The Raspberry Pi 5 has been revealed and is said to be twice as powerful as the Raspberry Pi 4.
Raspberry Pi 5: What’s New.
The Raspberry Pi continues to evolve with each iteration. Given the Raspberry Pi 4 was roughly 40 times more powerful than the very first Raspberry Pi model, and the new Pi 5 is twice as powerful as that, it sounds like we’re in for a much faster device.
“Today, that effort bears fruit, with the launch of Raspberry Pi 5: compared to Raspberry Pi 4, we have between two and three times the CPU and GPU performance; roughly twice the memory and I/O bandwidth; and for the first time we have Raspberry Pi silicon on a flagship Raspberry Pi device,” says Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton.
The three big upgrades found in the Raspberry Pi 5 include the BCM2712 16-nanometer application processor, the RP1 I/O controller, and the Renesas DA9091 Gilmour power-management IC.
In simpler terms, it sounds like the Raspberry Pi 5 is capable of drawing more power, and with the upgraded processor, should be able to reach feats the previous generations weren’t capable of.
Elsewhere, the main board also now houses some extra options, including two FPC connectors, a four-pin PoE connector, JST connectors for the RTC battery, mounting holes for heatsinks, and Arm debug and UART.
As with most refreshes, there’s also a host of new accessories to fit the new Pi model (your old cases likely won’t be compatible). The biggest standout of the bunch is the new M.2 HAT. What that means is if you pick up the M.2 accessory, you’ll be able to use M.2 SSDs in the Raspberry Pi 5. Compatibility-wise, you’ll need to use either a 2230 or 2242 SSD – the former of which is what I used when I switched out my Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally SSDs.
How Much Does the Raspberry Pi 5 Cost?
The Raspberry Pi 5 will retail for $60 for the 4GB of RAM model, and $80 for the 8GB of RAM version. Click here to visit a list of the official Raspberry Pi 5 resellers.
Raspberry Pi 5 Specs In Full.
- 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU.
- VideoCore VII GPU, supporting OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.2.
- Dual 4Kp60 HDMI display output.
- 4Kp60 HEVC decoder.
- Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
- Bluetooth 5.0 / Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).
- High-speed microSD card interface with SDR104 mode support.
- 2 × USB 3.0 ports, supporting simultaneous 5Gbps operation.
- 2 × USB 2.0 ports.
- Gigabit Ethernet, with PoE+ support (requires separate PoE+ HAT).
- 2 × 4-lane MIPI camera/display transceivers.
- PCIe 2.0 x1 interface for fast peripherals.
- Raspberry Pi standard 40-pin GPIO header.
- Real-time clock.
- Power button.
Analysis.
As someone who writes about emulation for a living, the idea of a more powerful Raspberry Pi is exciting. The Raspberry Pi 4 was the previous best option for emulation, but despite its incredibly affordable nature, that power would cap out fairly quickly. Even more so when compared with the latest mobile phones or handheld PCs.
The Raspberry Pi 5 is unlikely to rival, say, the latest AYANEO console when it comes to emulators, but the quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU is sure to result in much smoother performance. Emulators, generally, tend to be CPU-heavy, so any increase in that area is sure to help.
