Pironman 5-MAX Review – The Ultimate Raspberry Pi Case Got Even Better

What would you create if you were asked to design a case for the Raspberry Pi with no restrictions or compromises? If I had to name that case, it might be the Pironman 5-MAX. I recently had the chance to review this unique case and want to show you everything about it.

The Pironman 5-MAX is a case that transforms the Raspberry Pi 5 to add capabilities like dual NVMe and AI processing. It’s like building a custom desktop PC but in a tiny package that maximizes performance and is also a workbench to learn about computers.

I’ve built and tested this product firsthand, so I’ll show you all the little ins and outs you might not realize from pictures alone. I hope it helps you decide whether to buy one for yourself or as a gift for that special techie in your life. Let’s go!

If you’re looking for inspiration for your next Raspberry Pi project, I’ve put together a list of 75+ ideas with full descriptions, difficulty ratings, and links to tutorials. Whether you’re a beginner or more advanced, there’s something here for you. Grab the list for free here!

Disclaimer: To be transparent with you, SunFounder sent me a kit to review for free. I’ve tested it myself and was given complete freedom to share my honest opinion.

Introducing the Pironman 5-MAX

Turns out it’s much more than just a case!

The Pironman is a line of cases for the Raspberry Pi by SunFounder. We’re reviewed a couple of other versions here:

• Pironman 5 Review: The Ultimate Case for Your Raspberry Pi 5
• SunFounder Pironman 5 Pro Max Review: Is It Worth It?

The case we’re reviewing today is the Pironman 5-MAX. So what makes it one of the most cutting-edge cases the company has ever released?

The Pironman 5-MAX adds dual M.2 slots, a tap-to-wake OLED display, programmable RGB fans, and a sleek black aluminum aesthetic.

Let’s briefly cover these and more of its great features.

Key Features

Specs are one thing, but after building custom PCs and playing with different Raspberry Pi cases, here’s my take on what I think are the coolest parts of the Pironman 5-MAX.

The Pironman 5-MAX has an NVMe switch that adds two M.2 slots to the Raspberry Pi 5.

What do you do with dual M.2 slots? Here are a couple of recommended configurations:

• Dual NVMe SSDs – Using NVMe drives gives you faster and more storage. Dual drives also open the ability to do RAID, such as a RAID 0 or RAID 1 for a self-hosted NAS.
• 1 NVMe SSD + 1 AI Kit – A single NVMe drive helps boost the Raspberry Pi AI Kit. This setup is an incredible opportunity to carry out edge computing projects or use as an educational tool to learn where hot topics are evolving.

Let’s be honest—you’re not interested in this case unless you also love looksmaxxing, and the Pironman 5-MAX is just oozing with aesthetic appeal. It includes:

• An OLED display – outputs IP address, CPU + RAM usage, and temps.
  The display goes to sleep to keep the case looking clean.
• RGB LED lights – addressable (ARGB) LEDs let you set custom colors.
• RGB case fans – with several color modes like “Breathing,” “Flow,” and others.
• Aluminum chassis – with dark acrylic side panels.

The Pironman 5-MAX also throws in a ton of quality-of-life features:

• IR receiver – use a remote control with apps like Kodi or Volumio.
• Two standard HDMI ports – no more digging around for odd-sized monitor cables.
• External extensions – access the GPIO pins and camera outside the case.
• Safe power on/off switch – double-tapping starts a clean shutdown.

Optional Add-Ons

You can get just the case if you already have a Raspberry Pi 5. But the store page makes it convenient to purchase any hardware you might want for a complete build:

Add-on	Notes
Raspberry Pi 5	The 4GB / 8GB / 16GB models are available. It also comes with a 32GB SD card.
Power supply	You definitely want an official power supply.
NVMe SSD	Options include 500GB or 1TB drives. You can also buy your own drives separately, but make sure they’re on the compatibility list.
Raspberry Pi AI Kit	Hailo-8L accelerator @ 13 TOPS. Learn more about the AI Kit here.
Camera	Choose from the Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2 or Raspberry Pi AI Camera.

