I have the Ice Tower for the 4B. I first attached it with one of the heat pads that came in the box, and got a very respectable *idle temperature of about 32C.* After watching this, I remembered I had some Arctic MX-2 thermal paste left from building my PC, so I removed the pad and put some paste on the chip, and assembled it again. This time the *idle temperature was 26C!* So it really is worth getting some thermal paste if you want to get the absolute best results from this great cooler. Also, the newest firmware (as of March 2020) reduces CPU temps by around 10C by limiting power to the USB bus. It also allows you to overclock both the CPU to 2GHZ and the GPU to 600MHZ (which does void your warranty). So having this cooler and upgrading the firmware is a must if you want to overclock!
I know right!? Chris just has such a positive and warm way of presenting things. It really makes you want to watch! - I don't have an SBC yet either, but this is making me want one, lol.
I have just setup my pi with an ice tower + noctua. The fan is connected to the 3.3v pin and is basically silent. A bit overkill but It works beautifully! 👍 Thanks for the great video!
I think the Fan Shim is excellent and makes the Pi4 seem like a Pi SBC . Whilst the result of the ICE Tower is incredibly impressive, I just think it makes the Pi4 seem too big and, for me anyway, it goes against the point of the Pi SBC form factor. It does mean there is a fair bit of head room for overclocking the Pi4 though.
I can see the Fan Shim board connectors succumb to huge oxidation issues down the line. It really needs a proper connector or to be soldered into place
I now have two ice tower cooing solutions on the way. I thought I purchased adequate cooling until I ran "stress" and hit 80 C in less than five minutes. Thanks again for your videos.
I would definitely recommend active cooling. My pi 3 could barely run TH-cam before I installed a heat sink and fan. Plus I couldn't run Ubuntu Mate without it crashing after 5 mins. Once I installed the fan I had no problems.
@Dmon1Unlimited I remember quite a few years ago I was using the original pi with thermal pads (Akasa) along with a generic ram heatsink and was getting ~10°C over ambient temperature, which was pretty good considering the cost for it all. Keep in mind that I was also using these in conjunction with a very small (40mm) casefan I had rigged up, running it of the USB port.
I have a cooling solution that you might like to replicate / test: It consists of a small normal heat sink, a small (approx. 8 fl. oz) pure copper cup, some paper napkins wrapped around the outside of the cup and held in place with elastic bands. The cup is placed on the heat sink and filled with ice. Pros : cheap, silent, keeps the soc extremely cool under virtually any load. Cons : condensation can be an issue if left unchecked, ice requires periodic replacement.
Based on the results in this video I tested skipping the heat-sink and just use a small fan. The fan is 40 mm, 12 volt , but i run it at 8 volt. It silent at half a meters distance and uses less than 0.5 watt. It resulted in a drop of 25 degree from 56 to 31 when idle and even more under normal load . with no heat-sink the height of the fan is level with the USB/Ethernet ports
When you disconnected the fan, it became a an air baffle that heavily restricted airflow across the cooler. I'd repeat the test with the fan uncrewed and a belt and braces, with the fins vertically to see if convection occurs - I doubt it but it might
i use the Ice tower and a clear case similar to his with my Minecraft server running, the pi 4B slightly overclocked and added heat sinks for the other chips on board. The Pis cpu runs at 42.3C and its currently 80F in the house. Way better then any other heatsink with fan case ive used.
I have two RPi 4s. I have One RPi 4 in a case with a fan/heat sinks (iUniker) and the other in a flirc case. The unit in the case with a fan idles at 36°C and the unit in the flirc case idles at 45°C. When I ran the stress test on each, the unit in the case with the fan maxed out at 51°C and the unit in the flirc case maxed out at 61°C. The iUniker case with the fan was $8.99 on Amazon Prime and the flirc case was $14.95, but with shipping it was $22.80.
The ICE Tower visuals and the cooling offered are certainly impressive, but, always in my humble opinion, spoil what is one of the biggest advantages of the pi... the small size factor. Having said that it really looks cool and I'll agree it would look awesome in a custom built case... say, an Artoo unit... Thanks for this video!
Great video , clear and concise as always...I have been using old sky HD box fans from scrapped boxes to cool my pi's they're 40mm and 12v...and very quiet ..you also get a 500gb/1tb HDD as well ... a lot of people just chuck them out when they cancel sky tv...note the Q boxes are owned by Sky so you shouldn't scrap those.
