Product: Thermalright HR-01 Heatpipe with Optional Fan Duct
MSRP: Heatpipe – $49.95, Fan Duct – $7
Supplier: Thermalright
Author: Dan (Tytanium)

Thermalright has an excellent track record of air cooling products. Beginning with the SLK-948 and 947U for AMD Socket A and Intel Socket 478, made out of solid copper, they established a large fan base in the enthusiast market, competing against the high quality Zalman CNPS series, as well as Thermaltake’s popular Volcano heat sinks. Now they have broken into the silent PC market with the HighRise-01 (HR-01). Today we’ll be comparing this passive heat sink to AMD’s stock cooling solution.

Features

• Fanless design for low-noise operation
• Proprietary through holes on fins for efficient ventilation
• Multiple heat pipes for well spread heat around aluminum fins
• Soldered fins to copper base (nickel plated) to make effective contact
• Light weight and easy installation

Technical Specifications

• Dimensions: L110 x W60 x H159.5(mm) Heat sink only
• Weight: 525g (heat sink only)
• AMD: Athlon64 FX 3200+ (socket 939/940) /Athlon64 3200+ (socket 754) and above
• Intel: Pentium-4 socket 478 up to 3.2 GHz *additional hardware required
• Intel: Pentium-4 LGA775 3.2 GHz and above *additional hardware required

What’s in the box

• Heat sink
• AMD K8 mounting bracket
• Instruction sheet
• 120mm flexible fan duct
• Thermalright thermal grease
• Five duct mounting screws
• Double sided tape

As you can see, the construction quality is excellent. The base consists of a brushed nickel plated surface smoothed down to an excellent finish for optimum heat transfer. Eight heat pipes transfer heat from the base to the 31 soldered fins, again increasing heat transfer efficiency. A duct attaches to one side with sticky tape and molded tabs on the duct itself to any 120mm fan with proper mounting holes.

 

Installation

The HR-01 attaches to a standard K8 mounting piece, much like the stock cooler, and installation is very simple.  Just clip in the back and front brackets to the tabs on the mounting piece, and lock it in over the indentation milled into the base

Installing the fan duct took a little more work.  Although the duct is flexible, it’s still fairly stiff, and for this particular motherboard and case combination, it had to flex downwards a fair amount.  This created a few attachment problems, as you can see here.

However, after messing around a bit and some uncomfortable twisting and flexing, I managed to fully attach the duct to both the heat sink and fan.

 

Testing

The test was carried out on the following system:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ socket 939 (Venice) @1.8ghz 1.35v
MSI K8N Neo3 FISR socket 939
512mb Corsair Value Select PC3200
Asus Radeon 9600XT
Seagate SATA 120GB 7200.8 HDD
OCZ ModStream Modular 450W PSU
Logisys Dracula Mid-ATX
Logisys 120mm duct fan (2400RPM, 69 CFM, 40dB)

Idle temperatures were recorded after a fresh restart after one hour idling in Windows XP Professional empty desktop.  Load temperatures were recorded after one hour of 100% CPU load using Prime95 with in-place FFTs for maximum heat output.

Stock cooler at 100% fan speed: 29C idle, 44C load
Thermalright HR-01: 28C idle, 36C load

Well!  Not too shabby for a passive cooler.  The one performance related note I noticed was that the cooler tended to be slow coming down from load temperatures.  It usually took nearly a full minute for it to come from 36C to 28C.   Though this could probably be solved by a more powerful fan, the one used for this test was rated only at 69 CFM @ 2400RPM, and there is a large surface area to remove excess heat from.

The only negative part about this heat sink is its rather stringent mounting requirements.  Though Thermalright’s website claims it fits any K8, 478, or LGA775 motherboard, it does not say anything about case restrictions and fan placement.  Though the duct was very flexible, it puts unnecessary twist on the heat sink, and reduces clearance between it and the video card on this motherboard.  So when considering this heat sink, check your motherboard layout in comparison to your case (and make sure you have a 120mm exhaust fan!)

 

Conclusion

In all, I give this product a 4.5 out of 5, for excellent silent cooling performance, its only drawback being its finicky layout requirements.

Maximum CPU gives the Thermalright HR-01 4.5/5

Pros:

+ Excellent cooling performance
+ No added noise levels for superior performance
+ Easy mounting onto motherboard
+ Professional build quality

Cons:

- Case/motherboard layout requirements
- Stress and twisting for non-optimal layouts (if duct is used)