Dark_Gear Posted January 22, 2007 Posted January 22, 2007 To anyone who's wanting to oc their video card, especially the 7900 series and higher, but wants to stick to an air cooling solution, the question is no longer if you want to spend the extra money for ThermalRight's HR-03, but rather, why haven't you bought it yet considering it's going for the same price as the V1-Ultra, ThermalRight's previous cooling champ. Right after Xmas i bought an upgrade, a BFG 7900GS OC. NCIX had a promo and they were selling them for 168 instead of 278! Great performer for that price, especially when one considers the overclocking potential of this card. Right out of the box it was running hot. With the standard leafblower it would idle around 59-60 and load up to mid 80's. When running 3dmark 06 it would spike into the 90's. In an effort to solve the heat issues, I installed the ThermalRight V1 that used to cool my old 6600GT OC. This brought the idle temps to 53 and load to 71 but it would still spike to low-90's under ATItool and 3dmark06. :eek: Enter the HR-03, the biggest, shiniest new VGA Cooler on the market. I'd read the reviews on Tom's Hardware and it seemed to be the perfect solution. Installation was simple but a bit tricky merely because of the heatpipes that wrap around the back of the card. Keep in mind that you can also install it facing down from your card instead of around but with my setup it both makes more sense and shows off the HS much better. In the end it took me just as long to take out the card from my system, remove the previous heatsink and unpack the HR-03 than it did to install it to my card, 20 minutes,tops. Add an extra 15 minutes because I had to make my own stainless steel clips to adapt the stock 92mm fan clips to the 80mm CoolerMaster fan I snagged from my previous card because you have to supply your own fan and voila. After booting up I fired up Everest to check my temps and had to actually mouseover the numbers because none of it fit. I was expecting a big change but nothing like this. GPU now idles at 38 but the kicker is that since the fan is now quite close to my CPU heatsink (Zalman CNPS9500) it now idles 4 degrees cooler bringing the idle temps down from 23 to 19. My CPU fan isnt even spinning because the temps are so low! Next step was to see how the card would behave under load and I was in for another great surprise. Fired up ATItool to push the temps higher than most games ever will and to see if this card really is just destined to overheat. The temps shot up from 38 to 46 instantly and over the next 30 minutes, slowly ramped up to and stabilised at 52 degrees. Basically when running the core at 540Mhz and memory at a conservative 699Mhz my load temps are now my previous idle temps, and my cpu runs 3-4 degrees degrees cooler. Some quick numbers- 540/699 temps w/ V1: idle 54; F.E.A.R. 71; ATItool 85;AquaMark3 69; 3DMark06 91 Scores - AquaMark: 77463; 3DMark06 540/699 temps w/HR-03: idle 38; ATItool 52; AquaMark3 53;3Dmark 579/800 temps w/HR-03: idle 40; ATItool 52; AquaMark3 53;3Dmark06 54 Scores - AquaMark: 90753; 3DMark06 5129 So to conclude, after 2 weeks of playing games and spinning models around in 3dsMax,I've had no crashes whatsoever and no artifacting. Performance with the 7900gs is a major step up from my old 6600gt and now that I have an HR-03 installed, this 168$ card outperforms a 7900gt. If you're having heating issues or if you just want a quieter cooler for your card, seriously consider this heatsink. Just make sure you have enough room in your case to accomodate it because it is HUGE with a fan, taking up two lots and being as wide as the card itself. pros: outstanding cooling. comes with RAM heatsinks. easy install. can be installed 2 different ways to adapt to your setup. cons: HUGE!! doesn't come with fan. (but that could also be good considering you get to pick your own) price 56$ (but you get what you pay for) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Septem Posted January 23, 2007 Posted January 23, 2007 I had some trouble with mine. I installed it on an XFX 7950 GT and the card ended up fried. I don't know if I wasn't making proper contact or what. I'm actually not even positive it was the HR-03 that did it, but it happened again when I sent the card back for a replacement. The replacement actually caught on fire. So I just sent it back for a refund. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
grasskicker509 Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 fire!!! dang now thats hot Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Septem Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 fire!!! dang now thats hot I have no clue why though. If it was the GPU getting too hot I would think the fire would originate from around there, but this came from the corner of the card from what looked like possibly a MOSFET. I think it may have shorted or something. To this day I still haven't a clue as to even whether or not it was the fault of the HR-03. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoken Joe Posted January 25, 2007 Posted January 25, 2007 I have no clue why though. If it was the GPU getting too hot I would think the fire would originate from around there, but this came from the corner of the card from what looked like possibly a MOSFET. I think it may have shorted or something. To this day I still haven't a clue as to even whether or not it was the fault of the HR-03. Did you have some airflow over the card- from case fans or the like? If not the card can overheat. Nice review! