Introducing: Raspberry Pi 5!

[Karel]

Today, we’re delighted to announce the launch of Raspberry Pi 5, coming at the end of October.
Priced at $60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling (plus your local taxes), virtually every
aspect of the platform has been upgraded, delivering a no-compromises user experience.
Raspberry Pi 5 comes with new features, it’s over twice as fast as its predecessor, and it’s the first
Raspberry Pi computer to feature silicon designed in‑house here in Cambridge, UK.

Key features include:

    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, coming soon)
    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



https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/introducing-raspberry-pi-5/

[MK14]

Although on the one hand, I'm very excited that they are going to be releasing the new improved Raspberry 5 (the previous PI 4, was often plagued by severe shortages, because of Covid and things, through most of its release life).

I'm a little bit disappointed, (although after-market add-ons and even official add-ons, are likely to resolve many or all of these things), they haven't, as standard addressed things like:

Improved thermal handling, when under big CPU loads. (But it does look like they will be selling official solutions to that issue).
Increasing maximum memory (RAM) to 16 GB or more. (But 8 GB is plenty for many things, even the 4 GB version, is usually perfectly fine).
Giving eMMC storage options, to replace the potentially unreliable microSD cards.
Putting some kind of M.2 slot, for SSDs, which are becoming so affordable with ever increasing capacities, that it would make a very nice addition.

On the other hand.  Prices seem to have remained rather affordable, and putting in some of my suggestions, could have increased the price too much, especially for some use case scenarios.

I suspect, there will be (relatively soon), special after-market cases, which resolve the possible cooling issues and give it an M.2 slot, as well as maybe other features.

It is possible an unannounced 16 GB version, is planned for the future.

[MK14]

The following video (Jeff Geerling), seems to be rather good (describing many of the improvements), giving lots of details and more, about the Raspberry PI 5.



From the Video:
It seems it can readily support M.2 drives, because of the built in, PCIe connector, via hats.
It also seems that 16 GB RAM, is now possible, so may be released, some time in the future.

[Postal2]

Why "embedded computing"?? In my opinion, all stuff powered with fan is not, and cannot be embedded.

[SiliconWizard]

Sounds cool. Question is: what about price? "Similarly" spec'ed SBCs from competitors are in the > $100 range. Let's see what they offer here. Will they *really* manage the  "$60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling" price tag in the end? (Note that if you add VAT you'll end up in the $100 area anyway.)

Other than that, unless I missed it, I think it would have been cool if they had integrated a RP2040, but I guess that if would have required an additional connector (re-using the "standard" 40-pin header to break out a number of RP2040 GPIOs would have made the thing incompatible with all the "hats" ecosystem.)

[Gyro]

From the Video:
It seems it can readily support M.2 drives, because of the built in, PCIe connector, via hats.
...

About time. They've been relying on SD cards for far too long.

[mariush]

I'm not sure if technically doable, but maybe they could have gone a step further and put the lpddr4x ram on a stick or something (m.2 like) and sell the ram as optional upgrade?

and 5$ for a battery... sigh... how to penny pinch money from people. would have made more sense to sell a battery holder with wires, because the battery itself may not be shipped by air.  Adafruit can sell one through Digikey for $1 : https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/4856/13908439

[beanflying]

The following video (Jeff Geerling), seems to be rather good (describing many of the improvements), giving lots of details and more, about the Raspberry PI 5.



From the Video:
It seems it can readily support M.2 drives, because of the built in, PCIe connector, via hats.
It also seems that 16 GB RAM, is now possible, so may be released, some time in the future.

PCIe 2.0 x1 lane

While it might be good value for the $ it is still lacking performance too.

[MK14]

PCIe 2.0 x1 lane

What PCIe specification, can you get for a brand new, desktop PC, laptop or similar, with a brand new asking price of $60 to $80?

Currently, AMD Zen 4 CPUs, seem to start at around > $200 for a 7600. in the UK.  The motherboards cost a small fortune, as well.

That seems to be enough PCIe, to give around 500 MB/s, which is fine for many things.  I.e. It is similar to SATA speeds.

Taking the relatively low price, tiny size and relatively low power consumption (a video seems to measure around 6 watts, under a full load application), it doesn't seem too bad.

It seems to be a lot better than previous Pi models.

[MK14]

While it might be good value for the $ it is still lacking performance too.

But it is trying to be a small, cheap car, for driving from A to B.

Not a $500,000 250 MPH sports car.

There is more to life, than driving at 300 MPH everywhere.

[beanflying]

PCIe 2.0x1 is on par with USB3.1 (without checking) so the point is while 'nice' is is hardly a feature. You may as well go buy an external USB adapter. Given they rolled custom IO silicon this is shortsighted.

