Thermalright HR-05/IFX

Testing

Methodology

All of the testing is carried out outside of a computer case. As with every test, we use a thin layer of Arctic Silver 5 between the chipset and the cooler for comparable results. Out-of-the-box cooling (OTB) is also tested which uses the provided heatpaste. Ambient temperature was 19C throughout.

To test we simply boot the PC up with a freshly installed copy of Windows XP, and measure temperatures using Speedfan. The temperature is taken from the motherboards own chipset temperature diode.

For idle testing, we simply let the testing rig sit doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes and take the most representative temperature of the last 10 minutes. The same is used for the load testing, but instead of letting the PC do nothing, OCCT is used to load both cores to 100%.

Results

As you can see, the temperatures are obviously incorrect from the board, as they are far below the ambient temperature. As a result, they only show the difference between idle and load, rather than actual temperatures.

As with the original HR-05, this level of cooling is completely unnecessary for this board. If the tiny extruded aluminium ‘sink manages to keep the silicon from combusting, a heatpipe equipped cooler is entirely unneeded.

When using the fan with the heatsink performed much better than passively as expected. There is only a tiny 4 degree difference idle and load which is excellent news for the overclocker.

Coolers