I have dealt with Thermalright before. Their stuff is always big and extremely functional but considering the size of the stock 8800 coolers (about the same size as a dinosaur mobile phone brick) even I was surprised at how big this was.
That’s a 120mm fan I’ve stuck on there — mainly to keep the noise down. This introduced a problem: space. I have a mahoooosive HSU (Scythe Ninja) on my CPU, a pimped out, passive HSU on my chipset and trying to introduce this beast caused a bit of a squeeze:
How good is the HR-03 Plus? Awesome! Significant noise reduction. 10C cooler on idle (with the fan voltage at 50%). 30C cooler under load (100% fan voltage). Even with the fan at full-whack, it’s really hard to hear it over other PC noises.
This PC now has 4 120-140mm fans and 5 HDs. This causes a lot of vibration and that goes straight through the wheels into the desk the desk where it amplifies. I’ve found a solution for this though: packing materials. Thankfully the HR-03 came with a buttload of plasticy insulation so I cut some up and stuffed it under the wheel axles:
Again, significant noise reduction.
Now I need a passively cooled PSU =\