However if you use it outside of the normal use like overclocking it may benefit from heat sinks.
Does raspberry pi 3 need heat sinks.
An unscientific look into that age old question that investigates the thermal performance of the raspberry pi 3 model b with and without a heat sink.
In my opinion if you are using your raspberry pi within the normal use then you do not need heat sinks for your pi.
The raspberry pi was designed to work in a small box without heat sinks so don t worry about that.
As a bonus we ll also consider thermal paste versus thermal tape.
The only reason you would need cooling is if you need to keep the cpu running at 1200mhz in which case the temperature needs to be kept below 85 o c.
So from these tests the raspberry pi 3 doesn t get hot enough on it s own to need cooling but also the heatsinks don t make any difference unless there is some airflow into the case.
The raspberry pi 3 b was designed to run without a heatsink or fan so with a case that works as a heatsink you should be more than ok.
A close case with a venting fan would also help as well as the raspberry pi heat sink.
Does the raspberry pi 3 even need a heat sink.