The Flirt Case: A Game-Changing Upgrade for Raspberry Pi 4

As an enthusiast of Raspberry Pi devices, I've always been on the lookout for ways to improve their performance and longevity. One of the most significant upgrades that caught my attention was the flirt case, designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi 4. In this article, we'll delve into the testing process I conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this case in cooling down the Raspberry Pi 4.

Testing Methodology

Before we dive into the results, it's essential to understand the testing methodology used. I ran the same exact Raspberry Pi with each of these coolers, using the same SD card, power supply, HDMI, and operating system (Raspbian). The test environment was set up in a room with an ambient temperature of 23.33°C (74°F), which is slightly above the ideal temperature range for the Raspberry Pi 4. I recorded the temperature, frequency, and log data every 30 seconds to ensure accuracy.

Idle Test

To start the testing process, I cold-booted each cooler and let it sit for five minutes to allow the device to reach its initial operating temperature. I then extracted a Raspi OS image (1.1GB) and ran a YouTube video in window mode for five minutes. These tests were designed to simulate real-world usage and stress the cooling system.

The results of the idle test revealed that without any cooling, the Raspberry Pi 4's temperature rose to 54°C. With the 20mm aluminum heatsink, it dropped to 49°C, while the 20mm heat sink with a 40mm fan cooled it down to 36°C. The iUniquor heat sink from eBay also performed well, keeping the temperature at 36°C. However, the most surprising result was that of the flirt case, which kept up with temperatures at 36°C.

Extreme Test

The next test involved running a YouTube video in window mode for five minutes and then extracting a Raspi OS image (1.1GB). This simulated the most demanding usage scenario possible. The results showed that without any cooling, the Raspberry Pi 4's temperature rose to 54°C after just three minutes and 30 seconds.

The 20mm aluminum heatsink with no fan reached 80°C in four minutes and 30 seconds, while the flirt case managed to keep it under 60°C after 20 minutes. This suggests that the flirt case is capable of handling more extreme temperatures than expected.

Fanless Heat Sink Performance

One of the most significant advantages of the flirt case is its ability to cool the Raspberry Pi 4 without using a fan. In today's world, noise pollution and energy efficiency are crucial factors in device design. The flirt case achieves this by utilizing a compact heat sink that efficiently dissipates heat away from the CPU.

Comparison with Actively Cooled Heat Sinks

While the iUniquor heat sink fan combo and the Ice Tower performed better than the flirt case in terms of reaching higher temperatures, there was no noticeable performance increase when going from 60°C to 57°C or even 42°C. This suggests that actively cooled heat sinks may offer more headroom for overclocking, but they also come with the added complexity and noise generated by fans.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my testing revealed that the flirt case is an excellent upgrade for the Raspberry Pi 4. Its ability to cool the device without using a fan makes it an ideal choice for those who value energy efficiency and reduced noise pollution. While actively cooled heat sinks may offer more performance potential, the flirt case's compact design and passive cooling approach make it a compelling option.

Links to the flirt case and other components used in this article will be included in the description below. If you're interested in learning more about the Raspberry Pi 4 or exploring alternatives, we invite you to like our channel, subscribe, and join the conversation.

The links mentioned in this article include:

