Is there a consensus on the best available cooler for the Pi 5? I looked at this exact unit but wanted more of a "case" design.
I first tried the Flirc passive case. It seems to transport and dissipate heat notably better than active coolers with copper heatsinks and 4000 RPM fans. That's especially impressive given that the entire top and bottom are plastic, leaving the horizontal edge as the only surface for heat dissipation.
My remaining concern there is that it only cools the Broadcom SoC, while creating a nice little insulated oven for the other chips. The inner surface area is much greater than the outer surface area, and with no ventilation by design, so heat from the SoC is being distributed throughout the whole inner volume.
I also tried an active cooler to avoid that, which I'm sure is better for every other chip but I'm surprised to find was substantially worse for the SoC itself. I guess the tiny copper block gets saturated very quickly and its surface area isn't very large for air cooling.
Maybe that's why the monoblock passive coolers do so well, in theory they combine the best of these approaches. I just wish they'd apply the same idea to a refined "case" design like the Flirc.
if you don't need the pi to stack I've found the Argon One to be a good case for both overclocked 4's and 5's. The fan is somewhat weedy and the airflow is questionable, but the entire case acts as a heatsink. As far as thermal mass goes I don't know of any that beat it.
And additionally, you get a Pi case that puts all the ports on one edge where they belong instead of forcing you to make cable squids on your workbench/desk.
I also use the flirc cases and have been similarly concerned by the other components getting hot, but I must admit that it doesn’t seem to cause any actual problems, at least not yet, and it certainly does a good job of keeping the CPU cool.
I first tried the Flirc passive case. It seems to transport and dissipate heat notably better than active coolers with copper heatsinks and 4000 RPM fans. That's especially impressive given that the entire top and bottom are plastic, leaving the horizontal edge as the only surface for heat dissipation.
My remaining concern there is that it only cools the Broadcom SoC, while creating a nice little insulated oven for the other chips. The inner surface area is much greater than the outer surface area, and with no ventilation by design, so heat from the SoC is being distributed throughout the whole inner volume.
I also tried an active cooler to avoid that, which I'm sure is better for every other chip but I'm surprised to find was substantially worse for the SoC itself. I guess the tiny copper block gets saturated very quickly and its surface area isn't very large for air cooling.
Maybe that's why the monoblock passive coolers do so well, in theory they combine the best of these approaches. I just wish they'd apply the same idea to a refined "case" design like the Flirc.