Pricing

The price of the Pironman 5-MAX may seem steep at first glance, but it starts to make more sense when you realize what it can do and that it’s the best in its class.

Who do I think would love the Pironman 5-MAX?
Someone who wants:

• A versatile desktop machine or home server.
• A gift for the techie who has everything.
• An educational tool to teach about building computers.
• A standalone Linux development machine or project maker.

Build Guide for Pironman 5-MAX

Pro tips for build day

I have a soft spot for tiny PCs: I used to build small form-factor (SFF) computers for family and friends. Each was the size of a shoebox and was used as a home theater box or shuttled over to friends’ places for LAN parties. 

The Pironman 5-MAX, however, has taken the crown in being the smallest PC I’ve ever built.

Unboxing the Pironman 5-MAX

For our build, we’ll be using a Pironman 5-MAX, a Raspberry Pi 5, and dual 500GB NVMe SSDs.

Everything you see below comes with the case, except for the Raspberry Pi 5 and SSDs. The screws and pieces are labeled in separate baggies, which makes it easy to find what you need. 

Now let’s put it together!

Hardware Assembly

The instructions included with the Pironman 5-MAX use full-color images with almost no text, so it’s easy to follow regardless of native language or reading level.

Let me show you what some parts do up close, and my build notes if you get stuck on anything.

Spoiler Alert: Building the Pironman 5-MAX is half the fun! If you want to keep it a surprise, skip to the next section.

We’ll start by separating the case into two halves to work on them separately.
The first half involves getting the Raspberry Pi outfitted.

It starts like building a PC, where you screw in standoffs to hold the motherboard, except in this case, it’s the Raspberry Pi 5. Use the mini wrench provided to tighten them.  

The Pi 5 gets expanded by adding the SD card extender and HDMI adapter. Push them in gently, so you don’t break the ports!

The SD card slot moves to the front of the case with a spring-loaded socket. The micro HDMI ports become standard-sized ones. No more wires coming in from awkward directions—now they’re all at the back, just like on a PC.

When I slide these parts on, it feels like my Pi 5 is getting new arms and a helmet. It finally hits me: oh, that’s why they named it the Pironman. It’s not just a case; it’s a high-tech suit of armor that adds new powers to your Raspberry Pi.

Next, I worked to attach the beefy CPU tower cooler. Stick the thermal pads on, plop the cooler on top, and plug the fan in. I like that the heatsink cools the CPU, power VRMs and the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip directly.

Then, it’s time for the NVMe switch, the key piece to the Pironman 5-MAX.

These parts go on in layers. The power switch converter is the base layer. It doesn’t go into the board but just contacts it. It’s retractable, so you have to push down while screwing it in. The NVMe PIP sits on top as the next layer, with the 4-pin header threaded up through tiny holes.

Connect the NVMe switch to the Raspberry Pi 5 using the included FPC ribbon cable. Lift the brackets, insert the cable ends, and close the brackets to clamp them into place. I think the orientation matters, so review the pics.

All right! It’s time to put the SSDs in. The Pironman 5-MAX supports the common 2280 form factor and the smaller 2260, 2242, and 2230 drives. Angle the drives in from the top, paying attention to the notches as they only fit one way. After that, push them down flat to screw them in. 

Congrats, you’re all done with the first half!

The second half is much quicker and involves bringing in the other part of the aluminum frame. 

I ran into a snag putting the case fans on. They used a different screw than everything else, and I had trouble getting them flush. This would have been a bigger annoyance if I wanted to install a camera in the back.

The IO expander is the last piece and gets inserted into the GPIO pins. This piece powers the case fans and OLED display. It exposes the GPIO pins to make them accessible outside of the case for your projects. Cool!

After sticking the tiny OLED display on, I merged the two halves of the case. After putting the acrylic panels on, my build was complete.

