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Review on Enhanced Cooling Aluminum Armor Case for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B by Geekworm: Optimal Passive Cooling and Improved Compatibility by Colin Watkins

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Cool feel-good case

It is very easy to assemble, fits very snugly and cools better than a small fan. The Wi-Fi signal is strong - all signal bars are lit. I have two Pi 4s - one in a plastic case with a fan (made by Canakit) and this one. The Armor case looks very sharp and gives the Pi a very solid look with some extra weight to keep the Pi from moving around so easily. Two GPIO extenders are provided, which is a nice touch. .EDIT: Here's some info on thermal data points after using this case for a few days. Using the package "stress-ng" I ran the command: stress-ng --cpu 0 --cpu-method fft which runs the stress test with 100% of all 4 cores. I ran this on my two PI 4 models using the same software and firmware updates (the same SD card is copied in each case). One uses a GeekWorm Armor case while the other uses a transparent Canakit case with a fan. The ambient temperature during these tests was 20°C. On the Armor Pi, the CPU temperature rose very slowly to 74°C with occasional dips and spikes of 73 and 75. It took the case about 1 hour to reach thermal equilibrium. The case felt quite warm, but didn't hurt. Stopping the start causes the temperature to drop slowly. On the Canakit Pi with the small fan, the temperature quickly rose to 68°C and then slowly stabilized at 72°C after about 30 minutes. There were occasional dips and spikes from 71 and 73. The plastic case was warm to the touch, but not hot. Aborting the test resulted in a rapid drop in temperature. Both cooling solutions meet my requirements. I find the Geekworm case more visually appealing, it's very solid, and the GPIO is easily accessible. Additional Info: I placed a spare 12V 120mm computer fan at an angle on the case to provide temporary airflow as a test. (see image). It's a quiet fan with low airflow, but after several hours of stress testing as described above, the temperature stayed at 40°C. Thus, even a small amount of convection improves the cooling performance.

Pros
  • With 3 thermal pads (only 0.5 mm thick) that touch the case and dissipate heat. You can also use a CPU lubricant (not included) to improve heat dissipation. Note. If you feel the blue thermal tape isn't good enough at dissipating heat, you can replace it with a thin 0.5mm silicone lubricated copper heatsink match (Shin-Etsu Shin-tsu X-23-7921- 5 is recommended) replace to make it better heat dissipation. Disappointment.
Cons
  • boring packaging