RASPBERRY PI 5 FLIRC COOLER, how does it perform next to the other offerings ????

[@jeremiahbullfrog3090]

Very nice presentation! You're so correct, not handling that case after it's been cooking a while!

[@CaptainCommodore]

@jeremiahbullfrog3090 I really like the flirc case and own a few of them, just received the pironman today and will do a video on that over the next few weeks

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Excellent review and testing ! Thanks for taking the time to do this. A Pi must watch video! Thanks for sharing

[@CaptainCommodore]

Thanks for watching!

[@karlfoley]

Thanks for the taking the time to do this video. I'm running a couple of Pi4 in FLIRC cases for DNS and a few other tiny services and I settled on the FLIRC's after having to constantly replace fans on Pi4 active coolers. After seeing this I can now confidently upgrade my Pi4/4GB to a Pi5/8GB and use the Pi5 FLIRC case going forward.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I too use the flirc cases on the pi3 & pi 4 and never had any trouble with their performance, not I know that they can reliably cool the pi5 it's ideal for use cases like yours or even media centre type applications

[@zeberto1986]

I have the official case and cooler for my pi 5 but I find the official case is quite happy to separate easily. The cooler on the other hand is pretty handy.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I agree, mine separates easily too, hoping to receive my neo this week and I will rerun the test for that

[@davidcopelandlightartist7432]

Hi mate this is a great review! Can you remove the micro sd card really easy? Or is it fiddly, do you need to undo the screws to get it? Many thanks in advance!

[@CaptainCommodore]

There is a recess where you can remove the card, but you will need your fingernail to catch the "ridge" of the card

[@davidcopelandlightartist7432]

Ok thank you so much for the reply 🙂👍

[@SuperPaul5000]

thanks for the great video what i would like to know is: does the flirc case influence the WiFi and Bluetooth connection? i could imagine hat metal cases can have a strong influence on these connections compared to plastic cases

[@CaptainCommodore]

@SuperPaul5000 to be honest in my use case (no pun) I don't notice any degradation of signal and I'm in a room directly above my router, however I could see there being a small reduction in range at the edges but this may be how it's orientated, both devices have a plastic base though

[@koliberk]

great test 🍻 It looks like active cooler is designed very well, I have my RPi5 without any case, average temp working during the day is from 40'C to about 52'C

[@CaptainCommodore]

I definately recommend the flirc fir silent operation, if you going to push the pi5 a bit have a look at my argon neo 5 video , that performs really well

[@koliberk]

@@CaptainCommodoreyou are right, it's good as well, but I have Pimoroni NVMe Base, so my RPi5 won't fit, active cooler is good option in my combo, I can control PWM with modded library 😁👍

[@Pepperpot666]

I ran two testseries with a "cpuburn-a53" stresstest and the FLIRC-case, one time with the original thermal pad, one time with a third market thermal pad. At around the 20 minute mark both tests reached 82+ degrees Celsius and I ended the tests there. The case did not reach a thermal equilibrium at that time, the temperature kept slowly rising. I am really not sure, if the FLIRC-case is really usable in the long run.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I'm not sure why yours is higher, the only thing I can think of is that a) your ambient was hotter or b) your overclocked or c) there's not as good thermal contact as I had........ perhaps you should try the test to see where it stops ?? I used the "stress" package for the stress test on all 4 cores, I left the pu running at full stress for well over an hour and it was definitely stable at ~78°

[@Pepperpot666]

@@CaptainCommodore I just ran another test. Ambient temperature was about 22 degrees. I am running the lite OS without graphical windowmanager, in a headless setup with ssh login and tmux. System is not overclocked, right out of the box. The only connectors are power and a lan cable. When using the most basic stress-command with "stress -c 4" to engage all 4 cpu in the most basic way, the longterm temperature was between 77 and 79 degrees, with some random spikes into the 80,X degrees. That is not a lot of margin, if you want to run your system in the middle european summers, where ambient temperatures will go up. Not all stresstests are equal, "CPUburn-a53" is designed to stress the system to the max, to generate as much heat in the Pi as possible, and here the Flirc-case did not that "well". The Flirc-case has only one aluminium "stem" to only cool the cpu. The other chips like powersupply, RAM, etc. go uncooled. I agree, that you do not stress your system with "normal" use-cases, but bad luck and software bugs can happen, that can send your system into overdrive.. Some other people also may want to keep their Pi in some kind of enclosures, be it a book case, a drawer, a 19" homelab enclosure, etc.

[@CaptainCommodore]

@Pepperpot666 Can't disagree with anything you said there, will test the neo when it lands, I believe it does cool more than just the cpu and I have had argon cases for my other pics. Maybe a good use case for the flirc is a silent media box, not sure how much cpu x264/x265 will eat up but I may look into it.......

