Raspberry Pi 5 CNC Armor Case

I see from other reviews that opinion varies on just how effective this case is in terms of cooling, so I've run my own test to see just how well it fairs. Running at stock clock speeds with Jeff Geerling's "pi-cpu-stress.sh" test, the Pi5 never exceeded 58°C above ambient temperature. It sits around 28°C above ambient when idle. With an ambient temperature of 18°C, no throttling occurred during the ten minute test. Make of this what you will, but it's certainly more than adequate for my typical workloads. Note: Remember to remove the protective plastic sheet from BOTH sides of the thermal pads. I'm wondering if some people may have forgotten to do this.

Keeps Cool enough for running openwrt. Tres silent

Ran my Pi 5 idle for 1 hour before doing stress test so heat sink would have been as saturated as it could have got at idle. Room temp at 22 C. The Pi 5 throttles lightly (5-10%) when it reaches 80 C and throttles severely (50-60%) when it reaches 85 C. It took about 8 minutes of "stress -c 4" to start initial thermal throttling (at 80 C). It was very light throttling and not consistently. I'd say 50% of the time, it throttled its frequency by 5-10%. After a further 4 minutes, I started getting more severe throttling, we're talking 50% frequency drops. However, this would occur only for like 1-2 seconds every 15-20 seconds. The rest of the time, the above described behaviour continued (5-10% throttling about 50% of the remaining time) The temperature never went past 86 C, it mainly hovered just under 85 C (the second thermal throttle threshold) and occasionally going past it slightly. Repeated test with "stress -c 2" and never throttled, didn't even reach the first threshold. Did get a bit close though, it was hovering around 78 C. So is that enough cooling? Well, if you're buying a Pi 5 to run 100% CPU loads 24/7, probably no. But then what are you doing with it? Mining? If you're buying a Pi 5 to run moderate loads 24/7 with *some* spikes to 100%, then I'd say yes, it's more than enough.

I have one of these for my Pi4 4GB and it was fine, however the Pi5 generates a lot more heat - and this case cannot stop the Pi from throttling. I was compiling some stuff yesterday for a few hours, and put a small usb fan over it, which kept the temperatures at 40 degrees under load - without the fan it was throttling at 70+ degrees. It's a shame because the case is working, but the Pi 5 just generates too much heat. If you don't mind having a fan on, you might consider the cheaper raspberry pi 5 cooler, or get an IceTower. If your workloads are generally small you might get away with it - but most people buy a Pi 5 because it's more powerful than the previous generation.

Its good - I like it but read on. In a 22°C ambient, the Pi reported 82.6°C CPU temperature, which is just outside thermal throttling. It was building Gentoo with a load average of just over 6 at the time. Not many people will make it work that hard. In a 25°C ambient, thermal throttling would start. Loose a star for needing taller fins to stay out of thermal throttling. Two more improvements/changes I would like to see. I will be fitting a Power over Ethernet (PoE) HAT as soon as I can find one but the PoE pins on the Pi are hidden/buried by a cooling fin. Unlike the Pi4 version, that has a hole for a 4 pin PoE extender. It was fairly easy to fix. Carefully drill the hole out with a 6mm drill, then file it square, so the extenders fit. Possibly more importantly for most users. There is nowhere to stow the Pi5 Real Time Clock (RTC) battery. Well, there is but it's luck and not obvious. My battery does not have the sticky pad. There is a flat spot - no components, on the underside of the Pi5 by the camera/display connectors. The battery is a snug fit between the bottom of the Pi and the case bottom. The battery wire is routed from top to bottom between the HDMI1 and camera/display connector.

This case has the single camera slot for RPI4. There is no access to either RPI5 camera slot. Otherwise solid, silent case.

Finally managed to get hold of a Pi 5 4GB to test this with. The case itself is nice and is literally 2 chunks of aluminium so it's quite heavy. Unfortunately it's just not enough cooling for the 5. Even on very light loads it was too hot to touch and the CPU was running at 55C idle. It also blocks access to a lot of the new ports on the 5 which could get frustrating. Considering the price of the official fan cooler which will probably do a better job, I simply can't recommend this.

It fits perfectly on my Raspberry Pi 5. It's a solid, very practical and simple to install. Feels like it's made of high quality materials. It comes with thermal pads to be placed on the device's cores and fixing screws. You can immediately notice the difference. Would recommend, excellent value for the price. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ce boîtier passif minimaliste composé de 2 plaques d'aluminium moulé est parfait pour un Raspberry Pi 5, et le refroidit aussi efficacement que les solutions à ventilateur "officielle" ou courantes, et en silence et sans pièces mobiles, donc sans aspirer de poussière ni risque de pannes. Contrairement à d'autres boîtiers passifs plus "fermés”, il laisse le header GPIO parfaitement accessible, et a des ouvertures de passage pour d'autres câbles, qu'il faudra alors connecter avant de refermer le boîtier. Comme les autres boîtiers de ce type, il n'est pas destiné à être rouvert ensuite, au risque de destruction des pads thermiques qu'il faudrait alors remplacer. (Le boîtier est cependant fourni avec 2 jeux de pads thermiques). Le dissipateur a de très larges ailettes, davantage que les boîtiers passifs d'autres marques, donc il doit être plus efficace. De plus, si ça ne suffisait pas, comme le connecteur de ventilateur est accessible, il serait sans doute très facile au besoin de visser un ventilateur par-dessus. Sa nature composée de 2 simples plaques rend sans doute également possible d'ajouter une carte “bottom hat” sous le Raspberry PI pour un SSD par exemple, en l'intercalant avec des spacers, ce que je compte faire prochainement. Un très bon achat, je trouve.

元々、ラズパイ公式のファン付きヒートシンクを使用しており、ファンがカラカラ鳴り出したのを期に、ファンレスで大きいヒートシンクを試してみたくなったので購入しました。 公式ファン付きヒートシンクでは、50℃付近からファンを回して、負荷の大きさでファンの回転を強くしたり弱くしたりしてファン寿命が無駄に削れないような動作となっています。 私の元々の使い方では、ファンは弱く回って50℃キープぐらいの負荷でしたが、このヒートシンクでは、同負荷で35℃付近となりました。 軽負荷では、十分な冷却ができると評価して良いでしょう。

Hace su función, sin los problemas de los sistemas con ventilador (posible fallo)

Der Kühlkörper passt wunderbar auf den RasPi und sorgt dort für Kühlung. Für meinen Einsatzzweck reicht eine passive Kühlung ohne lärmenden Lüfter.

Fa il suo dovere. Facile assemblaggio e lascia liberi i connettori in superficie. Comunque ho preferito aggiungergli una ventola di raffreddamento