* Flirt case

* iUniquor heat sink fan combo

* Ice Tower

* Raspi OS image

* YouTube video

* SD card

Please note that the prices of these components may have changed since the time of writing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on guys the CTA Prime back here again today I got my hands on the brand new flirt case for the Raspberry Pi 4 and we're gonna do some testing with this thing if you're a regular viewer of the channel you know I've always recommended the flirt case from the Raspberry Pi 2 on up and finally we got one for the Raspberry Pi for now these are available for pre-order over on plurks website I will leave a link in the description for the version I have here the regular silver version is $15.95 and they also offer the black Kodi Edition for the same exact price I also have the black Kodi Edition on the way personally that's the one I wish I got first but right now we got the silver one in hand so we're gonna do some testing with it if you're not familiar with the flirt case basically what we have here is a full aluminum Raspberry Pi 4 case or you can buy it for the Raspberry Pi 3 or 3b plus we have easy access to all the ports on the Raspberry Pi including the SD card and we can even see the status LEDs flashing when the Raspberry Pi is on but the main draw to this case at least for me is the whole case itself acts as a heat sink when you place the Raspberry Pi inside of the case it's gonna make contact with the CPU and the whole case itself acts as an aluminum heatsink so we don't have to worry about active cooling loud fans replacing fans or extra power draw so the flirt case protects the Raspberry Pi keeps it cool and it also looks really really nice assembly of the case is very easy you're gonna get your four screws for holding the Raspberry Pi inside of the case plus a thermal pad now this is going to go on the CPU and make contact with the case to help transfer heat from the SOC to the case itself so we're gonna grab the Raspberry Pi 4 and we're also gonna take the thermal pad that's included now you could use thermal grease or thermal paste if you want to but I've always had really good luck with these both sides of the pad do have plastic backing on them so make sure you get that off we're going to place the pad right on the Raspberry Pi CPU and then we're gonna turn the Raspberry Pi over we're gonna line up our HDMI ports power and 3.5 millimeter audio jack and drop it right inside of the case now we're gonna make sure we have the bottom of the case facing the SD card slot put our four screws in tighten them up and you're good to go you do not have to torque these screws down really tight just make sure they're snug like I mentioned we do have full access to the SD card so we can slide it right in and out you can change images anytime you want to and there we have it the Raspberry Pi 4 is in the new flirt case and it looks really good easy access to all the external ports on the Raspberry Pi and if you need GPIO access you can actually use a ribbon cable and it comes right out of the bottom and the status LEDs on the Raspberry Pi are visible now it's time to see how well the flirt K schools the Raspberry Pi for I'm gonna be facing this off against a few different heat sinks that I've been testing over the last few weeks first up we have the stock Raspberry Pi 4 with no heatsink then a 20 millimeter aluminum heatsink a 20 millimeter aluminum heatsink with a 40 millimeter fan the i uniquor heat sink fan combo that you can get for around ten dollars on eBay and finally the king of Raspberry Pi coolers the ice tower I've tested this with the fan on and the fan off we're gonna face off against all of these with the new flirt case for the Raspberry Pi 4 but before we get to the results I want to give you a quick rundown on my testing method I'm running the same exact Raspberry Pi with each of these coolers I'm using the same exact SD card power supply HDMI and it's sitting in the same exact location inside of my room and I'm running raspy and buster the first test is the idle test I cold boot each one of these and I let it sit for five minutes I record the temperature I have an on screen along with the frequency and in the background I also have a log running so to give me a temperature readout every 30 seconds and log it for me so I know exactly what the temp was at the exact time next I open up the chromium browser run a YouTube 720p video for five minutes in window mode then I extract a raspy and Buster image which is 1.1 gigabytes and finally on to the extreme test totally maxing out all four cores for 20 minutes straight like I said I get a reading every 30 seconds so I know exactly what the temp is at any given time now if you're not familiar how the frequency works with the new Raspberry Pi 4 when it hits 80 degrees Celsius the CPU under clocks itself to 600 megahertz our stock clock is 1.5 gigahertz so under clocking to 600 really takes a lot of performance out of this little chip so basically as long as we can keep the temp of the CPU under 80 degrees Celsius we're good to go with the Raspberry Pi 4 and it'll run like that all day long I like to keep mine around 70 degrees or lower if possible and we're gonna see if this flirt case can do that so I'm finished with my testing here we have the idle temperature my ambient room temperature is twenty three point three three three degrees Celsius or 74 degrees Fahrenheit keep in mind that all of the temperature readings are in Celsius with no heat sink idle 54 degrees Celsius the 20 millimeter aluminum heat sink 49 degrees Celsius the 20 millimeter heat sink with a 40 millimeter fan 36 the i uniquor heat sink from ebay 36 in the flirt case for the Raspberry Pi for kept up with that at 36 degrees Celsius now going into this I was pretty sure that the ice tower with the fan off and on was gonna be everything because it's a massive cooler but if we take a look here the flirt case is actually doing a great job for being a passively cooled heat sink and finally the extreme test most raspberry PI's out in the wild will never see this much action 20 minutes all four cores maxed out with no heatsink we hit that thermal throttle limit of 80 degrees Celsius in 3 minutes and 30 seconds with the 20 millimeter heatsink and no fan we hit 80 degrees Celsius in 4 minutes and 30 seconds and this actually surprised me but the flirt case actually beat out the 20 millimeter heatsink with the 40 millimeter fan by 7 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes we were only at 60 C with the flirt case so it's definitely doing a good job and like a mention we don't have to deal with any fans any noise or any extra power draw using the flirt case and by the way yes the i uniquor heat sink fan combo and the ice tower beat out the flirt case but there's gonna be no performance increase going from 60 degrees Celsius to 57 or even 42 degrees Celsius the actively cooled heat sinks may give you a little more Headroom when overclocking but overall I think the flirt case is doing an amazing job and it's well worth the money so that's pretty much it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I absolutely love the flirt case like I mentioned I've been using one since the Raspberry Pi 2 and I highly recommend it links for everything I mentioned will be in the description it'd be