Awesome stuff! All tests completed in 10 minutes, so computational performance seems the same. I agree a good passive solution is ideal. Can't wait for your next video!
And it's ICE Tower for the win! The prices on these coolers are all very reasonable also. I'd like to get some plastic sheet and build a case around the Pi 4 with the ICE Tower installed. I know 3D printers are the big thing now, but I'd go 'old school' for a project like this. Thanks for another great video Chris.
So when I first saw the Ice Tower cooler my first thought is that it would have been a more aesthetic piece than anything. However, as it turns out you can in fact miniaturize a tower cooler and expect great results!
When you're testing with the 52Pi ICE Tower Cooler in the passive mode, could you please post the results where you have oriented the RPi4 to make the fins of the Tower Cooler vertical rather than horizontal? If you don't have a fan running, convective air flow will play a big role in how effectively it will cool the RPi4. And convective air flow works best when the fins are vertical.
That tower cooler is so cute. And it seems like a neat fit for emulator boxes that dont need to be super small but could really use some overclocking. Also maybe it work work better passively if it was at a 90° angle so the warm air can pass through the fins better.
This is excellent stuff. As people push their RPis further, active cooling is going to be mainstream so it's great to see some genuine and thorough test results that show what's possible and practical.
Wow those are impressive figures from the Ice Tower, it makes the Pi look very gamer too lol, I can't help but think it needs a miniaturised version of the desktop case you used in your Ryzen 3 build.
I've seen a few 86_64 tests and it is minimal, I now use the pads for SBC and some 86_64. Temperatures aren't so critical because the overclocking thing isn't the same, just keep below throttling and really you are done- unlike competative 86-64 overclocking.
Looks like the Fan Shim is the best solution. It allows the pi4 to run without throttling and low cost and small and quiet. Very nice thorough comparison.
Since you have mounted this great cpu cooler you should start to overclock the pie! Would be interesting how much more performance one could squeeze out the pi 4 with excellent cooling!
People with pets or young children may want to add a fan grid to the ICE tower. Looking forward to seeing results using the Pi4 Flirc case and the Pimoroni aluminium Heatsink case.
Thank you for these cooling tests. Looking forward to your passive cooling tests! By the way, I now have a Raspberry Pi 4 Computer Desktop Kit. Your video on it was a great influence in my ordering it. Thanks!
Mr. Barnatt, I think one of the solutions to visit for passive cooling would be Mineral Oil Immersion. It often holds incredible results with a decently sized reservoir often outperforming many active cooling solutions and be extremely low maintenance. Thank you for these videos, I always look forward to seeing them.
I remember back in the days, someone cooled a computer with non-conductive oil, but IIRC it caused problem with HDD or something, plus it was massive. I'm curious if this would be a good solution for tiny single board computers.
I got 5 amps running through my PI model 2 rev b.... No fire yet!!!... Boots up to retropie really really fast... Using an old PC power supply 5 amp min 23 amp max 5 volt leg... I got it in a arcade cabinet I built from scratch... (well a framed skeleton of one anyways) I'm too big to fit inside one to wire it so I framed it like a house... Two heatsinks... One on processor and one on gpu chip next to it with a five inch fan blowing on it... Played Metal slug for a couple hours with a fire exstinguisher next to me... No kidding...That is a sweet cooler... I'm gonna get me one...It will look awesome and I can continue to run 5 amp power... very useful video mate!!!....
As it happens, I just got one of those and ran the same test on it. Starting from 35 C seconds after booting, it hit 61 C at the end of the test, and idles around 55 C long term. The case has quite a lot of thermal mass, so temperatures move slowly. It takes a long time to fully heat up, and a very long time to cool back down. It's hot to the touch at the end of the test...Allowing it to hit its 56 C idle first, it heats to 71 C in this same test. Testing another pi4 in the Canakit case, modified to mount a Noctua fan on top, and using their "joke" heatsinks, I got a little bit better results than Chris; I think the airflow in my version is a bit better in terms of the path it takes - but it looks horrible by comparison. For that one, I got 51 C top temperature, it idles in the low 40s. I think my room might have been around 1-2 C cooler than his (It does depend where in the room you measure, around here). The fan is clearly the winner in all tests, his and mine. It's so good I'm thinking about trying to run it down in speed, or make it switched, like the pimoroni fan. I got the "thicker" Noctua (same as shown here) - there's now a thinner version on Amazon, which is probably less air and more noise. Be careful in ordering.
