Raspberry Pi Active Cooler on Raspberry Pi 5

Active Coolingfor Raspberry Pi 5
-19.0°Cvs stock (87°C → 68°C peak)
Tested Mar 17, 2026
$11.00$0.58 per °C cooled
Peak Temp
68°C
39°C idle
CPU Frequency
2400MHz
2400 MHz idle
No Throttling
Power Draw
9.9W
3.9W idle

No Thermal Throttling

CPU maintained full frequency throughout the test

Test Configuration

CPU Governor
performance
Operating System
Debian GNU/Linux 13
Kernel
6.12.47+rpt-rpi-2712

Thermal Timeline

Layers
Baseline (1min 1s idle)
Load (1h stress)
Cooldown (1min)

How It Compares on the Raspberry Pi 5

The Raspberry Pi Active Cooler ranks #4 of 6 aftermarket coolers tested on the Raspberry Pi 5, based on peak temperature reduction versus stock cooling.

CoolerTypePeakvs StockPrice
Active50°C-37.0°C$17.00
Passive61°C-26.0°C$169.00
Passive61°C-26.0°C-
Raspberry Pi Active CoolerThis cooler
Active68°C-19.0°C$11.00
Passive73°C-14.0°C$31.00
Passive79°C-8.0°C$16.95
None87°C--
Passive87°C+0.0°C$3.15
See the full Raspberry Pi 5 cooler comparison