the 22nd were running around the mid 60's, which is pretty damn good in my opinion. And checking my Rosetta stats, that machine is having no problems at all while running unattended. Most apps aren't going to load the proc as badly as Prime95 or OCCT or IBT.

And this heatsink is aimed squarely at the silent computing group and not the pure performance bunch like we tend to lean toward. So it didn't surprise me too much that temps didn't drop off more than they did with increasing cfm, since it was aimed for best performance at very low cfrm and static pressure. Plus, I do believe my 930 happens to be one of the hotter running variety. If I get time, I plan to retest a few heatsinks with the 930 and look at the temp difference I see with it compared to my 980X.

Great writeup jim!!! I was surpised how poorly it scaled...13c difference between no fan and the beast, you can really tell what was in mind when they designed the hr-02

Always a thorough review doc.

Thanks, pwnmachine.