@@ExplainingComputers I have a Pi 4 flirc case. My pie idles higher than most (started at 60C after a month it has dropped to 50C(ish)). Under load the case is quite warm (so there is good cpu to case contact). Since the bottom seals the case, I was wondering about using some 10mm(ish) standoffs between the bottom of the board and the base cover to allow some airflow into the case. The standoffs would need to be long enough to clear the SD card slot. I have no local source for 2.5mm stuff and shipping is about 10X the cost of the standoffs. Any chance you could give it a try? Thanks
Can't wait for the passive cooling solutions on the Rpi4. Bought myself a very neat FLIRC case for my Rpi3B a while back, never overheats, no noise, looks slick, very cool, indeed.
Phones likely throttles more and do bigLITTLE tricks, plus some advanced scenarioed power managment avoidances usually to prolong battery life etc.. That managment could go as far as that even user hands act as cooler too 😂 RPi 4 as aimed also for Desktop does not calculate as all 4 cores are BIG and that cries for a fan to not throttle in intensive scenarios such a stress benchmarks. Plus some people like to OC it too, so 😂
If you use fan, your phone will remain caseless. So you can't really hold it. If you use heatsink, the case will be too hot for you to hold it. So best way is just to throttle it.
If you confine the processor to do what a phone normally does (as Milan Kostić says), the rp4 will probably run cool. The benchmark just flogs the processor as hard as it can go.
Hi Chris. I liked the no-punches-pulled approach you take with your reviews. The only thing that comes to my mind is what happens ( God forbid ) when the fan craps out and you ( or someone ) are so wrapped up in their work that you don't notice. I think that there should be some sort of audible alarm just in case, maybe I'm paranoid but in matters like this, I like to wear suspenders and a belt. Great review. Cheers.
I replaced the fan with a Noctua NF-A4x10 5V fan. I bought the vertical model (Ice Tower) then returned it for the horizontal (Low profile). The vertical uses screws for the fan mount and the horizontal uses a fan clip which I find poorly designed and it doesn't work well with the Noctua fan. Both of mine were the GeeekPI models.
What would that achieve though? Any of these cooling solutions is sufficient to stop the processor from throttling so what is to be gained by more exotic solutions?
@Michael Bishop On air cooling alone the silicon is well away from the danger zone. Cooling it further wouldn't improve longevity by any measurable amount. Even running it without any active cooling at all is safe, but it throttles.
I can see the Fan Shim board connectors succumb to huge oxidation issues down the line. It really needs a proper connector or to be soldered into place
Copper wins!!! That's why the ICE Tower with its copper on the chip you're trying to cool has by far the best results. Granted I am a little surprised on how well just a fan without a heatsink performs, but ultimately the best solution (minus liquid cooling and even then...) is to put copper on the chip and then extend to it to some type of aluminum, preferably fins, with a fan.
I really like the 52 Pi Ice Tower. I plan to try one with a Peltier module for another project as well. 52 Pi even have them for sale with free shipping on eBay!
we're still using pi3B without even a small heatsink in our production systems. Those cool active thermal solutions might be cute or powerful but we also need to know the MTBF, the noise and dust that fan might suck into the little case. The video is fantastic to let us compare those data efficiently!
The early raspberries were phenomenal in the size of a cigarette box. Now with their advance to higher power, they have turned into masonry bricks once the performance improving gadgets are buckled on. Such a trade-off.
Just a remark. Fan SHIM is NOT properly mounted. You need some thin plate thermally attached to CPU just to increase area of cooling. Most power of the said Fan SHIM is wasted... Otherwise excellent results. Also can be noted that with heat pipes - this is not the only way of mounting. Can be flat from factor. Not cubical . Very practical video. Thanks,
The Fan SHIM is properly mounted. :) Yes, a heat sink could be used with it, but not in the case shown, as the distance between the base of the fan and the fan is very small.
@@ExplainingComputers I understand you properly mounted as designed, but I meant the design is insufficient. And not talking about heat sink. Simple tin plate cutout from jar of instant coffee (my personal preference). It's about 0.1 mm.
