Best case for cooling a Pi 3?
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I was just looking at some comparisons of cases and this was the coolest case (since it was open air on the sides AND it had a fan).
Has anyone here used this case? Did you also use heatsinks with it?
https://www.amazon.com/JBtek-Transparent-Acrylic-Raspberry-External/dp/B00M859PA6
What ultimately is the best case for cooling with a Pi 3?
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@enderandrew I've used a similar one with my Pi3 and I find it pretty good. I did get heatsinks with my case though so for the price, I'd get some coz they're dirt cheap and it won't hurt to have them.
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I'm worried about clearance for heatsinks with the fan in this particular case.
@markyh444 if you use a similar case, which one do you use?
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@enderandrew https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01JTZM2C0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I bought this bundle. I've got about half a cm clearance over the processor heatsink.
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I use this case with my rpi3 - if you don't want to use active cooling - https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-case (the case acts as a heatsink)
To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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I'm in no way associated with this business but the cases look fantastic. A little costly but in line with others of this type. The case is the heatsink.
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@BuZz said in Best case for cooling a Pi 3?:
I use this case with my rpi3 - if you don't want to use active cooling - https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-case (the case acts as a heatsink)
I prefer this case. I have the "limited edition" Kodi case for my Pi3 that I use strictly for Kodi. It works great. The entire thing is a heatsink. Where a heatsink would go on the Pi, there's a protruding metal bit inside the case that sits directly on the SOC chip. The case and that met bit is all 1 solid piece of aluminum, and dissipates the heat very well.
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@enderandrew I use this "dog bone" case, looks good and provides best ventilation (no need for heatsink).
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@enderandrew
I have this case and it works fine, but really I got it more as a curiousity. The noise gets annoying after a while. I never really have let anything run long enough for it to get hot enough to justify a fan. Unless you're planning to overclock a fan probably is a bit of overkill. But then again, overkill is underrated -
@BuZz I dig that one as well (the Flirc model). Simple design, good performance (saw tests that ran all cores on a Pi 3 at 100% for 20 minutes and it never got past 65C ... never throttled), and is also very cheap at just $15.
The cogent design one n8xyn posted is the same concept, also a sleek design. A very good looking case and probably also has very good performance ... but at more than 2x the price. Depends on your budget I suppose.
Just plain open air ones and with heatsink on top are not going to be as good as the full case passive cooling ones or ones with a fan coupled to them. Those little heatsinks on there alone barely do anything. They slightly raise the capacity for thermal/processing spikes is all. Fan ones and full case heatsinks like the flirc one and the cogent one are able to handle sustained processing and high heat and are going to be ideal for anyone overclocking as well.
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This benchmark shows the case I linked at the top (open air) is actually cooler than the Flirc, even with the fan off. When you turn the fan on, it is by far the coolest case they tested.
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case tests with an RPI2 are sort of redundant IMO. that thing would be happy in an enclosed case (as you can see in the above chart for which no readings are anywhere near throttling temperature)
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Each case was tested with the same board however, so the comparison is fair. The overall temperature will be higher on a 3 for each case respectively.
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@enderandrew said in Best case for cooling a Pi 3?:
Each case was tested with the same board however, so the comparison is fair. The overall temperature will be higher on a 3 for each case respectively.
of course an open and fanned case will be better, but the difference is redundant if both are under the throttling temperature. i think most people would sooner take a dust-free silent case over a noisy open one if it kept it below throttle temperature.
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@enderandrew its about sustained performance ... you need to increase processing and see where they cap out at. An open air one with no contact to anything solid to sink heat (just air on surface of chip packaging) just doesnt have the surface area and dissipative capacity. I dont mean to shoot the test full of holes but you didnt push any of them to a failure mode (throttling), so as far as im concerned those 2-3 deg differences in the fan-off ones and the flirc are still in the noise range to me.
What this does show me though is that you are probably not making good connection to the chip if on 3 other cases where there is no contact with anything at all you get roughly the same temperature. That just doesnt make sense.
Check this study ... with completely open air pi3 no case at all just laying out in the open. He pushed them to a failure mode so you could actually see the difference. I dont think its showing because of either 1) bad interface to the chip or 2) not a high enough demand on the processor. Remember too that heat increase on these things is not going to be linear. It will get to a point (open chip) where it simply cannot dissipate anymore. That the area you should be pushing them to.
