Thermalright HR-03 GT; Does it Fit?

We here at Hardware Canucks are always trying to include tests which will benefit you guys; our readers. So, in every new GPU review we try to include a section showing which aftermarket heatsinks can be installed on the card. Sometimes we meet with resounding success while at other times we are defeated by new heatsink hole locations or other obstructions. With the HD4870, we brought out our trusty Thermalright HR-03 GT to see if it fit and lo and behold…


You know what they say about the shoe fitting…well, the Thermalright’s mounting plate passed out first test by lining up perfectly with the mounting holes on the HD4870 so it is on to the next stage: installing the VRM and ramsinks.


Check and check. The HR-03 GT’s heatsinks had no problem fitting over the ram modules and the smaller VRMs. If you feel inclined, there should be enough ramsinks left of fully cover the larger Vitec and Pulse VRMs as well bt we didn’t feel like it was necessary.


After the cooler was installed we made sure it cleared all of the surrounding heatsinks, the backplate didn’t touch anything it shouldn’t have and the base made good contact with the core itself and everything looked perfect. So, what does this tell us?


This little exercise has made it apparent that provided it has the proper amount of ramsinks and VRM sinks, ANY cooler compatible with the HD3870 series will also be compatible with the HD4870 and HD4850. We tried the Thermalright HR-03 GT, Thermaltake DuOrb, Coolink GFXChilla and Arctic Cooling S1 Rev.2 and every one of them fit without any problems at all. Beautiful, isn’t it?

BUT DOES IT PERFORM??? Prepare for a little dose of shock and awe….

Please note that this is with a single Zalman 92MM fan operating at 1600RPM along with Arctic Cooling MX-2 applied to the base.