![[TH] 2024 PMGC League | Survival Stage วันที่ 1 | PUBG MOBILE Global Championship](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FVFT-PFwU80/mqdefault.jpg)
There is one more test you need to do. Put the Noctua fan on the Ice Tower
An, I never thought of that. :) Nice idea.
@@ExplainingComputers We await your results :)
i had the same thought
Someone is aiming to achieve room temperature)))
@@DudeSkinnyTall Come over here to the UK in winter :-D
I have the Ice Tower for the 4B. I first attached it with one of the heat pads that came in the box, and got a very respectable *idle temperature of about 32C.* After watching this, I remembered I had some Arctic MX-2 thermal paste left from building my PC, so I removed the pad and put some paste on the chip, and assembled it again. This time the *idle temperature was 26C!* So it really is worth getting some thermal paste if you want to get the absolute best results from this great cooler. Also, the newest firmware (as of March 2020) reduces CPU temps by around 10C by limiting power to the USB bus. It also allows you to overclock both the CPU to 2GHZ and the GPU to 600MHZ (which does void your warranty). So having this cooler and upgrading the firmware is a must if you want to overclock!
I don't even have a Raspberry Pi, but these videos are so relaxing and well made I watch them all anyways lol..
I know right!? Chris just has such a positive and warm way of presenting things. It really makes you want to watch! - I don't have an SBC yet either, but this is making me want one, lol.
You, sir, need ASMR videos. I recommend th-cam.com/video/NKa4FocBxJo/w-d-xo.html
just call it what it is asmr
No, it's called CHARISMA. 👍
Buy one, put it in a Pimoroni case and just put it on the side board, great ornament.
I have just setup my pi with an ice tower + noctua. The fan is connected to the 3.3v pin and is basically silent. A bit overkill but It works beautifully! 👍 Thanks for the great video!
11:09 That excitement is such an unexpected feel good moment. Loving this.
I like this guy’s style. Smooth. Concise. Informative. No rambling.
I think the Fan Shim is excellent and makes the Pi4 seem like a Pi SBC . Whilst the result of the ICE Tower is incredibly impressive, I just think it makes the Pi4 seem too big and, for me anyway, it goes against the point of the Pi SBC form factor. It does mean there is a fair bit of head room for overclocking the Pi4 though.
I can see the Fan Shim board connectors succumb to huge oxidation issues down the line. It really needs a proper connector or to be soldered into place
It like a tiny gaming rig. Wish there was a tiny little graphics card you could plug on to it. So cute.
Yes, it so needs a tiny graphics card.
Maybe one that plugs into the DSI connector?
I now have two ice tower cooing solutions on the way. I thought I purchased adequate cooling until I ran "stress" and hit 80 C in less than five minutes. Thanks again for your videos.
Looking forward to the review of the official Raspberry Pi 4 AIO water pump!
That was i thinking about it
I really love SBC Videos.
I always love your work
Your videos are excellent. Your narration is excellent. The way you deliver information is top level professional.
I would definitely recommend active cooling. My pi 3 could barely run TH-cam before I installed a heat sink and fan. Plus I couldn't run Ubuntu Mate without it crashing after 5 mins. Once I installed the fan I had no problems.
This is really fun, I can warmly reccomend the Flirc case it is made of solid aluminium with a heatsink, and so it is soundless
I have to admit that I was not thinking, "Yeah, but how does the Ice Tower perform without the fan?" Good job on being thorough.
I was getting ready to comment about running the tower cooler with some MX4 instead of thermal pads.. then you pull out a tube of MX4. Good lad.
Would be another datapoint, do the test again with a thermal pad instead of the paste to see what the difference in performance there is.
@Dmon1Unlimited I remember quite a few years ago I was using the original pi with thermal pads (Akasa) along with a generic ram heatsink and was getting ~10°C over ambient temperature, which was pretty good considering the cost for it all. Keep in mind that I was also using these in conjunction with a very small (40mm) casefan I had rigged up, running it of the USB port.
Looks like a mini hyper 212 evo ;)
I have a cooling solution that you might like to replicate / test: It consists of a small normal heat sink, a small (approx. 8 fl. oz) pure copper cup, some paper napkins wrapped around the outside of the cup and held in place with elastic bands. The cup is placed on the heat sink and filled with ice.
Pros : cheap, silent, keeps the soc extremely cool under virtually any load.
Cons : condensation can be an issue if left unchecked, ice requires periodic replacement.
