The MagPi - February 2020

T

he Argon One case packs a whole lot of

functionality into a surprisingly small

footprint. A daughterboard connects to

Raspberry Pi 4’s AV and HDMI ports to re-route

these to the rear of the case, alongside Ethernet

and USB, while a second board pulls the GPIO

header out to a colour-coded and silk-screen

There’s enough metal in the Argon One’s

aluminium upper shell to keep Raspberry Pi 4

cool even under sustained load.

After ten minutes of heavy load, the Argon

One didn’t even need to use its temperature-

controlled fan once.

labelled header hidden under a magnetic cover

on the top.

The same board powers a fan, which is

active when the temperature exceeds a user-

configurable limit, and includes a smart power

button which can safely turn Raspberry Pi 4

on and off with a press. There’s even

space to route out CSI and DSI cables

for a camera or display.

Cooling performance is

impressive. The Argon One prevented

Raspberry Pi 4 from throttling

without even needing to activate the

fan – aided by the entire aluminium

surface acting as a heatsink for the SoC and

RAM chips.

Impressively feature-packed, the Argon One offers a lot for

your money – including temperature-controlled active cooling

Argon 40 magpi.cc/argon1 £19 / $25

Argon One for Raspberry Pi 4

Includes a smart power

button to safely turn

Raspberry Pi 4 on and off

DIMENSIONS:

105×95.6×35 mm

MATERIAL:

Aluminium

WEIGHT (INC. ONE

RASPBERRY PI 4):

230 g

NUMBER

OF BOARDS

SUPPORTED:

1

COOLING

METHOD:

Passive heatsink

(SoC, RAM),

PWM fan

EXTRAS:

Thermal transfer

material pads, AV

daughterboard,

fan, labelled

GPIO header

with magnetic

cover, smart

power board

SPECS

Verdict

There’s little to

fault with the

Argon One’s

design. Cabling is

tidied, the GPIO

header made

more readily

accessible, and

there’s more than

enough aluminium

to keep Raspberry

Pi 4 cool.

10 /10

CPU Temperature CPU Clock CPU Clock (Moving Average)

Frequency

(MHz)

850

1100

1350

1600

Temperature

(Degrees Celsius)

45

55

65

75

85

Time (Seconds)

200 400 600 800

Thermal imaging Thermal load

Raspberry Pi thermal case group test magpi.cc 69

REVIEW