It is not about putting the product down at all but just technically it doesn't deserve to be overhyped for performance it doesn't have against other offerings already in the market.

The clearly tried the PC hardware review embargo thing here as every vaguely related SBC talking head on YouTube got one to promote pre orders.

[brucehoult]

Will they *really* manage the  "$60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling" price tag in the end?

What do you mean by that? You can preorder one right now, for the advertised price. And I have -- see my order confirmation below. The store (Pimoroni) told me it will ship around October 23. No UK VAT was added and as it is under NZ$1000 I won't get charged NZ GST either. Tracked shipping to NZ added £12.50 (or untracked for £10).

Other than that, unless I missed it, I think it would have been cool if they had integrated a RP2040, but I guess that if would have required an additional connector (re-using the "standard" 40-pin header to break out a number of RP2040 GPIOs would have made the thing incompatible with all the "hats" ecosystem.)

According to Yearling the RP1 shares a lot with the RP2040, is used to drive the GPIO, and is probably user-programmable with code running with the Pi "off".

[djacobow]

What do you mean by that?

That's a really weird thing to say given the last couple of years we've been through. It has been a long time since you can get a pi for the advertised price in a timely manner. Let's click reload on rpilocator.com and roll the dice again!

And even now when supply has eased, the places showing the pi foundation official price are still typically limiting you to qty 1, and of course, full shipping cost each time.

Sometimes something can be technically true without being usefully true.

[Veteran68]

That's a really weird thing to say given the last couple of years we've been through. It has been a long time since you can get a pi for the advertised price in a timely manner. Let's click reload on rpilocator.com and roll the dice again!

Pi 4's have been generally available at regular price recently. I bought another 4GB model from Pishop.us a couple months ago. I just looked and they still have stock, plus the limit has been increased to 10/month from 1/month.

[MK14]

PCIe 2.0x1 is on par with USB3.1 (without checking) so the point is while 'nice' is is hardly a feature. You may as well go buy an external USB adapter. Given they rolled custom IO silicon this is shortsighted.

It is not about putting the product down at all but just technically it doesn't deserve to be overhyped for performance it doesn't have against other offerings already in the market.

The clearly tried the PC hardware review embargo thing here as every vaguely related SBC talking head on YouTube got one to promote pre orders.

I think, by spending relatively small amounts of money, here and there.  The Raspberry Pi 5, could be improved, speed wise and in other respects.

But, the team, seem to keep a very careful eye on the intended asking / selling price, so keep a very tight reign on such things, to keep the costs, sensible.

As I see it.  It is the reliable, long term availability, of a range (of at least one or more) of working operating systems, for these Raspberry Pi Boards, that makes them especially useful.

There are plenty of potentially, cheaper (often) Chinese boards (e.g. via Ali-express).  But it can be tricky, to get reliable (reasonably bug-free), operating systems, documentation, drivers and support, especially as the boards, get older.

[brucehoult]

What do you mean by that?

That's a really weird thing to say given the last couple of years we've been through.

That was then, this is now.

And even now when supply has eased, the places showing the pi foundation official price are still typically limiting you to qty 1, and of course, full shipping cost each time.

I'm not interested in old Pis (I already have them, from pre-pandemic) but it doesn't seem surprising that a new product would be restricted at launch.

And even if you for some reason want more than one, paying $10 world-wide shipping on an $80 board is a heck of a lot less painful than paying it on a $5 board.

[MK14]

still typically limiting you to qty 1, and of course, full shipping cost each time.

Talking specifically about the Raspberry PI 5.  It is fairly normal (if I remember correctly), for the initial release to have a very limited quantity available (sells out very quickly), and possibly limit customers to a maximum of 1.  Until they have had time to ramp up production, and the demand settles down to relatively normal levels.

[SiliconWizard]

Will they *really* manage the  "$60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling" price tag in the end?

What do you mean by that? You can preorder one right now, for the advertised price. And I have -- see my order confirmation below. The store (Pimoroni) told me it will ship around October 23. No UK VAT was added and as it is under NZ$1000 I won't get charged NZ GST either. Tracked shipping to NZ added £12.50 (or untracked for £10).

I don't know how things work in NZ, nor the deal about this $1000 threshold. Over here in EU, we pay VAT on absolutely everything starting at the first cent.
I went to the preorder page, added to cart and unsurprisingly got 20% VAT on top of the base price and shipping. Normal stuff. We just need to be clear about what a "price" means when we're talking with people from all over the world with different systems and different agreements between countries.

Other than this tax thing (which is not specific here), as djacobow said. Prices announced at preorder time are one thing, prices once the product ships on a large scale may become another, and they are likely to further raise over time these days.

Other than that, unless I missed it, I think it would have been cool if they had integrated a RP2040, but I guess that if would have required an additional connector (re-using the "standard" 40-pin header to break out a number of RP2040 GPIOs would have made the thing incompatible with all the "hats" ecosystem.)