really cool if you could hit that like button maybe subscribe to the channel but like always thanks for watching youwhat's going on guys the CTA Prime back here again today I got my hands on the brand new flirt case for the Raspberry Pi 4 and we're gonna do some testing with this thing if you're a regular viewer of the channel you know I've always recommended the flirt case from the Raspberry Pi 2 on up and finally we got one for the Raspberry Pi for now these are available for pre-order over on plurks website I will leave a link in the description for the version I have here the regular silver version is $15.95 and they also offer the black Kodi Edition for the same exact price I also have the black Kodi Edition on the way personally that's the one I wish I got first but right now we got the silver one in hand so we're gonna do some testing with it if you're not familiar with the flirt case basically what we have here is a full aluminum Raspberry Pi 4 case or you can buy it for the Raspberry Pi 3 or 3b plus we have easy access to all the ports on the Raspberry Pi including the SD card and we can even see the status LEDs flashing when the Raspberry Pi is on but the main draw to this case at least for me is the whole case itself acts as a heat sink when you place the Raspberry Pi inside of the case it's gonna make contact with the CPU and the whole case itself acts as an aluminum heatsink so we don't have to worry about active cooling loud fans replacing fans or extra power draw so the flirt case protects the Raspberry Pi keeps it cool and it also looks really really nice assembly of the case is very easy you're gonna get your four screws for holding the Raspberry Pi inside of the case plus a thermal pad now this is going to go on the CPU and make contact with the case to help transfer heat from the SOC to the case itself so we're gonna grab the Raspberry Pi 4 and we're also gonna take the thermal pad that's included now you could use thermal grease or thermal paste if you want to but I've always had really good luck with these both sides of the pad do have plastic backing on them so make sure you get that off we're going to place the pad right on the Raspberry Pi CPU and then we're gonna turn the Raspberry Pi over we're gonna line up our HDMI ports power and 3.5 millimeter audio jack and drop it right inside of the case now we're gonna make sure we have the bottom of the case facing the SD card slot put our four screws in tighten them up and you're good to go you do not have to torque these screws down really tight just make sure they're snug like I mentioned we do have full access to the SD card so we can slide it right in and out you can change images anytime you want to and there we have it the Raspberry Pi 4 is in the new flirt case and it looks really good easy access to all the external ports on the Raspberry Pi and if you need GPIO access you can actually use a ribbon cable and it comes right out of the bottom and the status LEDs on the Raspberry Pi are visible now it's time to see how well the flirt K schools the Raspberry Pi for I'm gonna be facing this off against a few different heat sinks that I've been testing over the last few weeks first up we have the stock Raspberry Pi 4 with no heatsink then a 20 millimeter aluminum heatsink a 20 millimeter aluminum heatsink with a 40 millimeter fan the i uniquor heat sink fan combo that you can get for around ten dollars on eBay and finally the king of Raspberry Pi coolers the ice tower I've tested this with the fan on and the fan off we're gonna face off against all of these with the new flirt case for the Raspberry Pi 4 but before we get to the results I want to give you a quick rundown on my testing method I'm running the same exact Raspberry Pi with each of these coolers I'm using the same exact SD card power supply HDMI and it's sitting in the same exact location inside of my room and I'm running raspy and buster the first test is the idle test I cold boot each one of these and I let it sit for five minutes I record the temperature I have an on screen along with the frequency and in the background I also have a log running so to give me a temperature readout every 30 seconds and log it for me so I know exactly what the temp was at the exact time next I open up the chromium browser run a YouTube 720p video for five minutes in window mode then I extract a raspy and Buster image which is 1.1 gigabytes and finally on to the extreme test totally maxing out all four cores for 20 minutes straight like I said I get a reading every 30 seconds so I know exactly what the temp is at any given time now if you're not familiar how the frequency works with the new Raspberry Pi 4 when it hits 80 degrees Celsius the CPU under clocks itself to 600 megahertz our stock clock is 1.5 gigahertz so under clocking to 600 really takes a lot of performance out of this little chip so basically as long as we can keep the temp of the CPU under 80 degrees Celsius we're good to go with the Raspberry Pi 4 and it'll run like that all day long I like to keep mine around 70 degrees or lower if possible and we're gonna see if this flirt case can do that so I'm finished with my testing here we have the idle temperature my ambient room temperature is twenty three point three three three degrees Celsius or 74 degrees Fahrenheit keep in mind that all of the temperature readings are in Celsius with no heat sink idle 54 degrees Celsius the 20 millimeter aluminum heat sink 49 degrees Celsius the 20 millimeter heat sink with a 40 millimeter fan 36 the i uniquor heat sink from ebay 36 in the flirt case for the Raspberry Pi for kept up with that at 36 degrees Celsius now going into this I was pretty sure that the ice tower with the fan off and on was gonna be everything because it's a massive cooler but if we take a look here the flirt case is actually doing a great job for being a passively cooled heat sink and finally the extreme test most raspberry PI's out in the wild will never see this much action 20 minutes all four cores maxed out with no heatsink we hit that thermal throttle limit of 80 degrees Celsius in 3 minutes and 30 seconds with the 20 millimeter heatsink and no fan we hit 80 degrees Celsius in 4 minutes and 30 seconds and this actually surprised me but the flirt case actually beat out the 20 millimeter heatsink with the 40 millimeter fan by 7 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes we were only at 60 C with the flirt case so it's definitely doing a good job and like a mention we don't have to deal with any fans any noise or any extra power draw using the flirt case and by the way yes the i uniquor heat sink fan combo and the ice tower beat out the flirt case but there's gonna be no performance increase going from 60 degrees Celsius to 57 or even 42 degrees Celsius the actively cooled heat sinks may give you a little more Headroom when overclocking but overall I think the flirt case is doing an amazing job and it's well worth the money so that's pretty much it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I absolutely love the flirt case like I mentioned I've been using one since the Raspberry Pi 2 and I highly recommend it links for everything I mentioned will be in the description it'd be really cool if you could hit that like button maybe subscribe to the channel but like always thanks for watching you\n"