Thermalright HR-01 Plus: 2nd Gen Killer Tower Cooler

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THE BASE & INSTALLATION

The base and mounting system is as important as the actual composition of the heatsink. No matter how large the heatsink, or loud and fast the fan, without proper CPU contact, performance will be poor.

The base.

Typical of most heatsinks, the base is comprised of nickel-plated copper and it is part of a three-piece assembly with a mounting plate and six, tightly-spaced heatpipes.

LGA775 mounting frame installed.

The base has a smooth finish and it was not flat, but slightly convex. The shape is deliberate, and reasoning behind this, according to Thermalright, is that CPU heatspreaders are slightly concave, so more of the base and heatspreader will make contact. This is not an unreasonable approach, as we've noted that many (if not all) CPU heatspreaders have a slight concave profile.

Included accessories. LGA775 mounting hardware on the right, K8 on the left.

The included accessories include fan clips, anti-vibration strips, thermal grease, a multi-platform backplate and strangely enough, a tiny wrench. There is one set of mounting hardware each for K8 (pictured above left) and LGA775 (above right) installations.

Backplate and fasteners.

To illustrate the mounting procedure , we're going to show you what it looks like outside in the open without the motherboard in the equation. The first installation step, shown in the photos above, is to insert four fasteners to the bottom of the backplate. We temporarily used some tape to hold them in place for this demonstration.

Installed without the motherboard.

On the top side of the motherboard, two mounting arms (with rubber washers to prevent short-circuits) are screwed through into the backplate. A tension plate is slipped over the base with holes lining up with those on the mounting arms. They are secured together with spring-loaded screws. For AMD installations the procedure is basically the same. Due to the typical orientation of the mounting frame on most AMD motherboards, the HR-01 Plus will face the wrong way — if a fan is installed, it would blow up toward the power supply instead of toward the rear of a typical ATX tower.

A wrench is provided for extra tightening.

The bolts are screwed in with a philips head screwdriver, but using the wrench will allow it to be tightened by an extra eighth of a turn. Though the base can be rotated a bit after installation, there is more than enough pressure at the center to ensure good contact.

Installed with fan.

Once installed a fan can be added using the provided clips. A fan with open corners is required. Installed on our test board, there was approximately 16 mm of over overhang past the edge of the PCB, mostly due to the fan clips. The bottom-most fin layer was 47 mm above the board making it tall enough to bypass most average-sized northbridge heatsinks.