It does at least need a heatsink. Though it will function without it, you may get temperature warnings, and it will run hot enough to significantly reduce comp

It does at least need a heatsink. Though it will function without it, you may get temperature warnings, and it will run hot enough to significantly reduce component life. I've also hooked an old PC case fan to the GPIO pins or a USB port, and it runs slower (5V vs the 12 it expects) but does the job fine.