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@enderandrew I don't agree and I think you need to test for longer I think - with load on my rpi3 (building on all cores etc), it gets significantly hotter and throttles with no case (open air), than using the flirc case.
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@DirtyRob said in Best case for cooling a Pi 3?:
@enderandrew its about sustained performance ... you need to increase processing and see where they cap out at. An open air one with no contact to anything solid to sink heat (just air on surface of chip packaging) just doesnt have the surface area and dissipative capacity. I dont mean to shoot the test full of holes but you didnt push any of them to a failure mode (throttling), so as far as im concerned those 2-3 deg differences in the fan-off ones and the flirc are still in the noise range to me.
Open air cases have TONS of surface area. I think you're also assuming that open air cases don't use heat sinks at all. You can use heat sinks with the open air case.
The benchmarks at the end of the video show that a Flirc case beats no heatsinks or a tiny heatsink, which is common sense since the Flirc case is a giant heat sink.
I didn't watch all 10 minutes, but the intro and end of the video has no mention of them running an open air case in the test.
I'm curious to see an actual benchmark of the Flirc versus the JBtek open air case (with and without fan on) with the Pi 3. But with the Pi 3, the JBtek was cooler. You're saying the open air case has no surface area to cool, but you can't explain how it beat the Flirc in testing then.
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@enderandrew said in Best case for cooling a Pi 3?:
Open air cases have TONS of surface area. I think you're also assuming that open air cases don't use heat sinks at all. You can use heat sinks with the open air case.
You can use them, yes, but the surface area of those small heatsinks (without the fan) are nowhere close to matching the surface area of the flirc case. And as the other study points out ... those heatsinks alone wont cut it (hence the fan). Im not assuming that there is no heatsink. In fact i was comparing the "fan off" tests to the ones he claimed has a small ebay heatsink, because they do dont they? All other surface area is negligible since it consists largely of non conductive surfaces. You dont want your surrounding circuitry to be considered your "dissipative surface area" and you certainly cant count all the acrylic plates and hardware either.
The benchmarks at the end of the video show that a Flirc case beats no heatsinks or a tiny heatsink, which is common sense since the Flirc case is a giant heat sink.
Exactly. So im wondering how its possible that one sandwiched between two thermal insulators and has a huge plastic fan (in the off position) hanging over it obstructing air flow around the largest heat source on the board can get better temperature results than one out in the open with nothing on it at all
I didn't watch all 10 minutes, but the intro and end of the video has no mention of them running an open air case in the test.
Laying on a desk face up is the equivalent of being in that open air case by JBtek. There is little to no separation between the board and the backside acrylic piece ( i do see there are standoffs there ... but keep it perhaps 1/4" off the base?). I have to assume whatever desk he set it on was not thermal conductive because of the numbers he got. Theres no reason to think that an acrylic backing of the JBtek would perform any better than whatever he placed it on (barring maybe a shag rug or something). I will say though that i might be referencing his setup from another video he did. He has a couple. I think in this video he never actually shows the setup physically while hes running it ... just the PC monitor and code running. So I suppose we have to take some of it with a grain of salt.
I'm curious to see an actual benchmark of the Flirc versus the JBtek open air case (with and without fan on) with the Pi 3. But with the Pi 3, the JBtek was cooler. You're saying the open air case has no surface area to cool, but you can't explain how it beat the Flirc in testing then.
I tried to explain that, yes. I suspect bad interface between the case and the chip. Thermal pad or paste. Thats really the only explanation. For it to get hotter would have to mean that it was an air flow blockage issue, and that the actual contact with its heatsink was negated as a factor. Then those numbers would look reasonable to me.
I would like to see the JBtek one tested the same fashion as in the video. Fan on it looks to be effective. Im not convinced though that at more demanding processing temps that that would still hold true. Air cooling and this passive cooling case will cap out with different curves to them. A huge heatsink will handle heat differently than a fan combo will. They both will cap out somewhere with different slopes to them. Thats what im more interested to see.
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I'm using a zebra case with heat sinks and a fan. Works great and fun to put together.
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