Tech Reaction

Our friends over at Thermalright shipped us a very appealing chipset heatsink. The HR-05 IFX is one of four in the series of chipset heatsinks Thermalright offers, at the moment. With all of the accomplishments of Thermalright’s CPU heatsinks, it  is very easy to overlook the rest of their solid catalog. Today we get to find out if the HR-05 IFX will live up to the great reputation of top quality products that  Thermalright produces.

Introduction:

Features:

• Wild Fire design with increased surface area for dissipation from any 80mm fan (fan wire clips included)
• New and improved method of retention mechanism for more sturdy and firm mount and with better motherboard compatibility.
• Proprietary through holes on fins for effiecient ventilation
• Soldered fins to copper base (nickel plated) to make effective contact
• Light weight and easy installation

Dimensions:
L85.8 x W20(fin), W30(base) x H105 (mm), without fan
Weight: 110g (heatsink only)

Recommended Fan:
Any 80×80x15mm or 80×80*25mm fan

Packaging:

With the small box everything is very compact and there is no wiggle room. It’s great because you do not have to worry about any broken parts from bad packaging! This is always a plus when ordering something online. They include everything needed to get you off and running, even their own brand of thermal paste, “The Chill Factor.” They did not include a fan, but they do give you 80mm fan clips to help you out for future fan additions.

Overview:

The Thermalright HR-05 IFX has an very eye popping ‘Wild Fire’ fin design. Not many chipset coolers on the market today have this “wow” factor to them! It will go great with a case that has a window, and would be something you could proudly show off. While the fire shaped fins do look great, we could find no real improvement or lack thereof in the temperatures.  The silver finish is also a nice touch, and the nickel plated bottom gives it a very lustrous look. The fins are made of aluminum, which will make them bend if you hit them or press too hard on them. In a way this is good, because as easily as you bent them out of place, you can bend them back to their original position.

Installation:

First, you will need to remove the stock chipset cooling.   In this case we removed the NB stock heatsink.  Next clean all of the thermal paste the manufacturer puts on. When that is finished, you will find something like this.

Actual installation of the HR-05 IFX is extremely simplistic. This is the installation unit for an Intel based board. Once you place the IFX on the NB chip, all you need to do is place your retention bracket of the top  of the base and then find the two holes your push pins line up with. Once you do that,  just apply a little pressure and they pop right in. This, however, does not create a super tight fit which some people look for. People will wonder if it is tight enough to not come loose and tight enough to do its job effectively. Also, some people may be thinking, “plastic push-pins?” Yep, we said plastic! They are solid though and will hold the unit in place with no problems.

The clearance of the HR-05 IFX is very close, however, if you were wanting to install a 80mm you may be in trouble. Also take notice of how close this ends up being to the CPU. If you have aftermarket cooling on your CPU, you may be out of luck using this as a NB cooling option. Since we are water cooling this setup, we did not run into any clearance problems. Be sure to note these two things while considering this for a NB cooling option.

With the picture taken from above (on the right), you can see just how much clearance you will have on either side.  It does not leave much, if any, for a fan once the video card and CPU coolers are installed. Like we said earlier, we are water cooling this setup, so we have plenty of room to the CPU side for a fan. This is may not be the best position for some people, but it works, and is very  efficient as you will see later on.

Testing:

Throughout the entirety of the tests, the rooms ambient temp was always 23-24C. We made sure to check before we started and before we ended every test. Without further ado, let’s get to some testing results!

Test setup:

• Intel I7 920
• Asus Rampage Gene II
• 3×2GB Mushkin DDR3
• Corsair HX750
• Nvidia 9600
• Thermalright HR-05 IFX @ NB

Fan Used:

Link Depot Z-Quiet Fan

• Max Air Flow: 27.5 CFM
• Noise: 25 dBA
• Dimensions: 80 x 80 x 25 mm
• Voltage: 12 VDC
• Input Power: 1.2 W
• Weight: 68 g
• Speed: 2200 RPM

We started off running NB volts on ‘Auto,’ which turned out to be 1.16 in our case. The tests can confirm several things for us. The stock heatsink from the manufacturer, ASUS, needs some work. With the 60C you get from just running ‘Auto’ settings, this is getting up there in temperature and can only get worse with the higher volts.

The Thermalright HR-05 IFX stomps the stock heatsink into the ground. The 9C advantage with the highest ‘Normal’ volts the manual recommends is huge. The IFX superiority is starting to really show now that the heat shows up. The quality of this product is starting to really shine through.

Now with the final test we cranked the NB voltage up to 1.51v we take a look at the HR-o5 IFX w/fan results. They turned out to be astounding with the fan on. With the absolutely dominating 36C increase in performance over the stock heatsink, the HR-05 IFX is living up to the great Thermalright name. It’s overwhelmingly superior to the stock heatsink ASUS provides.

Final Thoughts:

With the overwhelming improvement in temperatures it is hard to find negative things to say. However, while we appreciated the 80mm fan clips very much, where was our fan? Thermalright, do you not see how much of an improvement the fan made? We think this product deserves a nice Thermalright fan with it! Another thing, it’s hard to find boards with compatibility to use this chipset cooler. With as big as most of the CPU aftermarket coolers are today, you would be hard pressed to find an air cooled motherboard that this would fit on.

None the less, with as great as the HR-05 IFX performs, we would not hesitate to recommend this product to anyone who is running a water cooled system. Notice how we said “water cooled”? This is because water blocks take up less space around the CPU socket area, which in turn, will give you plenty of room for the HR-05 IFX and a fan. If you can fit the IFX on your board with air cooling, it would definitely be worth it, especially, when the volts start getting turned up! Overall, we could not be happier with the performance we received from the HR-05 IFX. We were not sure what to expect, but we had no idea that a 36C improvement in temperatures was in store for us.

The Thermalright HR-05 IFX receives the TechREACTION.net Silver Silicon Award!

You can find the HR-05 IFX at Performance-PCs for $21.95!

Thanks to Thermalright for the sample.