[@Rick_Todd]

I also got one for my Pi 5 . This will be my 3rd Flirc Case as i already have one in my Pi 3B+ & Pi 4 as i like to non stop overclock in my Batocera Builds.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I too have the flirce for both pi3 & 4 and these have all performed very well, luckily even with overclocking all 4 cpus are rarely maxed so temps will be even lower, I love batocera and this is my emulation distress of choice

[@Rick_Todd]

Yes Nice that we can finally get Full Speed Sega Saturn on our pi 5's now@@CaptainCommodore

[@nikobellic570]

New pi can run 1080p60 KZbin in the browser quite well. This is a popular use case that taxes the CPU/ GPU to high temps. Passive cases get really hot

[@CaptainCommodore]

I suspect that it may be using software decoding which will tax the cpu more, but you are correct , the passive cases will get hotter than active as it has to radiate heat away

[@nikobellic570]

I've tried the Flirc and the Geekworm Heavy duty passive ones and am a bit worried about hot cases coming into contact with desk clutter. I ordered the argon neo 5 which looks like a good passive/active solution ​@@CaptainCommodore

[@Autotrope]

Note, on some weak computers 1080p60 youtube is much less taxing if you go into youtube settings and disable AV1 for HD videos, I managed to get 1080p60 working fine on an ancient netbook (running linux) that way. Of course that is still x86 but it is a potato

[@TimsRetroCorner]

Cood comparison. I have the Active Cooler on mine, but I'm all about the I/O. The FLIRC looks great for unexpanded PIs though.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I'm also a fan of the argon cases, I reckon it won't be long until one of those arrives

[@Lares575]

Hi, thank you very much for this video. Since you own a Raspberry Pi 5 and the Flirc case, it would be really interesting to analyze if the Flirc case can also handle an installed Ubuntu since it's also supported nowadays for the Raspberry Pi 5. The temperatures should be higher but it woul be so interesting to know if they stay below 80°C. If you're interested in testing it, your audience would surely appreciate it :-)

[@CaptainCommodore]

@@Lares575 I tested it under maximum load, as it handles 100% load ubuntu would no doubt use less and would definately handle it

[@Lares575]

@@CaptainCommodore Thanks. That`s good to know.

[@NAMarculescu]

When I buy a Pi I just get the FLIRC case to go with it . Never had any issues.

[@JosipRetroBits]

Very nice review and comparison test :) I always prefer passive cooling if possible. Cheers!

[@CaptainCommodore]

Me too, I have flirce cases for the pi zero / 3 and 4 and all work really well, not sure its suitable for an overclock though

[@iblackfeathers]

picking up a flirc case requires commitment to its limitations because you can’t add a bottom ssd accessory or attach other peripherals. part of my waiting is to see what cases will be available where you can add a bootable ssd and maybe dual drives in a nas setup. but it is great to see that the official cooler has done a great job with thermals. one wish is to have a pi 5 case which is compatible with both the official pi active cooler and a bottom ssd attachment and access to the gpios and other peripherals… a case which does not inhibit all the other functionality. and the case must not have red. (argon40’s pi 5 case has red and i don’t like that. additionally, you have to unscrew it with a screwdriver to get to the internals. no tooless entry.)

[@CaptainCommodore]

I have an argon neo case coming and I will update the test for that, I suspect there will always be a compromise depending on use case

[@DanMortenson]

I'm in the same camp. I need LOW power consumption, because it will run off of a battery (word processing). I would like an nvme, though, and my choice of case so far is a full-contact-with-the-chips finned beauty...

[@CaptainCommodore]

The new neo case is rather nice thermal wise AND they are releasing a nvme lower case for it, I made a video on the neo too

[@poddmo]

Level up your FLIRC case by running it in hedgehog mode: rip off the plastic lid that keeps all the heat in and use a thermal pad to stick down a CPU heatsink to the now exposed aluminium. The increase in radiative capability produces the best silent cooling solution that can run high loads for hours on end. I discovered this when using an RPI4 as a 720p media centre.

[@CaptainCommodore]

Definately, increasing the surface area exposed to ambient will absolutely help lower the temps, I have the argon neo case coming which combines an aluminium case with a cooler so that should be nice

[@nikobellic570]

Looks uglier. Better performance though. Also, Geekworm heavy duty aluminium case does its job but runs hot.

[@wcg66]

I have the Flirc case for my Pi4 with no complaints. It barely gets warm most of the time and looks good which is probably the best part about their designs. The official cases look a little toy-like, IMO.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I too have the flirc for the pi4 ( I also have for thr pi3 too ) it works really well on both these, the flirc cases do look good and are ideal for media centre use

[@Char1es4k]

It seems like rpi5 with the flirc case gets roughly 10 degrees hotter than with the passive cooling case from edatec. I think it's reasonable considering that the flirc case only contacts CPU for heat dissipation, whereas the edatec case has three regions contacting with components on the board, just like the official plastic case.

