Best Pi 4 Cases
Pi 4 Case Poe Study
Raspberry Pi 4 Case Poe Hat
Raspberry Pi Poe Hat

Raspberry Pi 4 – like all the other members of the ever-growing Raspberry Pi family – is entirely usable as is, and plenty of people appreciate the aesthetic of a bare board on a desk.

Inside the case and with the Raspberry Pi 4 secured in place, we use adhesive thermal pads to connect aluminum heatsinks from the CPU and USB chip to the case. In doing so the heat from the board. Raspberry Pi 4 - Official Touchscreen (7-in) - Official PoE HAT I was not able to find any information on this online; So I came here to tell you that the Raspberry Pi 4, with Official PoE Hat will power allow use of the official raspberry pi 4 touchscreen over PoE. This is a remix of the great Raspberry Pi Case Top of Malolo. We've had a good cooperation over the last few days and have worked on the design and new ideas to make the case even better. So the idea to integrate a fan without the ugly screws. I have therefore built a mount where the fan is simply pushed in. Updates: added low version for Ice Tower cooler (not yet tested - feedback.

For those who don’t, there are a wealth of cases – both first- and third-party – available. You’ll find one, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand, mounted on the cover of this magazine, while the others in this group test can be found at all major retailers.

Each case here has been tested for aesthetics, complexity of assembly, and its performance in keeping Raspberry Pi 4 running cool.

How we tested

Each case was given a heavy synthetic workload to represent a worst-case scenario. This workload, which stresses both the central and graphics processors, runs for ten minutes followed by a five-minute cooldown period. Full details of the workload can be found in The MagPi issue 88.

Raspberry Pi 4 Stand

Made by Pimoroni from a single piece of acrylic, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is as pure as it gets (and comes free with issue 90 of The MagPi magazine)

Specifications

Dimensions: 120×20×2.8 mm
Material: acrylic
Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 54 g
Number of boards supported: up to 3
Cooling method: vertical alignment

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is about as simple as a case could possibly be. Laser-cut from a single piece of acrylic, there’s no complex assembly required: simply slot the stand between the Power over Ethernet (PoE) header and Ethernet port of Raspberry Pi 4 and pop it on your desk.

The stand is designed to improve cooling by aligning Raspberry Pi 4 vertically, rather than flat on a desk. Previous thermal testing in issue 88 showed this is surprisingly effective, and the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand solves the stability issue which comes from balancing the board on its edge.

There’s a bonus trick up the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand’s sleeve, too: it holds up to three Raspberry Pi 4 boards side-by-side, making a very cost-effective computing cluster. Whether you install one, two, or three boards, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is surprisingly stable and not unattractive – and it retains access to all ports and headers.

Thermal imaging

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand improves the bare performance, but Raspberry Pi 4 still gets hot under sustained synthetic load.

Thermal load

Without additional cooling, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand can’t prevent Raspberry Pi 4 from hitting its throttle point during testing.

Verdict

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is smart, free, and the only case on test to support more than a single board. Its cooling performance, though, is the weakest.

Note: We don’t score our own products. [We think our Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is perfect – Ed.]

Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 Case

Designed to blend in with home theatre products, the Flirc case is undeniably attractive

Specifications

Dimensions: 93.7×66×26.5 mm
Material: aluminium
Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 134 g
Number of boards supported: 1
Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC only)
Extras: thermal transfer material pad

Created as a means of drawing attention away from Raspberry Pi 4 when used as part of a home theatre installation, the £16/$16 Flirc combines a matte-finish silver aluminium housing with soft-touch black plastic to the top and underside. It’s an understated design, but one which does compromise efficacy: the plastic lid covers much of the surface area of the aluminium case, reducing its ability to bleed off heat.

The case itself makes contact with Raspberry Pi 4’s system-on-chip (SoC) via a single hollow pillar and a bundled thermal interface material pad. Installation is simple, requiring only two protective sheets to be removed from the pad, and four screws to hold the case together.

For those not interested in attractive home theatre setups, though, the Flirc comes with a major drawback: it offers no ready access to the GPIO, CSI, or DSI headers, though all external ports are easily reached.

Thermal imaging

The plastic lid prevents the Flirc from cooling entirely efficiently, while the hollow pillar can be seen as a cooler spot to the centre-left.

Thermal load

Even with the lid in place, the Flirc case easily cools Raspberry Pi 4 during the synthetic workload run.

Verdict

Unless you need the GPIO, CSI, or DSI headers, the Flirc’s few design flaws are unlikely to matter: the case keeps Raspberry Pi 4 well clear of its thermal throttle point. 8/10

Argon One for Raspberry Pi 4

Impressively feature-packed, the Argon One offers a lot for your money – including temperature-controlled active cooling

Specifications

Dimensions: 105×95.6×35 mm
Material: aluminium
Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 230 g
Number of boards supported: 1
Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC, RAM), PWM fan
Extras: thermal transfer material pads, AV daughterboard, fan, labelled GPIO header with magnetic cover, smart power board

The £19/$25 Argon One case packs a whole lot of functionality into a surprisingly small footprint. A daughterboard connects to Raspberry Pi 4’s AV and HDMI ports to re-route these to the rear of the case, alongside Ethernet and USB, while a second board pulls the GPIO header out to a colour-coded and silk-screen labelled header hidden under a magnetic cover on the top.

The same board powers a fan, which is active when the temperature exceeds a user-configurable limit, and includes a smart power button which can safely turn Raspberry Pi 4 on and off with a press. There’s even space to route out CSI and DSI cables for a camera or display.

Cooling performance is impressive. The Argon One prevented Raspberry Pi 4 from throttling without even needing to activate the fan – aided by the entire aluminium surface acting as a heatsink for the SoC and RAM chips.

Thermal imaging

There’s enough metal in the Argon One’s aluminium upper shell to keep Raspberry Pi 4 cool even under sustained load.

Thermal load

After ten minutes of heavy load, the Argon One didn’t even need to use its temperature-controlled fan once.

Verdict

There’s little to fault with the Argon One’s design. Cabling is tidied, the GPIO header made more readily accessible, and there’s more than enough aluminium to keep Raspberry Pi 4 cool.10/10

Sensoreq Cooli Pi Heatsink and Case

Featuring an open-source housing for a custom-milled heatsink, CooliPi is impressively extensible

Specifications

Dimensions: 92.4×86×54.3 mm
Material: aluminium
Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 320 g
Number of boards supported: 1
Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC, RAM, USB 3.0 controller), optional fan
Extras: case 3D print files supplied

The CooliPi stands out from the competition not just owing to its size and weight – it’s by far the heaviest case on test – but also by being at least partially open-source: while the custom-milled heatsink is available exclusively from Sensoreq, the plastic lower section can be printed on any

Pi 4 Case Poe