4GHz




Raw result with idle and load delta temperatures
Dealing with an overclocked i7 is certainly a challenging prospect for many coolers and doing so passively is unimaginable, but Thermalright are adamant that it is possible. The results here show that they were right. Passively, the HR-02 pulls ahead of the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 by a 3.5C margin! It fails to match other tower heatsinks but for a passive cooler, it's a very impressive result. Adding a fan improves performance significantly. Even with a low RPM TR TY-140 attached, it outperforms many top end air coolers from last year such as the Noctua NH-U12P, Corsair H50 in its many low RPM configuration and the Coolink Corator DS. The best performing HR-02 setup is with two TR TY-140 fans attached. In that situation, it outperforms the likes of the Prolimatech Megahalem and falls just short of the all liquid coolers with two high RPM SWiF2-120P fans. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough for it meet the standards set by the Silver Arrow, Venomous X and Noctua NH-D14.

Fan comparison

A number of fans were used on the HR-02 from Noctua and Thermalright themselves. Comparing Thermalright's TR TY-140 to Noctua's NF-P14, the former takes a slight lead of 0.25C. Both perform very similarly despite the TR TY-140 being marginally faster at maximum speed. Both fans were also very quiet during operation. The NF-P12 fell behind by around 1C, demonstrating the benefits of 140mm fans nowadays. Similarly, two TR TY-140 outperformed two NF-P12s by a marginal 0.75C.

HR-02 VS Venomous X

Based on internal tests, Thermalright claim that the HR-02 can match the performance of their Venomous X with a low RPM fan installed. Unfortunately, we no longer had the Venomous X to test so for a fair comparison of heatsink efficiency, we can look at both using two NF-P12 fans. The result is that the Venomous X leads by 3.75C. On the same note, only the Ultra Extreme 120, Venomous X, Silver Arrow and Noctua NH-D14 can beat the HR-02 on efficiency.