[@CaptainCommodore]

I havnt seen that case, but the argon neo 5 alu/fan case doesn't contact the ram just the cpu and price chip, I know the ram is rated too 85deg which may be why the flirc and neo don't bother contacting it, the Flirce is very nice though and perfect for media use

[@Char1es4k]

@@CaptainCommodoreYes thermal throttling should not be an issue for all those third-party passive cooling cases out there. But just like how we treat laptops, it's always appreciated if we can have more thermal headroom, just in case the working environment is hotter than we expect. In addition, EDATEC case has cutouts for all the necessary connectors, just like argon neo 5. In my testing rpi5 reaches 67C after 30 min stress test. So I'd argue that the fan is in most scenarios not needed. Besides the top surface of the case is lower than USB ports, which means that it doesn't add up the overall height and I can use it in robotic cars along with expansion PCB without worry for interference. All default accessories to mount expansion board onto rpi5 should work.

[@CaptainCommodore]

@Char1es4k of course headroom is good and there not much with the flirc, I will have a look at the EDATEC case, although when I tested the neo that topped out at an average of 64deg and was *almost* silent

[@nado_x]

Thanks for your thorough benchmarking, you convinced me to order the case! How does it handle overclocking to 2.8 or 3 GHz?

[@CaptainCommodore]

I havnt tried overclocking the case but that's a goodnidea for another video, I am getting the new argon neo for the pi 5 in the next few days so I will put that through the same test, after I may see how the fare with an overclock

[@nado_x]

@@CaptainCommodore The Argon Neo looks really nice, but I personally have a fondness for the Flirc cases simple design. Apart from those two cases, I think the Geekworm Geekworm P573 and P532 look really slick - the only downside to these might be the wireless signal.

[@pagispagis3590]

Thanks for the video, really helpful. I like passive cooling but I still have some doubts about the FLIRC case.The active cooler metal surface absorbs heat from 3 components, while FLIRC only from the CPU one. In addition when ambient temp is above 25 degrees the CPU temp very likely will exceed 80 degrees I think?

[@CaptainCommodore]

Yes exactly, that's why I suspected the simply reused the mould for the pi4 case with a power button mod, the rpi active cooler comes with pads on the bottom to contact other components, the only real question is if flirc did this deliberately knowing how hot the aluminium gets to deliberately not pass that on to the other components, I know the cpu is rated at 85 degrees but I'm not sure about the other components, I have an argon neo coming so will do the same test when that arrives

[@DanSleepy-ni5yg]

I got this pihut and thermal pad had no paper back on it to remove, anyone else get the thermal pad this way?

[@CaptainCommodore]

Nah mine had it both sides

[@PlayingItWrong]

Putting some conductive thermal mass into the flircs cavity would probably do wonders for it's ability to take heat away from the cpu.

[@CaptainCommodore]

Well only until it heats up, once heated, if the cpu should drop in temp it would be connected to a hot mass

[@PlayingItWrong]

​​@@CaptainCommodoreThat mass would actually strengthen the thermal column getting heat away from the cpu because it would move heat to the outer shell, even once saturated. The pillar isn't hollow for effectiveness its hollow for cost.

[@mughug9616]

Does the case allow for the addition of a lower NVMe hat?

[@CaptainCommodore]

Can't see how as the bottom case clamps the pi onto the heatsink

[@Renull55]

just got this one!

[@CaptainCommodore]

Nice, I have a neo case on its way so will repeat this test for that too......

[@joker28666]

Really interesting, did you ever try to replicate this? Its crazy to believe passive cooling goes toe to toe for so long with active cooling

[@CaptainCommodore]

I did the tests several times, it is works well until the case reaches saturation and then its a function of thermal loss to atmosphere so this may reach throttling in higher ambient temperatures

[@zenobikraweznick]

Whats the TL;DR ?

[@CaptainCommodore]

The takeaway Is that despite the flirc only contacting the cpu it can indeed passively cool the rpi5 at full load

[@zenobikraweznick]

@@CaptainCommodore thanks for the summary and video, really informative !

[@russg4313]

The flirc missing the mark in some regards......there are other similar cases that make contact with other chips on the Pi. They also have more surface area (ribbed) on the outside to get more surface exposure to air for better dissipation. Oh - they're cheaper too.

[@CaptainCommodore]

Whilst tour absolutely correct , the other chips are rated for 85deg so it's not a massive deal breaker, of course it also stands that if one chip heats up quicker than the others the heat will infact transmit to the other in contact with the heatsink, as the CPU heats up quicker it can raise the memory temp too..... the neo is really nice too and the hybrid approach is prob the best for me

[@Autotrope]

Love the look and the silence of the Flirc cases On the bare board, did you happen to see how far the CPU speed was dialled back when it was throttling? My other question is what do you use for stressing all cores? stress-ng/s-tui? Apologies if you said that and I missed it.

[@8BitRetroReFix]

Nice video, mate .. I recon the alloy case is the best ..I like the design, too

[@CaptainCommodore]

Yea they really look good too

[@Thomasz-Tech-Innovations]

They should do this case with M.2 storage

[@CaptainCommodore]

Absolutely, it may not be too hard to actually fit an m2 underneath with a modified base, I would be a little concerned with the higher heat output right next to the m2 though

[@joshlaw2273]

there are other chips that the flirc does not touch, but the active cooler does. flirc results are not comparable because it is not cooling any others, also there was not additional chip coolers for the other chips. no way I am going to get the flirc case... thanks for the info!

[@bertbrecht123]

👍