Geekworm P173 Heavy Duty Passive Cooling Aluminum Case for Raspberry Pi 4

Great VERY solid aluminum case for a Pi 4. I was able to install my Pi in minutes, applied the thermal pads, put the shell together, and it all sandwiched nicely, connecting the thermal pillars to the pads. The Pi runs VERY cool, and quietly since it doesn't have a fan. Adding a fan wouldn't be too hard, but you'd need to find a way to mount and power it (there's room for a nice GPIO extension cable on the edge, that could work well for extending a wire, or even directly powering off of an extension cable or USB port. It seem like it would be easy to mount a fan using some cable ties, but there's nothing on the case itself that lends itself to mounting a fan. Perhaps the next version will have tapped fan mounting holes. The Pi fits beautifully, exposing anything you might need, including the previously mentioned GPIO gap as well as one for the camera connection, and plenty of room to swap SD cards! Very impressive case for the cost, especially. (I got one for the Pi3 and one for the Pi4, so this is a copy of the Pi3 review, both were built exceptionally well to the same level of quality and I'm very happy)

It's a fine little kit, and it is priced right. I used the included copper shim and some Arctic Silver instead of the thermal pad for the CPU. It seems to have the right amount of squish on the thermal interfaces to keep everything held together and smoosh things out appropriately. All of the thermal pads (there are two sets of 4) were cut to the right shapes, and had protective plastic on both sides which must be removed for optimal performance. One extra screw is included, along with an Allen key for tightening the screws. It cools the CPU, the RAM, the PMIC, and the USB 3 hub chip. No provision is included for cooling the Wifi chip, but none is needed or useful (and on the Pi4's PCB, the metal can covering the wifi chip doesn't actually touch anything that gets warm anyway -- there is nothing to cool here, by nature of the Pi4's design. The can improves RF interference and light sensitivity vs the Pi3B's design, which used a similar chip but as a bare unprotected silicon die). I wanted a better cooling solution for a Pi4 (I'm going on a adventure that is going to include using a Raspberry Pi on battery power while camping in the Florida sun), and I'm allergic to using noisy fans for such low-power applications. This will work great: It uses zero energy and offers wonderful thermal dissipation -- more than plenty to dump the Pi4's maximum heat output of around 6.4 Watts. In its present duty, running Kodi with LibreElec on the living room TV: It works fine. No issues. Reported temperatures while watching a film in a 68-degree room with minimal airflow are around a very-chill 31C, which is 49 degrees below the throttle temperature (and 54 degrees below the maximum allowable operating temperature) of the Pi4. I could overlock it and put the hammer down, but meh: Provisions are made for running the GPIO out with a 40-pin ribbon cable, if tinkering is in order. The finish is a nice, semi-matte black. It was consistent on the unit I ordered. One star deducted because the screws were more difficult to get started than I anticipated. It's a little bit unnerving holding the case closed with one hand (to keep the thermal interfaces where they need to be) and starting screws with my other hand. A little bit of a chamfer would completely resolve this issue, but I shouldn't have to add that myself. It would also be more-ideal if the aluminum posts molded into the top-half of the case were unpainted where they contact the parts being cooled. They're beefy and solid aluminum, and that's quite good, but the main goal of a case like this is to conduct heat and paint gets in the way of that goal.

Truly one of the great Amazon products out there. Extremely good heat dissipation. Looks handsome. Feels strong. Ports line up well. Easy assembly. Amazing price ($10 right now)

TL;DR: Excellent case for the money, great performance for a simple Home Assistant dashboard, and silent. Use Case: I am currently using a Raspberry Pi to run a Home Assistant dashboard in my office. I was using a different heatsink with a small fan. The fan would turn on periodically throughout the day and became quite distracting for the few degrees improvement it caused, compared to if it stayed off entirely. I experimented with a handful of cases and heatsinks until I eventually landed on this item. Wow, to say the least. It brought my temperatures down from 55-60 to 35-40. All of this without the use of a fan. No complaints and I'm glad I landed on this product. Build Quality: Feels sturdy and no complaints. The paint has some blemishes, but nothing that detracts overall from its look and performance. The product does come with a copper plate for covering the CPU. Per the instructions provided, I applied thermal paste on both sides of the copper plate and then only put the smaller thermal pads over the three other chips. Performance: Excellent. The CPU temperatures exceeded my expectations and it's silent. The entire case is made out of metal, so the case does transfer heat from the Raspberry Pi. For my use case, this isn't a problem. It's just slightly warm to the touch, and still cooler than any laptop bottom would be after a few hours of use.

Bought this case as a means to house a Pi4 for my 3d printer, and I went with this one since the entire case allows for passive cooling VS needing a fan. Pros: Simple, robust design. Hefty, so it has plenty of mass and won't get knocked around easily. This also means there's a lot of material and surface area to help dissipate heat. Cons: The biggest drawback I've found for this case is the inability to remove the micro SD card without using needle nosed pliers. The opening is too narrow to get a grip unless you have half-inch long nails. This is the reason for a 4-star vs 5. Another minor con is a lack of any mounting solutions. Simple tabs on the corners or cheap brackets to clamp over the case would be nice, but not so much a 'con' as it's just a slight inconvenience. This is a great Pi case and I recommend it, just be aware of its limitations so that you know it will work for your use-case.

I have a Pi 4b that is in here running Pi-Hole, and it runs great with this case. Temperatures are under control, and it doesn't have a fan spinning and grabbing dust. Great product, I am considering ordering another RPI!

I have two of those cases and they both perform very well with the RPi 4. The included pads make good contact with the board components, the enclosure gets uniformly warm (meaning it does transfer heat from the board).

Love it. Replaced a see-through plastic case with a very noisy fan. Setup was a breeze, instructions were clear. I really like the fit, finish, weight, and appearance. Very pleased, and worth every cent.

The default temperature of my rasberri by was about 70 degrees celsius. Any serious computation raised it to 85. Now, I can download files at 45MB per second without reaching 50 degrees. This is not a fake review. I really love this product. The case itself is sturdy, the packaging is small and useful. They even include an extra set of thermal pads! Really great stuff

Excellent refroidissement. Test sur Raspberry Pi 4B avec "stress-ng" : Avant de lancer, température idle à 35 °C, Après 5 minutes de stress-ng : ça ne dépasse pas les 40 °C. Je recommande, ça vaut largement mieux qu'un ventilateur et en plus sans bruit.

I was sceptical about this just being heat-soaked after time but it really works. I used the thermal pads to cover the parts on the Pi and it's doing a great job. Running stress for ~10 minutes and it kept the pi temps very reasonable (upto 54C when the pi can operate higher than that). Running a compile on it for some connected ESPHome kit and the temps are sitting at 40-45C. It's solid, sturdy, looks great, easy to assemble and not overly expensive. Doesn't cause issue with any connections. Good bit of kit

Kyler helt ljudlöst

Solid look, physical protection of my RPi 4B, good fitting of heat sink, getting a little hot though. Using it after removing case with fan because it became too noisy.