Raspberry Pi 5 Cooling: Official Case vs Geeek Pi Heatsink Case

Raspberry Pi 5 cooling tests, using official case with both the official active cooler, and then its native heatsink and fan. And then testing the GeeekPi / 52Pi heatsink case.

The official Raspberry Pi 5 case and active cooler are available from many vendors, including Pimoroni, The Pi Hut and Adafruit.

The first video in which I tested Raspberry Pi 5 cooling (and other things!) is here:

And my initial review of the Raspberry Pi 5 is here:

More videos on computing and related topics can be found at:

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:51 Cooling Options, inc first tests
05:59 Official Case: Own Heatsink & Fan
10:04 Geeek Pi Heatsink Case
13:25 Conclusions

#RaspberryPi5 #Cooling #GeeekPi #52Pi #ExplainingComputers

[JeffGeerling]

I hope Argon brings out an update version of the Argon One M.2; would love to have native NVMe support plus a little nicer fan sound than their first version!

[suou]

Active cooler + official case fits real well.
Thank you always for informative videos!

[ironingbored]

I was worried my Pi5 case (a FLIRC aluminium case) was very hot, and prompted me to search and find this video. So I ran a similar test, running a simple script to sample the CPU temp every 10 seconds. After 3 hours, the average without the case was 63 deg c. The same test with the case fitted, was 52c! Same running conditions etc. So the case is definitely benefitting my Pi5. Thanks for this vid!

[savirien]

I've used that aftermarket case for quite a while with my pi 4 and it has been a great rugged case on the workbench and proven itself as a linux-based test lab.

[chriholt]

Thanks for an in-depth series of tests Chris.

[coolParadigmes]

I am a fan of passive cooling Heatsink and I tested my RaspBerry Pi 5 with 100% stress on the 4 CPU for about one hour in two different cases and the results are amazing!

[paulpvhl]

Years in I continue to be very impressed with the quality of your work and presentations. Thanks again.

[kk]

Watched this as the first video from your channel. Instant fan ❤

[stevesweb]

Great timing! I just received my Pi 5, active cooler and official case. Don't need to complete my own testing. I really like the larger heat sinks due to them contacting components other than just the CPU. Thanks for another great video!

[DavidRinnan]

I have the official case with the built in fan and it is a nice kit (thumbs up!) suitable for most people for average use. I will consider buying the better fan, I like the better mounting for sure.

[RobertBoerner]

I think Michael the Heatsink and Allen the Key would be a great duo for an adventure series :-) With that said, given how effective the Official Raspberry Pi Active cooler is, I would be curious to see how it performs with the fan disabled and only the heatsink itself handling the cooling duties.

[QuadyMcQuadFace]

Thank you for the review. Straight to the point and easy to understand test results. I just subbed to channel and made up my mind with Pi5 case and Pi5 active cooler. Happy new years.

[pascalmartin]

Since the temperatures are similar, the passive case is much more attractive: not only is the noise 0, but there is no mechanical wear and tears, so reliability is much better.

[stefanp]

My Pi5B 8GB runs even cooler with raspberry active cooler, because i removed the thermal pad on the SOC, and replaced it with thermal grease arctic mx-4. I put the pad for the SOC onto the LPDDR4x RAM chip instead, and made the pad on the PMIC and WLAN shielding a little smaller, so it can compress down easier to even height above PCB as SOC, and also put a little piece of pad onto the RP1 chip. I made two spacers from pieces of a matchstick too, matchsticks are about 2.3 mm square, near the two mounting holes, to ensure the heatsink sits parallel above PCB at height of SOC chip, which is about 2.3mm.
I also made some small modifications to the cooler itself, to optimize airflow, and added a small and quiet fan (12v fan running at 5v) on the backside of the Pi, because backside also gets hot.
When i ran your thest, i got max about 47.7°C. Ambient temp. was about 18°C while testing, so we should add +2°C for fair comparison to result.
There is no case around, above. Cooling fan never got above level 1.

[dennissmith]

Chris, I believe the difference in noise levels of the two fans may be due to the types of fans used. The axial fan will naturally be noisier than the centrifugal fan due to their design.

[vikiai]

I have always liked the solid-aluminium heat-sink cases for Pi devices. I usually get the engineering department to shave the middle three or five rear fins (which are more aesthetic than functional anyway) flat so I can run a slightly-recessed Velcro strip along the bottom for attaching them to/behind whatever student artwork they are driving at the time.

[marklewus]

Hi Chris, I received an early pi 5 and stumbled into the same solution you did, using the official case with the raspberry pi active cooler. I can leave the cover on as long as I’m not overclocking. With the cover off, I can overclock to ~3.0 GHz and still maintain stable, saturated load test temps in the mid 70s.

[RetroSegaDev]

I'm impressed just how good the official cooler is!

[johncundiff]

Love the pure real data you achieved! Only question i have would be is if the ambient temperature was the same for each test? Kerp up the awesome work Mr. Barnatt!

[plemoine]

Thank you. Because of some doubt I've ordered both the case and the official fan. Your info confirms that they can be combined into a good solution regarding the heat, which was only an intuition of mine before this day. I'm expecting the delivery of my pi5 and these around Christmas. Can't wait 🤩