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Raspberry Pi 5 - is the active cooler or the housing with fan worth it?
by Martin Jud
Raspberry Pi 5 in mini PC form factor: Elecrow housing with OLED panel and SSD slot
18/8/2025
Translation: machine translated
Elecrow presents a new case for the Raspberry Pi 5 that transforms it visually and functionally into a mini desktop PC. With an RGB fan, OLED panel and SSD slot, the case not only brings style, but also technical sophistication.
A new case from DIY hardware supplier Elecrow transforms the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer into a mini desktop PC. The aluminium and acrylic case measures 12 × 12 × 7.2 centimetres and is visually reminiscent of compact gaming systems. Technically, it offers a 1.3-inch OLED display for system information, three controllable RGB fans for active cooling and a PCIe interface for M.2 SSDs - compatible with formats 2230 to 2280.
All Pi connections remain accessible, including USB, HDMI and Ethernet. An expansion board also leads the GPIO strip to the outside and also enables the integration of an RTC module (and the SSD).
In addition to the Pi version, Elecrow also offers a variant for the Jetson Orin Nano - a developer board from Nvidia designed for AI-supported applications such as image processing or robotics. This version does without PCIe and RTC support, but otherwise remains identical.
The scope of delivery includes the pre-assembled housing with OLED panel and fans, expansion board, connection cable, screws and assembly instructions. The Raspberry Pi itself is not included.
Source: Elecrow
With active cooling, display and PCIe expansion, the case is aimed at developers and makers who want to use the Pi 5 as a desktop replacement or for projects such as home servers and edge computing. The price is 40 US dollars, the Jetson version 32 US dollars - plus shipping and VAT in both cases. Both versions are available from Elecrow. You can find the matching Raspberry Pi 5 at us.
If you like the Elecrow case, it's also worth taking a look at the Pironman 5 case from Raspberry Pi:
Header image: Elecrow
Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.
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