Good cases for the Pi4?

Weatherby

My Pi3 has been getting me by for a couple years now. I use Retropie on it pretty often, and for long stretches, and as time has marched on I've noticed it begin to overheat more and more frequently. With the 4.6 beta being available for the Pi4, I think it's time to upgrade.

That said, I'm having a hell of a time picking out a case that I can rely on for decent cooling, and would love to see what some of you guys are using and what might be reccomended.

backstander

@Weatherby
I would like to get the Argon ONE Raspberry Pi 4 Case:
https://www.argon40.com/argon-one-raspberry-pi-4-case.html

Weatherby

I've been looking at this one, myself: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083XQVJLX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=AOP0CH6UTUPHT&psc=1

Not many reviews, but I'm hoping the case essentially being one big heatsink helps with cooling, on top of having those fans.

This Argon case looks good though, like that it has a power switch right on it, too.

hooperre

I've had great luck with the Flirc case so far. It did require specific placement of the thermal pad which lowered temps by ~10 degrees C.

YFZdude

When I got my Pi4, I also bought this Miuzei case:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VX3HQGJ/?coliid=I1MKR97DY0INCJ&colid=30G5QKL2SIJAZ&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
It has a nice open flow for the fan to push the air through the cutouts.

My Pi4 is currently only used for Plex Media Server and hosting Samba shares. I don't have it set up to transcode so I can't say I'm working it very hard like RetroPie might under certain emulators.

Ecks

I have actually bought this for my Pi 4B (which i finally set everything up today) which at stock clocks playing a demanding like game the max temps i was getting was 34c and this is the link for the case-ish cooler https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZV1LLWK/
also here is an image of it.
alt text

spud11

If you are happy with stock clocks, then the flirc which has passive cooling only is very good.

Ecks

@spud11 said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

If you are happy with stock clocks, then the flirc which has passive cooling only is very good.

Ya but for like 5$ more could be using the cooler i am using now which would cool a lot better and also with all these new cases and coolers there is a lot of people i have seen replace their flirc cases.

barbudreadmon

@Weatherby The real problem with pi4 cases is that if you want to make it decent against its competitors, you need a massive overclock (~2Ghz), a massive cooler and an open case. Otherwise, imho, it is barely worth buying since the +100Mhz at stock clock won't help that much for single-threaded software-rendered emulation (which is basically 90% of emulators), and the rpi4 gpu drivers required for hardware-rendered emulation seem only good enough for N64 & DC emulation at the moment.

windg

Metal cases are not creating short circuits problems ?

Darksavior

@Ecks Some people, like myself, don't like to use fans. The flirc case is enough to keep a mild overclock from throttling thanks to the newer firmware. For me, using over_voltage=4, I keep mine at 1950Mhz.

barbudreadmon

@Darksavior said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

I keep mine at 1950Mhz

You can now push it to that freq with a fanless flirc case ? No throttling ? That wasn't possible until recently, right ?

Darksavior

@barbudreadmon It was possible before but temps would hit around 70c maybe an hour in when playing goldeneye. I'd guess maybe another hour until it started to throttle. I don't remember if I was overclocking v3d to 750Mhz but I am now. This was maybe back in August with Lakka.

I haven't thoroughly re-tested with the newer firmware under the same conditions but it does run cooler than before. By how how much, I would need to replay goldeneye again for that amount of time again.

Clyde

@backstander said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

@Weatherby
I would like to get the Argon ONE Raspberry Pi 4 Case:

I just ordered its little sibling, the Argon NEO (edit: official product page). I like its compact size with nevertheless easy access to the GPIO and camera connector. Holding the cover in place by magnetism is another nice feature.

barbudreadmon

@Darksavior What about cpu stress tests ? Not sure n64 emulation is a good test, cpu was never the bottleneck for n64 emulation iirc.

Darksavior

@barbudreadmon I have not tried that. Can you recommend a stress test?

Ecks

@Darksavior said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

@Ecks Some people, like myself, don't like to use fans. The flirc case is enough to keep a mild overclock from throttling thanks to the newer firmware. For me, using over_voltage=4, I keep mine at 1950Mhz.

The ice tower that i am showing there is extreme silent which the only thing you would notice is the RGB and not the sound and i have the fan on the 5v pin as well.

barbudreadmon

@Darksavior said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

@barbudreadmon I have not tried that. Can you recommend a stress test?

https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/stress-testing-your-raspberry-pi.html => those tests should load your cpu to 100% and give a better view of temp & throttling

YFZdude

@windg

Any metal case should come with standoffs to keep the case from shorting out the circuitry. If one doesn't you can probably just buy teflon washers, nuts, and screws to do the same job.

Technically, the holes in the board for the screws should be in the ground plane and therefore the screws and nuts need not be teflon, but you definitely want some sort of spacer to keep the board from touching any metal case.

Ecks

@YFZdude said in Good cases for the Pi4?:

@windg

Any metal case should come with standoffs to keep the case from shorting out the circuitry. If one doesn't you can probably just buy teflon washers, nuts, and screws to do the same job.

Technically, the holes in the board for the screws should be in the ground plane and therefore the screws and nuts need not be teflon, but you definitely want some sort of spacer to keep the board from touching any metal case.

Pretty much all of these metal cases has built in stand offs which wouldn't short out the Pi and besides that these companies does test their products before selling it and the only way his Pi would short out if he was making the case himself.