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Septem Posted January 26, 2007 Posted January 26, 2007 Did you have some airflow over the card- from case fans or the like? If not the card can overheat. We're talking under a minute, and I have no case, plus the CPU fan. I don't really think that was the cause. Interestingly, it didn't fry until after I installed the HR-03. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Gear Posted January 27, 2007 Posted January 27, 2007 That must have been the card that was at fault again. Although I do recall I had some seating issues with the thermalright V1I installed on my 6600gt. Turns out I hadn't tightened the 4 screws that hold the heatsink down onto the mounting bracket properly so the thermal paste wasn't properly compressed and acted as an insulator instead. Reseating it with a fresh layer of paster fixed the problem. Considering the HR-03 uses the same style of mounting bracket, maybe that was the problem the first time, especially if the thumb screws were put in too tight or the rubber washers weren't installed. Having learned from my previous Thernalright installation, I took my time and incrementally tightened opposite corners until the whole thing was snug. As for your second card catching fire... yeowza! that just cant be good. Maybe the surface of the card was accidentally scratched when the heatsink was installed. Did you install the HR-03 in wraparound mode or hanging down on the ram side? Maybe that could have made a difference. But since you returned it, did you go for another aftermarket cooler or are you just the stock cooler? Also, you mentioned you werent running it in a case at the time so are you using a techrack (or whatever those open shelf systems that are mostly used for benchmarking parts is called)? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Septem Posted January 28, 2007 Posted January 28, 2007 Considering the HR-03 uses the same style of mounting bracket, maybe that was the problem the first time, especially if the thumb screws were put in too tight or the rubber washers weren't installed. Having learned from my previous Thernalright installation, I took my time and incrementally tightened opposite corners until the whole thing was snug. I did take my time, but it's possible the "cushpad" was preventing the cooler from making contact. As for your second card catching fire... yeowza! that just cant be good. Maybe the surface of the card was accidentally scratched when the heatsink was installed. Did you install the HR-03 in wraparound mode or hanging down on the ram side? Maybe that could have made a difference. I used the wraparound mode. I was however extremely careful especially the second time I installed it. I even used a plastic bag over the fins to protect the card. But since you returned it, did you go for another aftermarket cooler or are you just the stock cooler? Also, you mentioned you werent running it in a case at the time so are you using a techrack (or whatever those open shelf systems that are mostly used for benchmarking parts is called)? I actually didn't return the HR-03, I returned both cards. See I'm using a 6600GT right now, and when I got the HR-03 I thought it would work (stupidest mistake ever, not checking to make sure it would work). If I had known I would've just gotten an Evercool VC-RF. But since I already had the cooler, I decided to buy a 7950GT. I'm using a very high tech piece of particle board with a high-resolution (at least 5-10 DPI) picture of wood laminated on it. That's what my motherboard is resting on. I also have drive cages lying around. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blarf Posted January 28, 2007 Posted January 28, 2007 i just got me an HR-03 for my ati x1900xtx since my accelero x2 just died Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Gear Posted January 28, 2007 Posted January 28, 2007 Hey General, About that cushpad, I have no idea why it's even included in the kit because once the heatsink is completely screwed on, the bracket doesnt come anywhere near the GPU because the tension brings it flush with bottom of the cooler surface. The only time I could see the cushpad being required is during the installation the HR-03 is fully installed, and then what's the point of having a piece of silicone glued to your GPU for 2 minutes worth of protection? Wierd design. Who knows, maybe it's more for ATI cards? I havent used it with either of the cards or heatsinks. Also, other odd bit of trivia, while the ThermalRight site says that the V1 is not compatible with any card above the 6800 It installed flawlessly on my 7900gs. However it's performance on that gpu, while a vast improvement over the stock cooler, wasn't really good enough to keep the card confortably cool at anything but standard specs, even factory oc is too much. As for that particle board setup, I'd like to run my system in an open platform but i'm too worried about the cat wanting to explore what those whining blue spinny things are and thus shorting the board. Sounds like you dont really have to worry about case flow though Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashura Posted January 28, 2007 Posted January 28, 2007 Just wanna give more credit to a great video card cooler. I used it with my old x1900xtx and temps were wonderful! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Septem Posted January 28, 2007 Posted January 28, 2007 It's a great cooler, but I'm getting the R600 when it comes out, so I can see myself never really having a use for it. Shame. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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