Very interesting. Back in the day, we’d test the fans every week. It was easier than troubleshooting a heat related issue. Thanks from Orlando.
Love the cuts to the high resolution close up photos, nice editing, thanks!
I've never seen anyone so excited to see a blue LED.
The ice tower does look like a beast, though 😀
He He He
Based on the results in this video I tested skipping the heat-sink and just use a small fan. The fan is 40 mm, 12 volt , but i run it at 8 volt. It silent at half a meters distance and uses less than 0.5 watt.
It resulted in a drop of 25 degree from 56 to 31 when idle and even more under normal load . with no heat-sink the height of the fan is level with the USB/Ethernet ports
OH! ITS BLUE! It s amazing!!! I love it. It's blue. So cool ...
So much excitement for blue LED (@ 11:07). We can only imagine how much more exciting it would be with full RGB!
The V2.0 support the RGB FAN,you can check it here
th-cam.com/video/FciNotr6d6g/w-d-xo.html
Just put it in a fridge
That ICE Tower does a fantastic job it opens up the Pi4 to a lot more tasks. Thanks Chris.
When you disconnected the fan, it became a an air baffle that heavily restricted airflow across the cooler. I'd repeat the test with the fan uncrewed and a belt and braces, with the fins vertically to see if convection occurs - I doubt it but it might
i use the Ice tower and a clear case similar to his with my Minecraft server running, the pi 4B slightly overclocked and added heat sinks for the other chips on board. The Pis cpu runs at 42.3C and its currently 80F in the house. Way better then any other heatsink with fan case ive used.
EC: Explaining Cooling
I have two RPi 4s. I have One RPi 4 in a case with a fan/heat sinks (iUniker) and the other in a flirc case. The unit in the case with a fan idles at 36°C and the unit in the flirc case idles at 45°C. When I ran the stress test on each, the unit in the case with the fan maxed out at 51°C and the unit in the flirc case maxed out at 61°C. The iUniker case with the fan was $8.99 on Amazon Prime and the flirc case was $14.95, but with shipping it was $22.80.
Missed title name:
slowly building up the rasperry pi until we can no longer call it a 'small' computer.
Return of the radical cooling! Your excitement for the ICE Tower is contagious. Cool video.
Nice..! The ICE Tower Cooler gives it a little ''je ne sais quoi''. I can see that on my desktop.
This ICE tower cooler is AMAZING! What a lovely cooling solution!
The ICE Tower visuals and the cooling offered are certainly impressive, but, always in my humble opinion, spoil what is one of the biggest advantages of the pi... the small size factor.
Having said that it really looks cool and I'll agree it would look awesome in a custom built case... say, an Artoo unit... Thanks for this video!
Very impressed by the cooler, and the attention to detail with the package contents, but would agree that it seems to go against the spirit of the Pi.
Great video , clear and concise as always...I have been using old sky HD box fans from scrapped boxes to cool my pi's they're 40mm and 12v...and very quiet ..you also get a 500gb/1tb HDD as well ... a lot of people just chuck them out when they cancel sky tv...note the Q boxes are owned by Sky so you shouldn't scrap those.
Some regular 60 mm fan, set at low speed to not be noisy would probably be most effective as it will remove potentional heat from everything 😂.
Awesome stuff! All tests completed in 10 minutes, so computational performance seems the same. I agree a good passive solution is ideal. Can't wait for your next video!
ice ice baby! next video, liquid cooled overclocking raspberry pi 4! :D
This TH-camr is great also...and has done a liquid cool on a prior pi version. th-cam.com/video/zKJRbcmKiFQ/w-d-xo.html
Liquid cooling the SoC is actually not as effective as a fan. Apparently, more than the SoC generates heat.
And it's ICE Tower for the win! The prices on these coolers are all very reasonable also. I'd like to get some plastic sheet and build a case around the Pi 4 with the ICE Tower installed. I know 3D printers are the big thing now, but I'd go 'old school' for a project like this. Thanks for another great video Chris.
I like building from plastic sheet too. :)
Right imma buy that ice tower right now. Those are some amazing temps
So when I first saw the Ice Tower cooler my first thought is that it would have been a more aesthetic piece than anything. However, as it turns out you can in fact miniaturize a tower cooler and expect great results!
Raspberry Pi 4: The Pentium-4 of SBCs
When you exclaimed "it's even illuminated" though. Adorbs!!!
