Undoubtedly, Raspberry Pi has become a device widely used by users, but, although its performance improves with each version, it is still more than fair. For this reason, many users rush to increase the clock speed, i.e. overclock their Raspberry Pi. The problem is that this generates a lot more heat than this device already produces, so many have the next question. Is a fan needed for the Raspberry Pi?
Well, that’s a great question and there are a lot of crumbs. The first thing you need to know is that a Raspberry Pi suffers, at some point in its life, whether prolonged or one-off, from thermal throttling, that is, Thermal limitation
Is a fan needed for Raspberry Pi?
Well the truth is that yes it is more than recommended and especially at times like summer. The Raspberry itself shows us the limitations of its latest two models even with thermal images and how we can see as the models advance and with them the power temperatures are a more than pressing issue.
With 85º C in the Pi 4 model, the frequency drop goes from 1.5 GHz to 1 GHz stably for almost 400 seconds, but from there and seeing that it reaches the aforementioned limit figure, the clock falls to 600MHz
It’s totally counterproductive to stock, without touching the device, since the performance drops to less than half, so just thinking about increasing the speed in those conditions is just fantasy and that’s where the fan kicks in. .
A simple fan or a radiator?
Well, that’s really the big question. A good heatsink might be the answer, but maybe when overclocking the temperatures keep skyrocketing, so we have to look for other solutions due to the increased frequency.
Therefore, we are going to need a heatsink with a fan to deal with what has been said with guarantees, because the overclock itself will pull almost 10º C on average
There are a wide variety of options to choose from, but if what we are looking for is maximum performance, the options go through the typical tower heatsink with fan as in PCs. The most purchased options, on the other hand, are cases with heatsink and fan, which are more optimal for protecting the entire system from dust, which is better in the long run.
So it’s more of everyone’s priority and where you want to take your Raspberry Pi than a general recommendation, both cooling options have their pros and cons, but they are certainly necessary and better optimized than a simple fan for your Raspberry. Pi, whatever the model.
