“It works. Keeps the Pi at its designed operating temperature. I took off 1 star only because it seems the heat sync doesn't cover a section that gets very hot. Well it covers it but just with a thin aluminium part, its where the "fins" end. I ended up just slapping some thermal tape and a copper heatsinc on that spot (its where it shows the RPi logo if I recall correctly. The addition I made surely dissapated heat. It was warm to the touch along with the sections that have fins.
I wish they had made this out of pure copper and not aluminum thats why I'm taking one star away as well. I know aluminum is close in terms of metals but pure copper would have looked sweet (in my opinion) and likely dropped it by maybe even 1 degree or more.
I wasn't super happy with RPi 5's design of running so hot and it being "normal". I know its designed like that but it was bugging me. I like to keep my idle temps in the high 20's low 30's (celcius) and under heavy load high 40's low 50's. Which is what my RPI 4B 8B's run at with 3rd party cases. I did a "hack" to force the fan on the heatsinc to be on the entire time upon boot. The noise (very little) didn't bother me. That helped drop the temps down some by about 4C or so.
I knew that I was going to eventually replace it with something else so I have been waiting for solutions to come out. Currently I'm using the BRED from Argon40. With its design and fan the system runs much cooler. I am able to idle in the mid 30's and high 40's low 50's under a stress test software. This is 'good enough' for me. I know I could get a much bigger cooler and really drop the temps but for this RPI5 I want to keep it in a small compact sleek case. Unlike my RPI4's that have the big 52pi.com super giant mega tower cooler things. Those are crazy good at cooling but they are a giant mess in terms of the RPi being sleek. Those RPI4's will continue to run as is (overclocked too). I have always planned to keep this RPi5 sleek so I can make it super portable. I'm waiting for Argon40 to release their version of the NVME attachment for the case to see how that does. I really like how small the BRED case is. Also which it was copper instead of painted aluminum but hey what can you do.
TL/DR
The official cooler gets the job done, runs hotter than what "I" personally would like though its running at the designed parameters that RP came up with. I took off 1 star for the choice in materials (aluminum vs copper) and that there is a spot (where the RPI logo is) that gets very hot and it has no fins there. Again, works fine, keeps the Pi happy, throtttles when necessary. Super quiet when the fan is on, and silent when its off.
Pimoroni - if you want to become a leader in cases, you should design a small sleek case made of copper (or aluminum I guess) that really cools the system down bigtime. Put 2 small fans on it or something. If you build a nice compact package allow full access to the ports and it can keep the Rpi5 much cooler than what its "normal" is stated at and allowing for overclocking and/or fan control you will sell out nonstop! I love you guys and your products. I will continue to be a loyal customer for other RPi related items!!”
“It's mighty fine but, the pads were miscorrectly positioned, but that could be down to the postage.
The thing is that you definitely need an official Active Cooler as you do the Official Power Supply to run the many interesting programs and developments.”
“This is a dedicated clip-on cooling solution for the RPI5, it combines an aluminium heat sink with a temperature-controlled blower fan that keeps the RPI5 at a comfortable temperature, it covers all the main chips with a thermal pad interface.
Under every day use the heat sink does such a good job of cooling that the fan hardly comes on, and only really kicks in when you are pushing the hardware with demanding tasks.
Comparison tests have shown it to be equal to or better then other more expensive thermal solutions, but the main benefits I see for my uses are that it is compact, doesn't obscure the GPIO or other periferal sockets and is very high quality. I like the Raspberry logo that is etched into the metal, which is a "cool" touch.”