When I plugged in an official power supply, it came to life!

Software Configuration for Pironman 5-MAX

Time to crank this bad boy up to 11

After powering the Pironman 5-MAX on, it was time to install software to get the most out of it. There are instructions on their documentation page, and how you customize your machine is completely up to you.

In this section, I’ll share some ideas of what I did so you can see what’s possible.

Installing an Operating System

The makers of the Pironman 5-MAX provide direct support for the following operating systems:

• Raspberry Pi OS Desktop or Lite edition.
• Ubuntu Desktop or Ubuntu Server.
• Home Assistant with a special HA add-on to become the center of your smart home.
• Homebridge to integrate smart devices into Apple HomeKit.
• Batocera for a retro-gaming machine.

In addition to the choices above, any Linux distro that lets you install Python modules should potentially work with the Pironman 5-MAX.

Activating RGB Fans & OLED Display

After installing your OS, we activate the case’s RGB fans and OLED display by cloning SunFounder’s official GitHub and installing a special Python module.

After installing and rebooting, the OLED display, lights, and fans came on!
But the fans were running at full blast, which was quite loud. Luckily, it’s easy to change this.

Visit the Pironman’s web interface from a browser:
http://<yourIP>:34001

(You can find the IP address by tapping the plate above the OLED display to wake it up.)

From the web interface, click the Settings widget in the top right. Here you can modify the OLED display, change the RGB colors, and control fan speeds.

The fans were set to “Always On” by default. Move the slider to another setting—like “Balanced”—to make its behavior sane. Ahh, nice and quiet now.

Enabling NVMe Support + RAID Array

Replacing the Raspberry Pi’s SD card with an NVMe SSD is probably the biggest performance uplift you’ll feel. But it’s not plug and play, so you’ll need to enable it (official instructions).

In my case, I ran Raspberry Pi OS on an SD card inside the Pironman 5-MAX to:

• Enable NVMe support by adding these lines to the /boot/firmware/config.txt file:
  dtparam=pciex1
dtparam=pciex1_no_10s=on
  
  Reboot to properly initiate the interface.
• Clone the SD card over to the NVMe SSD.
• Change the boot order to NVMe using raspi-config.  

After shutting down and removing the SD card, I was able to boot from the NVMe SSD. I then expanded the SSD’s root partition to use up the rest of the available space.

Bonus: if you installed dual SSDs, you can enable RAID 0 (for speed) or RAID 1 (for data protection). It’s easier to set up with graphical tools in Webmin, Cockpit, or OpenMediaVault.

Using a Remote Control

Do you plan to use the Pironman 5 MAX as a retro gaming console or home media center?
If so, it has an IR receiver so you can use a remote control.

After installing the lirc package, I was able to get it to recognize input from my remote:

Overclocking the CPU & GPU

If I’m using a top-of-the-line case, I’m going to squeeze out every ounce of performance I can get. And the Pironman 5-MAX has extensive cooling for overclocking. It’s a good learning exercise, and it’s much easier to do than it is on a regular PC.

Disclaimer: Overclocking can permanently damage your Raspberry Pi.
Make sure you know what you’re doing, and proceed with caution!

All you have to do is edit /boot/firmware/config.txt and reboot. What clocks you can reach depends on the silicon lottery. My particular Raspberry Pi 5 was only stable at the settings below:

Now that everything is installed, let’s see what the Pironman 5-MAX can do.

Pironman 5-MAX Performance Benchmarks

For science

These benchmarks were run on a regular installation of Raspberry Pi OS desktop.

CPU

The Pironman 5-MAX kept the processor cool while overclocked, allowing it to avoid throttling and reach its full potential. It beat the stock Raspberry Pi 5 handily.

GPU

In terms of graphical performance, the gains over a stock Raspberry Pi 5 were rather modest. That being said, some people want a Pironman case to reimagine the Pi 5 as a mini desktop, and we see here that it’s much more capable of that than a Raspberry Pi 4.