When you're testing with the 52Pi ICE Tower Cooler in the passive mode, could you please post the results where you have oriented the RPi4 to make the fins of the Tower Cooler vertical rather than horizontal? If you don't have a fan running, convective air flow will play a big role in how effectively it will cool the RPi4. And convective air flow works best when the fins are vertical.
The ice tower cooling was truly impressive, and I would suppose manufactured in China,because of the price point. Again well done Christopher.
I'm looking forward to when Raspberry sends you a kit for a quantum computer and you show us how to have our own. Cheers.
:)
That tower cooler is so cute. And it seems like a neat fit for emulator boxes that dont need to be super small but could really use some overclocking.
Also maybe it work work better passively if it was at a 90° angle so the warm air can pass through the fins better.
nice. i may get the Fanshin if i buy a Pi4. the Icetower is cool, probably the better solution for people who dont move their Pi around too much.
The Fan SHIM is excellent, very easy to fit, and very practical. The ICE Tower is just cool! :)
I have a fan shim, and it does work very nicely indeed. Snug fit, and quiet as well. Chris' performance test fits my experience of it as well.
@Space Monkey Based on what assessment? What is so wrong with a Raspberry Pi?
@Space Monkey in other words, only buy a Pi if you can affort a 10 dollar active cooling setup.
In my opinion, there's benefits to the Noctua and Fan Shim setup: controller cooling including Ethernet and USB.
This is excellent stuff. As people push their RPis further, active cooling is going to be mainstream so it's great to see some genuine and thorough test results that show what's possible and practical.
Wow those are impressive figures from the Ice Tower, it makes the Pi look very gamer too lol, I can't help but think it needs a miniaturised version of the desktop case you used in your Ryzen 3 build.
Tetris in 1080p
Mr. Icetower is the cutest heatpipe heatsink I have ever seen. It is so sweet I'm getting a toothache.
Would have been interesting to see the difference between the thermal pad and thermal compound.
I've seen a few 86_64 tests and it is minimal, I now use the pads for SBC and some 86_64. Temperatures aren't so critical because the overclocking thing isn't the same, just keep below throttling and really you are done- unlike competative 86-64 overclocking.
Looks like the Fan Shim is the best solution. It allows the pi4 to run without throttling and low cost and small and quiet. Very nice thorough comparison.
Does it block access to any of the I/O pins or do they protrude far enough to be accessible?
Computers really are an amazing thing to behold.
Since you have mounted this great cpu cooler you should start to overclock the pie! Would be interesting how much more performance one could squeeze out the pi 4 with excellent cooling!
Yes, great OC possibilities here!
yea that tower is probably helpful if you overclock to 2ghz and stress your pi 24/7.
People with pets or young children may want to add a fan grid to the ICE tower. Looking forward to seeing results using the Pi4 Flirc case and the Pimoroni aluminium Heatsink case.
Awesome video! Your excitement is pleasant to watch. :)
Thank you for these cooling tests. Looking forward to your passive cooling tests! By the way, I now have a Raspberry Pi 4 Computer Desktop Kit. Your video on it was a great influence in my ordering it. Thanks!
well when it gets hot enough to actually bake a pie, time for cooler haha
Mr. Barnatt, I think one of the solutions to visit for passive cooling would be Mineral Oil Immersion. It often holds incredible results with a decently sized reservoir often outperforming many active cooling solutions and be extremely low maintenance. Thank you for these videos, I always look forward to seeing them.
I remember back in the days, someone cooled a computer with non-conductive oil, but IIRC it caused problem with HDD or something, plus it was massive.
I'm curious if this would be a good solution for tiny single board computers.
I have been using ice tower bought from China. It's doing great.
I was hoping you would show result with thermal pad.
Came back to this video when I put together a Raspberry Pi 4B bundle! Thanks for making this video, so I could now buy the best cooler for it. :)
Thanks for watching -- and note my follow-up video, with some updated results and more options! :)
Would have been cool to see the difference between ice cooler with pad vs paste
Jim Evans yes I was thinking of the same thing!
