Conclusion

The HR-05 is meticulously put together, with the quality control an obvious forte of ThermalRight. The mounting system is an elegant solution to the varying hole width that motherboards provide and keeps the cooler in place while it does its trick.

The fan mounting system is a little fiddly and seems like a bit of an afterthought but at least there is a way to use your 70mm fan.

The performance is almost a null point even though it wipes the floor with the stock ‘sink on this board. It’s the only one we have that doesn’t have a snaking array of heatpipes and heatsinks; try finding a recent overclockers board that doesn’t have it. That’s precisely where the problem comes, the only boards that would benefit are the ones that aren’t designed to overclock, and the odd older mobo before the age of heatpipes. You could purchase this plus the ThermalRight PWM cooler too, but you’ll have to have a compatible wallet and motherboard to do so. You’d be better off putting a small fan on the existing heat-remover which would cost less and probably perform better.

While undeniably well made and technically sound, it’s almost a solution to a problem no-one had. With that said, the asking price of a mere five english pounds, if your board will accomadate get it.

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Thanks go to Thermalright for providing us with the cooler.