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do I need to use a cooler for the raspberrpi. it came with one but if I hook up the cooler I have less space for other things that I can connect to my pi

An droid
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  • In my experience you will need at least a heatsink. There are very thin heatsinks which go nicely under any extension PCBs. Even a slab of aluminium or copper 3-2 mm thick will do. – Dmitry Grigoryev Mar 15 '21 at 16:05
  • See also: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/q/114462/33476 – Dmitry Grigoryev Mar 15 '21 at 16:10
  • It depends heavily on what you are running (more demanding tasks = more heat = throttling). Small heatsinks are a good idea (and a very common one). – Sergiusz Mar 15 '21 at 17:24
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    I think it is fine to try without, check the temperature w/ `vcgencmd measure_temp` when it is busy working hard and if it is approaching 80 try a heatsink. You are unlikely to damage it as the processor is throttled if there is overheating. – goldilocks Mar 15 '21 at 21:02
  • Unless you're stacking HATs on the Pi, the fan won't take away space, since the GPIO pins are not covered by any cooler or heatsink. – PMF Mar 16 '21 at 08:28

2 Answers2

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Do I need cooler for raspberrypi 4?

To answer this question properly, we must define the word need.

If you take need to mean that the Raspberry Pi 4 will self-destruct due to thermal overload, then the answer is, "No, you do not need a cooler."

If you take need to mean that the Raspberry Pi 4 will not perform at the level required to complete its assigned workload, then the answer is, "Yes, you do need a cooler."

This is simple enough to understand: All processors may be viewed as a heat engine. Heat production is an unavoidable by-product of the per-cycle C*V2 switching losses REF 1, REF 2 in solid state devces; i.e. the faster the switching (and higher the voltage), the greater the loss, and the greater the loss, the greater the heat generated. This heat acts to increase the Junction Temperature of the millions of transistors in the CPU/GPU, and at some point, this heat will raise the Junction Temperature of those devices to a level which literally destroys them.

Therefore, to prevent the RPi from destroying itself, its designers have implemented a "closed-loop thermal management system" in the RPi firmware. This closed-loop system senses the temperature, and increases or decreases (aka "throttling") the clock speed, and or "core" voltage level, accordingly. Lower temperature readings get faster clock speed; higher temperature readings get slower clock speed. In other words, performance is traded off for temperature. This is not a new or novel approach - it has been common practice for many years before the RPi came along.

An alternative to "throttling" that will also reduce the Junction Temperature is to remove the heat. This may be done through the processes of conduction and convection. Heat - like electricity - will flow or transfer rather efficiently through most metals by heat conduction. If an air flow exists across a conductive surface, then heat convection will also work to remove heat. This of course being the domain of heat sinks and fans, respectively.

In summary then if you need more performance from your RPi, the only way to get it is to remove heat from the CPU/GPU. Conversely, if you don't need that added performance, heat sinks and fans are roughly equivalent of pimping my ride. However, please note that the Arrhenius Equation provides a sound basis for heat removal if you plan on keeping your Raspberry Pi for a very long time.

Seamus
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I deployed 3 RPI 4 and: 2 of them are in Argon One case so they have passive cooling and their temperature in idle is around 45C without fan engaging 1 of them is in the "normal" plastic case with heatsink and its idle temperature is around 60C When I push these boxes then it can go up to 80C but with normal usage (the last one works as network streamer and DAC on top of it) no fans are needed (and the last one does NOT even have one)

Zygfryd Homonto
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