It was a little over two years ago that I reviewed Thermalright's first VGA cooler, the V1. Like many of Thermalright's heatsinks, this was an aluminum fin cooler with a copper base and featured a wrap-around dual heatpipe design, with the actual finned portion hanging over the back of the card. A few months later they had improved upon this design with the three-heatpipe V1 Ultra. Both heatsinks also came with an 80mm fan, quiet and thin at only 15mm. Within a year, the V2 joined Thermalright's lineup, boasting an all-copper construction and now four heatpipes from the base to the fins.


But as new video cards are released, new designs must be taken into account. Thermalright has combined the wrap-around design of the original V1 cooler with their through-hole technology from the HR series and produced the HR-03 VGA cooler. There are several versions of this cooler, the HR-03 GT represents the latest edition, compatible with the newest nVidia G92 (8800 GT/GTS) and ATI RV670 (HD38x0) cards. The HR-03 GT features six heatpipes and the capability for a 92x25mm fan (not included) as well as the ability to mount in either a wrap-around or forward-hanging orientation. Thermalright claims the cooler is so good, it can even be used passively, without the benefit of a fan.

Join me as I take a closer look at the Thermalright HR-03 GT.