Storage

Using an NVMe SSD for storage gives us significantly faster drive speeds:

Storage	Interface	Sequential Read	Sequential Write	4K Random Read	4K Random Write
Dual NVMe in RAID 0	PCIe	419 MB/s	357 MB/s	106,666 IOPS	83,252 IOPS
NVMe SSD	PCIe	403 MB/s	358 MB/s	105,567 IOPS	67,814 IOPS
External SSD	USB 3.0	214 MB/s	103 MB/s	16,384 IOPS	8,619 IOPS
SD Card	SD card slot	84 MB/s	25 MB/s	3,439 IOPS	906 IOPS

The documentation (at the time of writing) said to force the PCIe interface to Gen 3. I spent too much time wondering why I couldn’t hit those speeds, only to realize that the NVMe switch is rated for Gen 2. You can see this from my results above.

It’s a tradeoff because the NVMe switch grants the flexibility of using dual SSDs or a combination of an NVMe SSD + AI kit at the same time.

In addition, the speed gain from using dual drives in RAID 0 probably isn’t worth the trouble, unless you intend to transfer lots of small files. Or, maybe you intend to use RAID 1 or add more storage to your Raspberry Pi.

Regardless, I’m quite happy with the storage performance and how fast my Pi 5 feels now.
The NVMe SSD is decently faster than a USB SSD and blows an SD card out of the water.

Thermals and Noise

Without a fan, the stock Raspberry Pi 5 heats up quickly.
When the CPU passes 80°C, it starts to throttle performance.

With the Pironman 5-MAX, which has a tower cooler and case fans, my Raspberry Pi never throttled, no matter what stress tests I threw at it.

Using a sound meter app on my phone, I measured 30 dB in a still room. With the Pironman 5-MAX turned on and fans set to “Balanced,” it was still 30-31 dB under normal operation. So practically inaudible for me.

However, if set to the “Performance” or “Always On” profile, the case fans will rev to 40 dB. That’s too loud for my tastes, but I didn’t find it necessary to use these aggressive fan settings.

Final Thoughts – Is It Worth the Hype?

My honest review

The first thing my friend said when she spotted the Pironman 5-MAX on my desk was “Cute!” This case is a great conversation piece, and I think anyone who sees it will ask you about this tiny computer full of shiny lights.

I came into this build wondering why a Raspberry Pi case would cost this much, but I left marvelling at how it pushes the limits of what a Raspberry Pi case can do.

The Pironman 5-MAX has many custom parts, with a lot of thought and detail put into its design. Unlike other cases, I can still access the GPIO and camera without having to open the case. It’s got everything I might want or need in a single package. It IS the ultimate case.

It was just released when my review was originally written, so there’s still room for improvement. For one, the case fans didn’t screw in perfectly. Tapping to wake the OLED display was inconsistent, and it went to sleep too quickly. Perhaps these issues will be addressed soon.

The bundle prices for adding optional hardware are higher than expected; I wasn’t sure why they cost more than buying individual parts separately. But if you’re gift shopping for someone or splurging for yourself, it’s convenient that everything is sold in one place.

Plus, you would be contributing to a company that supports STEAM education and open-source. That’s a win-win in my book.

I had a great time building the Pironman 5-MAX and learning more about self-hosting while trying to achieve different goals.

I used Raspberry Pi OS so that my tests would be consistent, but I’ll probably install a more full-featured system like Ubuntu or Arch Linux in the future, since this case can handle it.

In the meantime, you’ll catch me playing arcade games on my Pironman 5-MAX.

Ready to try this for real?

Reading is easy. Doing is different.
Once you start your own setup, things don’t always go as planned. That’s where people lose hours.
Get help right away instead of figuring everything out alone.

Start with help →

🔒 Start today. Cancel anytime.

• Avoid the usual beginner mistakes
• Get guidance on your setup
• Access step-by-step videos for most projects