Cooling The Raspberry Pi 4 With The Fan SHIM & FLIRC For Better Performance

[wizard69]

I don’t mind that RPI 4 comes without a heat sink. What is problematic is that Raspberry PI did not provide for a proper fan header or other solution for users to leverage.

[tuxd3v]

I don’t mind that RPI 4 comes without a heat sink. What is problematic is that Raspberry PI did not provide for a proper fan header or other solution for users to leverage.

Exactly..
rpi is not a product made to run full throttle continuously..
Using fan on gpio, is not so critical, but running it at 5v, its around ~30% less efficient, and no pwm..

[tuxd3v]

Wrong https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odro...th-4gbyte-ram/
that's $79 vs the $70 for the equivalent rpi, that's only 11%.

The N2 already comes with the heatsink?

• N2, DDR4@ 1320Mhz, $79
• RPi4B, Ram speed?.. CPU is caped at 1.5Ghz is $70
• RockPi4A, LPDDR4@ 1600Mhz, plus its CPU works @2Ghz.. $65

The N2, costs 21.5% more than RockPi4...

RockPi4 and RaspberryPi, doesn't have fan connector, big fail..
N2 has...but it has the Fan header in the Top..with CPU in the bottom..

N2,RockPi4 have a cleaner top, since the CPU is hidden..
How people will run in full load, during months if they need too on N2/RockPi4/RaspberryPi4..??

From the 3 Boards, clearly RockPi4 is a winner( but it should also consume more power tough... )..

[emblemparade]

From Michael Larabel's hard work, and by The Raspberry Pi Foundation's tacit admission, it is quite clear that the RPi4 is not usable without the addition of proper heat sinking;

I'm inclined to agree (and "liked" your post) but there is another argument to be made.

The Pi 4's performance might be hampered without proper cooling, but it still might be good enough and an improvement over previous models. It's priced the same, so: hey. RPi was never about sheer performance. And there are other reasons to go with the Pi 4 over previous models: fast networking, dual HDMI, multiple USB 3, etc.

Another way to think about this is that the RPi 4 has performance "headroom" over its out-of-the-box experience if you're able to invest in cooling for your money and use case. It's a bit offensive because this isn't overclocking headroom, but rather achieving the normal operating potential of the silicon, but the end result is really the same. Out of the box you get X, and you can improve it to Y with better cooling.

You buy a Pi for entirely other reasons than performance, and they really are all wonderful reasons. So I consider this still to be a good product, but I wish they were more transparent about the cooling requirements in their released information because obviously it left a bitter taste in the mouths of some of us.

[LoveRPi]

We already did the thermal tests here with a theoretical workload (cpuburn-a53): https://amzn.to/31MKgoz
See photo 4 and 6. The Raspberry Pi 4 can work at full speed for around 60 seconds with just a small proper heatsink. If it was a non-theoretical workload, it will last even longer at full speed. Contrary to a lot of information that are subjective, our objective testing shows that Raspberry Pi 4 consumes less power at full theoretical workload than Raspberry Pi 3 models. Only the idle and startup current of the Pi 4 is double that of Pi 3. Peak power consumption is actually 0.3A less (1.5A for Pi 4 @ 1.5GHz vs 1.8A for Pi 3 @ 1.4GHz).

[coder]

In this article we're looking at the Raspberry Pi 4 performance with a Fan SHIM as an active fan designed for running on the Raspberry Pi off the GPIO pins as well as the FLIRC as a metal case that passively cools the device.

So, you're running the Pi caseless in 3 of the trials, and the FLIRC is the only one where you have it in a case? If not, what case are the heatsink, no heatsink, and fan shim using?

Also, is the outside of the fan shim entirely plastic? I imagine it'd work even better, if the bottom was metal and thermally-coupled to the SoC via tape, paste, etc.

And can you please confirm that the FLIRC has big slabs of plastic on both sides?

Finally, what about the noise of the fan shim? Some RPMs or dB measurements (A-weighted @ 1 M seems standard) would be appreciated.

Thanks for the tests. The fan shim wins on cuteness, for those using transparent cases, but the FLIRC is quite handsome. Noise & fan shim performance, inside a case, would factor into my end decision. I would use a case to mitigate dust buildup.

Please consider another article that adds a case to the fan shim, if that's not what you did. Noise measurements (with & without case) would also be nice. Thanks.

[coder]

I'm a bit surprised this runs hot enough where even the FLIRC isn't quite enough to prevent thermal throttling. Perhaps they should look into something smaller than 28nm.

1. The FLIRC seems to have plastic on both sides, including right above the CPU. IMO, they should've kept it aluminum, on that side.
2. They said 28 nm is cheapest per transistor. Previous generations of the Pi all used 40 nm. Eben Upton has been quoted as saying he expects they'll remain on 28 nm for some time, by which I infer at least one more generation. They made the Pi as good as they could, within a budget.

Reference: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/eb...aspberry-pi-4/

[coder]

Huh, I'd have expected the heatsink alone to have made a big difference on its own... Apparently not.

In what sense? In 3 tests, it gives a distinct temperature advantage. In 3 other tests, it gives a distinct performance advantage. Still, I'm with you that I expected the gap to be larger. I wonder if he ran it inside a case.

[coder]

How warm is the FLIRC case itself under heavy load? I definitely want my Pi to be fanless, unless the case becomes too hot to even touch.

Are you going to be picking it up while it's running games or some other heavy load? If it's running close to idle, I'm sure it will not be too hot.

[coder]

The N2 already comes with the heatsink?

• N2, DDR4@ 1320Mhz, $79
• RPi4B, Ram speed?.. CPU is caped at 1.5Ghz is $70
• RockPi4A, LPDDR4@ 1600Mhz, plus its CPU works @2Ghz.. $65

The N2, costs 21.5% more than RockPi4...

But the N2 is faster, being based on A73 cores, while the RockPi64 uses A72 cores. ODROID made a N1 that was based on the same SoC as the RockPi64, but they cancelled it.

Also, I don't know why you're comparing DDR speeds vs. CPU clock speeds. The N2 runs its A73 cores up to 1.8 GHz and its A53 cores at about 1.9 GHz.

RockPi4 and RaspberryPi, doesn't have fan connector, big fail..
N2 has...but it has the Fan header in the Top..with CPU in the bottom..

The N2 simply doesn't need a fan. It's manufactured at 12 nm. When running all 6 cores at sustained max load, using the stock, passive heatsink, it plateaus around 73 C, which seems to be below the point of throttling.

Have a good read through their benchmarks (including their N1 comparisons, should you want to compare it with RockPi64).

From the 3 Boards, clearly RockPi4 is a winner( but it should also consume more power tough... )..

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odro...th-4gbyte-ram/

Clearly, I don't agree with your conclusion.