Saturday, August 30th 2008

Thermalright HR-03 GTX kit Pictured

Thermalright is releasing a variant of the HR-03 VGA cooling kit that supports the GeForce GTX 200 series graphics cards called the HR-03 GTX. The kit consists of the main heatsink unit, heatsinks over the memory, a heatsink for the card's VRM area and a heatsink over the NVIO2 processor. The main GPU heatsink is essentially the same as the HR-03 except for modifications of the portion that makes contact with the GPU and the heatpipe configuration. Although the HR-03 series kits were meant to provide silent cooling to graphics cards, the manufacturers of this cooler insist you install an additional fan using provided retention clips.
Source: Hardspell
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47 Comments on Thermalright HR-03 GTX kit Pictured

#1
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
Weird.




i have never understood why anyone would want to use a cooler so damn big that you cant put another card next to it. what if you wanted to run tri-sli?
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#2
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
What's more weird, the original purpose of HR-03 (to provide silent cooling) is defeated, with the manufacturer telling you should add a fan.
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#3
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
btarunrWhat's more weird, the original purpose of HR-03 (to provide silent cooling) is defeated, with the manufacturer telling you should add a fan.
and with the fan.... forget about having anything else in your pci/pcie slots.
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#4
AddSub
Dosen't look too special. Now let's wait and see what Thermaltake and the rest of them come up with.
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#5
trt740
btarunrWhat's more weird, the original purpose of HR-03 (to provide silent cooling) is defeated, with the manufacturer telling you should add a fan.
They were never ment to be passive , silent yes, passive no, and always a fan was recommended, there are no vga coolers that even come close to thermalrights( accept Arctic cooler newer ones). They are as close to water as you can get on air. I have owned almost all of their coolers VGA or otherwise, and they usually drop load temps near 40c, if you want to overclock a 280gtx this is the cooler , and I bet no other cooler companys will even attempt this.
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#6
kid41212003
I thought you can "turn" the heatsink around?
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#7
oli_ramsay
Is it me or does the VRM sink look like a cheese grater?
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#8
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
oli_ramsayIs it me or does the VRM sink look like a cheese grater?
it's so if your at a lan party and you need some grated cheese for your taco you can grate it up... if you have cheese.
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#9
rampage
its the same with the Thermalright's HR-03 pluss on my old 8800gtx i couldnt use any other slot on my entire mobo (micro atx), quite often if you want better cooling there is a price to pay either $$$ or room inside the case, and its quite often both

also dont forget when removing the stock cooler on the 200 series you quite often break the little tabs holding the cooler on voiding your warranty (thats the main reaon why i havent changed the cooler on mine)

one other thing i have fond with my gtx280 is that overclocking it gives me little benefit in games and benchmarks (it is cpu limited EG: 4.25 ghz dual core gave me an extra 4000 pts in 3dm 05 over a quad at 3.2) so the only reason i can see to go this would be for a cooler quieter gpu and not for OCing
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#10
trt740
rampageits the same with the Thermalright's HR-03 pluss on my old 8800gtx i couldnt use any other slot on my entire mobo (micro atx), quite often if you want better cooling there is a price to pay either $$$ or room inside the case, and its quite often both

also dont forget when removing the stock cooler on the 200 series you quite often break the little tabs holding the cooler on voiding your warranty (thats the main reaon why i havent changed the cooler on mine)

one other thing i have fond with my gtx280 is that overclocking it gives me little benefit in games and benchmarks (it is cpu limited EG: 4.25 ghz dual core gave me an extra 4000 pts in 3dm 05 over a quad at 3.2) so the only reason i can see to go this would be for a cooler quieter gpu
thats because your cpu is only at 3.2ghz at even 3.6ghz you would see a giant jumps. With my old Qx9650 (fits has now) your score would jump by thousands when overclocking a 280.
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#11
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
we need a single slot cooler that cools SO well that the GPU is 1-2c above room temp. it would be a F*&^in miracle if they make that though.
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#12
trt740
kid41212003I thought you can "turn" the heatsink around?
you might still be able I assumed you couldn't.
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#13
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
trt740thats because your cpu is only at 3.2ghz at even 3.6ghz you would see a giant jumps. With my old Qx9650 (fits has now) your score would jump by thousands when overclocking a 280.
yup.... OC the vid cards 20mhz on the core and you get about 1000-1200pts higher with the qx9650 at 4.5ghz

hell... from 4.4ghz to 4.5ghz i saw 1480pts somehow.
Posted on Reply
#14
rampage
trt740thats because your cpu is only at 3.2ghz at even 3.6ghz you would see a giant jumps. With my old Qx9650 (fits has now) your score would jump by thousands when overclocking a 280.
the largest gain i have seen was with the 4.25 ghz cpu and a highly overclocked gpu was 3>5 %(aprox), im just saying i had a larger gain from a faster cpu then gpu, in my belief there cpu limited

but back to the main topic, yeah i think the cooler would make a nice improvement over the stock one temp wise
Posted on Reply
#15
trt740
here is an improvement
rampagethe largest gain i have seen was with the 4.25 ghz cpu and a highly overclocked gpu was 3>5 %(aprox), im just saying i had a larger gain from a faster cpu then gpu, in my belief there cpu limited

but back to the main topic, yeah i think the cooler would make a nice improvement over the stock one temp wise
and I bet it will go alot higher with that cooler.
Posted on Reply
#16
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
trt740They were never ment to be passive , silent yes, passive no, and always a fan was recommended, there are no vga coolers that even come close to thermalrights( accept Arctic cooler newer ones). They are as close to water as you can get on air. I have owned almost all of their coolers VGA or otherwise, and they usually drop load temps near 40c, if you want to overclock a 280gtx this is the cooler , and I bet no other cooler companys will even attempt this.
A fan was always recommended but never part of the requirements. Thermalright says you need a fan at all costs.
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#17
trt740
btarunrA fan was always recommended but never part of the requirements. Thermalright says you need a fan at all costs.
yes on a GTX but not on all the prior models.
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#18
WarEagleAU
Bird of Prey
It does look like a cheese grater and the thing is massive. For those wanting to keep a single card solution with awesome cooling, not much around to beat this beast.
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#19
kid41212003
trt740you might still be able I assumed you couldn't.
:wtf:
If you can't turn this heatsink around, It's suck. I mean, the first impression when I look at this design is you can turn this around, and make sandwich, I thought this why the heatsink look like that...
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#20
blobster21
i've got two of these babies cooling 2 HD4870 crossfired, with no additional fans, they works great

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#22
Fitseries3
Eleet Hardware Junkie
blobster21i've got two of these babies cooling 2 HD4870 crossfired, with no additional fans, they works great

that looks sick! almost like lungs of the beast.
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#23
PP Mguire
not much around to beat this beast.
Watercooling
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#24
trt740
blobster21i've got two of these babies cooling 2 HD4870 crossfired, with no additional fans, they works great

thermalright is the cooling god
Posted on Reply
#25
trt740
PP MguireWatercooling
um not really it's close, and it has alot less pain in the ass factor.
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