I would expect paste to give the better results as long as the mounting brackets allow enough pressure to be applied
I got 5 amps running through my PI model 2 rev b.... No fire yet!!!... Boots up to retropie really really fast... Using an old PC power supply 5 amp min 23 amp max 5 volt leg... I got it in a arcade cabinet I built from scratch... (well a framed skeleton of one anyways) I'm too big to fit inside one to wire it so I framed it like a house... Two heatsinks... One on processor and one on gpu chip next to it with a five inch fan blowing on it... Played Metal slug for a couple hours with a fire exstinguisher next to me... No kidding...That is a sweet cooler... I'm gonna get me one...It will look awesome and I can continue to run 5 amp power... very useful video mate!!!....
Check out the new Pi 4 case from Flirc. It's lovely and works very well for cooling, too.
It will form part of my final Pi 4 video on passive cooling solutions! :)
@@ExplainingComputers I find that while it works, it ends up too toasty to hold under load. Interested to see your tests and results on it.
As it happens, I just got one of those and ran the same test on it. Starting from 35 C seconds after booting, it hit 61 C at the end of the test, and idles around 55 C long term. The case has quite a lot of thermal mass, so temperatures move slowly. It takes a long time to fully heat up, and a very long time to cool back down. It's hot to the touch at the end of the test...Allowing it to hit its 56 C idle first, it heats to 71 C in this same test.
Testing another pi4 in the Canakit case, modified to mount a Noctua fan on top, and using their "joke" heatsinks, I got a little bit better results than Chris; I think the airflow in my version is a bit better in terms of the path it takes - but it looks horrible by comparison. For that one, I got 51 C top temperature, it idles in the low 40s.
I think my room might have been around 1-2 C cooler than his (It does depend where in the room you measure, around here).
The fan is clearly the winner in all tests, his and mine. It's so good I'm thinking about trying to run it down in speed, or make it switched, like the pimoroni fan. I got the "thicker" Noctua (same as shown here) - there's now a thinner version on Amazon, which is probably less air and more noise. Be careful in ordering.
@@ExplainingComputers I have a Pi 4 flirc case. My pie idles higher than most (started at 60C after a month it has dropped to 50C(ish)). Under load the case is quite warm (so there is good cpu to case contact). Since the bottom seals the case, I was wondering about using some 10mm(ish) standoffs between the bottom of the board and the base cover to allow some airflow into the case. The standoffs would need to be long enough to clear the SD card slot. I have no local source for 2.5mm stuff and shipping is about 10X the cost of the standoffs. Any chance you could give it a try? Thanks
@@bradquinn4161 I will certainly be testing the Flirc case in a video here soon. :)
Congrats on the 500K! That's awesome and well deserved!
Thanks.
The FAN SHIM has an RGB LED. Does that turn your Raspberry Pi 4 into a gaming machine?
Does Retropie count ?
Can't wait for the passive cooling solutions on the Rpi4. Bought myself a very neat FLIRC case for my Rpi3B a while back, never overheats, no noise, looks slick, very cool, indeed.
Next video liquid cooled raspberry pi 4
Cryo cooled.
Way to go 52Pi! Finally, a well-engineered, truly effective cooling solution for the Pi 3/4. I'll definitely be purchasing one.
Could not agree more. It is an excellent product.
Why is it that mobile phone processors, which are much more powerful don't require this level of cooling?
Phones likely throttles more and do bigLITTLE tricks, plus some advanced scenarioed power managment avoidances usually to prolong battery life etc..
That managment could go as far as that even user hands act as cooler too 😂
RPi 4 as aimed also for Desktop does not calculate as all 4 cores are BIG and that cries for a fan to not throttle in intensive scenarios such a stress benchmarks. Plus some people like to OC it too, so 😂
If you use fan, your phone will remain caseless. So you can't really hold it.
If you use heatsink, the case will be too hot for you to hold it.
So best way is just to throttle it.
If you confine the processor to do what a phone normally does (as Milan Kostić says), the rp4 will probably run cool. The benchmark just flogs the processor as hard as it can go.
Thanks for the idea what to do after church. I haven't played with my Pi4 much. I need one of those ice towers, blue sealed the deal!
yay! but i'm confused... Why no water cooling?? no nitrogen?? But don't you know we want a 5ghz pi?? XD
Hi Chris. I liked the no-punches-pulled approach you take with your reviews. The only thing that comes to my mind is what happens ( God forbid ) when the fan craps out and you ( or someone ) are so wrapped up in their work that you don't notice. I think that there should be some sort of audible alarm just in case, maybe I'm paranoid but in matters like this, I like to wear suspenders and a belt. Great review. Cheers.
