Raspberry Pi 5: Faster, Better, Stronger — Spendier
Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters. In a cheeky extra post this week: Everyone’s favorite single-board ARM computer, the Raspberry Pi, has a new generation coming soon. Compared to the ’4, RPi5 has double the performance, quadruple the base RAM and far more capable I/O. Analysis: And you’ll even be able to buy one The pandemic completely messed up the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s supply chains, meaning they had to focus on supplying companies who’d forward-bought the devices. This time, Eben Upton’s crew are trying to get back to their roots, promising—for the first couple of months—to sell RPi5s only to individuals. What’s the story? Alaina Yee reports—“Raspberry Pi 5 just got announced”: “I can’t wait”Forget the holiday pie, this is what I want on my table for Thanksgiving. … It looks totally badass. … Not only does the Raspberry Pi 5 appear ready to deliver a sizable step up in performance compared to its 2019 predecessor, but its new silicon was designed in-house.…The Raspberry Pi 5 is leaning hard into high-octane mini-computing. … You can expect the Raspberry Pi 5 to be about two to three times faster. Memory bandwidth also doubles.…And … a new official first-party operating system will be launching … in mid-October. Called Raspberry Pi OS, it’s based on the Linux Debian distro, as well as the Raspbian derivative that’s existed for years. … I can’t wait. Speeds and feeds? Brad Linder’s got ’em—“Raspberry Pi 5 offers 2X the performance”: “4x ARM Cortex-A76”The new Raspberry Pi 5 is a single-board computer that’s a major upgrade over the Raspberry Pi 4 … in just about every way. … At launch, there will be two configurations available: a model with 4GB of RAM that sells for $60 and an 8GB version priced at $80. That means the starting model has twice as much RAM as a $35 Raspberry Pi 4.…At the heart of new computer is a new … 16nm chip featuring 4x ARM Cortex-A76 CPU cores @ 2.4 GHz, 512KB per-core L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, VideoCore VII graphics with support for dual 4k/60 Hz HDMI displays. [It] also features 32-bit LPDDR4X 4267MT/s memory … 2x micro HDMI (4K/60Hz), 2x USB 3.0 Type-A, 2x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x Gigabit Ethernet with PoE support, 1x USB-C power input, 1x microSD card reader. … There are also two 4-lane MIPI interfaces. Horse’s mouth? Eben Upton—“Introducing: Raspberry Pi 5!”: “We’re incredibly grateful”Virtually every aspect of the platform has been upgraded, delivering a no-compromises user experience. … And it’s the first Raspberry Pi computer to feature silicon designed in‑house here in Cambridge, UK. … Broadcom’s VideoCore VII [is also] developed here.…Like all flagship Raspberry Pi products [it’s] built at the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, South Wales. We have been working with Sony since the launch of the first Raspberry Pi … in 2012, and we’re firm believers in the benefits of manufacturing our products within a few hours’ drive of our engineering design centre in Cambridge.…We expect the first units to ship by the end of October. … We’re incredibly grateful to the community of makers and hackers who make Raspberry Pi what it is. [So,] we’re going to ringfence all of the Raspberry Pi 5s we sell until at least the end of […]
