Pi 5 Passive Cooling Case by EDA Tec

EDA Tec’s passive cooling case is the first of its kind for the Raspberry Pi 5. Let’s find out how well it performs compared to the standard cooling solution for the Pi 5 – the Active Cooler heatsink.

Slim Fit With Big Features

The ED-Pi5Case, its official name, is a slim case, meaning the USB and the Ethernet ports on the Pi 5 stick out of the case. All other parts of the Pi 5 are enclosed in the case. This design makes sense on a passive cooling case since it allows for the case’s top plate to make direct contact with the components on the top side of the board.

This case cost me $18 from Ali Express but I had to pay $19 for standard shipping to the US. Sooooo, I wouldn’t call this case cheap coming in at $37 when you add the cost of shipping.

The case comes with thermal pads that help transfer the heat from the Pi’s CPU, PMIC, and WiFi modules to the top section of the case. The bottom section of the case has a large thermal pad that seeps heat away from the Pi’s main board.

It’s made from solid aluminum and this thing has some serious heft to it. I like that this case makes the Pi 5 stationary on my workbench. Plastic cases are too light and most of the time don’t provide enough weight to bend the cables (keyboard, monitor, etc). The EDA Tec case provides nice weight so the Pi 5 doesn’t move around too much on my workbench. The weight is a definite plus in my books!

Most of the ports on the Pi 5 have dedicated cutouts, like GPIO, camera, display, and PCIe connecter. Even the PoE pins are exposed to the outside of the case. The only connectors that are not accessible are the new UART and RTC battery connectors.

It also has a plastic “window” right next to the WiFi/BLE antenna. This avoids blocking the wireless signal from the Pi 5. In my workshop, the WiFi signal strength is one bar short of full strength when the Pi 5 is inside the EDA Tec case. When I remove the Pi 5 from the case and place it in the exact same spot, I get full bars. So, the case is still blocking some of the signal, which is expected from a metal case, but not too bad.

You can see in the picture above the ON/OFF button and a small opening for the Pi 5 activity LED. Although the LED light is visible through the small hole, it is not very bright. The ON/OFF switch works flawlessly and it preserves the nice clicky feel of the original Pi 5 power button that sits just behind the case button.

The four rubber feet do a good job keeping the Pi 5 stationary on a flat surface. The feet are not what I would call super grippy, but they are adequate.

If you prefer this information in the form of a video, you are in luck! Here’s a video I put together for you!

Thermal Testing

Alright, so, how does it perform? Is it able to keep your Pi 5 cool as a cucumber?

Before each test, I let the Pi 5 cool down and then used stress to stress all 4 CPUs at the same time and get the temperature to rise. The EDA Tec passive cooling case performed really well keeping the Pi 5 cooooool.

You can see that for over 700 seconds of continuous test, the temperature on the Pi 5 just peaked above 65 Celcius. As you can imagine, the case was warm to the touch.

Conclusion

This is the case I will be using with my Raspberry Pi 5 on my workbench. It performs just as well as the Active Cooler heatsink but it has the added benefit of being completely silent. I also like that it makes the Pi 5 heavier keeping it stationary on my workbench. At first, I was a little skeptical of the ON/OFF switch but my worries were unfounded. The ON/OFF preserves the tactile/clicky feel of the Pi’s power button.

The only downside to this case is its cost. Shipping to the US costs just as much as the case. At the end of the day, you are getting a premium case for a premium price.