When you have a small factor pc and the only way to effectively cool it makes it 4 times as big 🤔😂
an NUC has way higher performance and smaller package
I replaced the fan with a Noctua NF-A4x10 5V fan. I bought the vertical model (Ice Tower) then returned it for the horizontal (Low profile). The vertical uses screws for the fan mount and the horizontal uses a fan clip which I find poorly designed and it doesn't work well with the Noctua fan. Both of mine were the GeeekPI models.
Now add a Peltier to the Ice Cooler. LOL
What would that achieve though? Any of these cooling solutions is sufficient to stop the processor from throttling so what is to be gained by more exotic solutions?
@@johnm2012 Probably nothing. Just fun screwing around. Go Cryogenic. Overclock the chit out of the thing.
@Michael Bishop On air cooling alone the silicon is well away from the danger zone. Cooling it further wouldn't improve longevity by any measurable amount. Even running it without any active cooling at all is safe, but it throttles.
@@pulesjet For the sheer fun of it is an acceptable answer. Michael's longevity one isn't.
Congratiulations to 500k subscribers!
Thanks. Special video tomorrow. :)
I Cool a Raspberry pie with ice cream...lol
:)
I did with raspberry flavour, i did 10 degrees lower from the vanilla one
A vanilla build. Boom boom
@@MB-THX1138 ohhhh
...and who needs a case when you have a plate.
I can see the Fan Shim board connectors succumb to huge oxidation issues down the line. It really needs a proper connector or to be soldered into place
Yes back again with my favorite Nerd with an IQ of 160
Copper wins!!!
That's why the ICE Tower with its copper on the chip you're trying to cool has by far the best results. Granted I am a little surprised on how well just a fan without a heatsink performs, but ultimately the best solution (minus liquid cooling and even then...) is to put copper on the chip and then extend to it to some type of aluminum, preferably fins, with a fan.
I doubt that liquid cooling would be more effective than the Ice Tower.
@@johnm2012 Yeah I doubt so as well, but I've never personally dealt with them.
Could you try installing Windows 10 on a RPi4
I understand it can be done! I have several Pi 4 videos planned.
Ok cool, been researching to do this with my Pi 4
The extra power offers a lot of possibilities!
I really like the 52 Pi Ice Tower.
I plan to try one with a Peltier module for another project as well.
52 Pi even have them for sale with free shipping on eBay!
As I said, completely different project. Thanks.
Well, you did it again! I'm off to order more Pi peripherals! Awesome content, as always.
That Ice Tower cooler is so cute!
Thnx for the acknowledgement. Don't get me started on your future video on how to launch a cubesat from the backyard. Hardy-har-har.
we're still using pi3B without even a small heatsink in our production systems. Those cool active thermal solutions might be cute or powerful but we also need to know the MTBF, the noise and dust that fan might suck into the little case. The video is fantastic to let us compare those data efficiently!
The Power of the Tower. The ICEMAN commith and it was COoL. Thank you 👍😁
I think the 52Pi cooler completely negates the advantage of the Pi's small form factor, but I like the Noctua and Pimoroni solution :)
That ICE Tower Cooler is really impressive. I'm glad to see that you finally get it and test it Mr B.
Chris got so excited 😆 with his new 52pi fanny!
The early raspberries were phenomenal in the size of a cigarette box. Now with their advance to higher power, they have turned into masonry bricks once the performance improving gadgets are buckled on. Such a trade-off.
Just a remark. Fan SHIM is NOT properly mounted. You need some thin plate thermally attached to CPU just to increase area of cooling. Most power of the said Fan SHIM is wasted... Otherwise excellent results. Also can be noted that with heat pipes - this is not the only way of mounting. Can be flat from factor. Not cubical . Very practical video. Thanks,
The Fan SHIM is properly mounted. :) Yes, a heat sink could be used with it, but not in the case shown, as the distance between the base of the fan and the fan is very small.
@@ExplainingComputers I understand you properly mounted as designed, but I meant the design is insufficient. And not talking about heat sink. Simple tin plate cutout from jar of instant coffee (my personal preference). It's about 0.1 mm.
FANTASTIC!!! :))))))
the heat pipe cooler IS a high end PC cooler, look up "heatpipe northbridge cooler" a tad bigger but, that's what they used to be used for.