According to Yearling the RP1 shares a lot with the RP2040, is used to drive the GPIO, and is probably user-programmable with code running with the Pi "off".

Not really. Apparently the RP1 is the I/O controller they designed for the RPi5, it contains pretty much all I/O interfaces (USB, Ethernet, ... and yes, the GPIOs and some UARTs, SPI, I2C), but there is no indication that the GPIOs will even be programmable with something similar to the RP2040's PIO, and I doubt it at this point, but we'll see. Even if this is the case, a complete MCU beside the SoC would IMO have been a good addition, something other SBC vendors do offer, and something that would have made sense for a RPi. So, the RP1 is said to have been designed by the same team as the RP2040, but that doesn't mean that it is anything close to it and even less so that it actually contains a CPU core of some kind. So, this RP1 may be cool and a good idea for lowering costs and integration, but adding a RP2040 to the board wouldn't have hurt IMO. We'll see what this RP1 can really do.

Other than that, there's still no sign of eMMC. What you get is still a microSD slot, and yes, M.2, except that only single lane PCIe as others have pointed out, and according to the product brief, there is no M.2 socket, so it requires an additional adapter to actually connect anything to it.

Note that I'm not basing my first impressions on a video (that I haven't watched), but on elements read on the RPi's site itself.

[brucehoult]

I don't know how things work in NZ, nor the deal about this $1000 threshold. Over here in EU, we pay VAT on absolutely everything starting at the first cent.

Until a couple of years ago it was $400. The principle is that there is no point (other than punitive) in charging an importer VAT if the amount collected is less than the administration cost of collecting it.

Prices announced at preorder time are one thing, prices once the product ships on a large scale may become another, and they are likely to further raise over time these days.

That is unknowable. What I know is I have a legal contract for delivery, my bank app shows my credit card had been charged, and they are obligated to deliver the promised goods at the price agreed and paid.

According to Yearling the RP1 shares a lot with the RP2040, is used to drive the GPIO, and is probably user-programmable with code running with the Pi "off".

Not really. Apparently the RP1 is the I/O controller they designed for the RPi5, it contains pretty much all I/O interfaces (USB, Ethernet, ... and yes, the GPIOs and some UARTs, SPI, I2C), but there is no indication that the GPIOs will even be programmable with something similar to the RP2040's PIO, and I doubt it at this point, but we'll see. Even if this is the case, a complete MCU beside the SoC would IMO have been a good addition, something other SBC vendors do offer, and something that would have made sense for a RPi. So, the RP1 is said to have been designed by the same team as the RP2040, but that doesn't mean that it is anything close to it and even less so that it actually contains a CPU core of some kind. So, this RP1 may be cool and a good idea for lowering costs and integration, but adding a RP2040 to the board wouldn't have hurt IMO. We'll see what this RP1 can really do.

I know what the RP1 is. I am quoting what Yearling has said subsequent to using and reviewing the board and asking Raspberry Pi a lot of questions. He's good buddies with Eben and I'm sure gets his questions answered.

e.g.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37686458

[djacobow]

I like the pi's and have used them in a lot of projects and even sold a couple of pi hats, but my love affair has mostly waned.

This new device looks pretty good, perhaps I'll try it out. The main advantage is sticking with raspberry foundation hardware is that raspbian generally works and you will not be needing around with compiling kernel drivers or messing with device overlay files, as is a big part of my life on the rk3588 boards.

That said, one thing that REALLY bugged me about this release announcement is that all the usual suspects had prerelease boards, which means they ALL have relationships with the pi foundation, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes their review close to worthless. Nobody who had a board today is going to say anything seriously critical about pi stuff because they know where their bread is buttered.

There will be reviewers later who actually buy their boards themselves and whose living doesn't depend on suppliers' good graces, and maybe we'll see some honest reviews.

[SiliconWizard]

I don't know how things work in NZ, nor the deal about this $1000 threshold. Over here in EU, we pay VAT on absolutely everything starting at the first cent.

Until a couple of years ago it was $400. The principle is that there is no point (other than punitive) in charging an importer VAT if the amount collected is less than the administration cost of collecting it.

Interesting, now that sounds like a wise decision. Something I would love to see over here as well.

[brucehoult]

That said, one thing that REALLY bugged me about this release announcement is that all the usual suspects had prerelease boards, which means they ALL have relationships with the pi foundation, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes their review close to worthless. Nobody who had a board today is going to say anything seriously critical about pi stuff because they know where their bread is buttered.

Most of them are only comparing against the Pi 4, true. But Yearling, at least, also showed benchmarks vs Rock 5 and Orange Pi 5 showing that they are up to 50% faster on many things. The RK3588S version of the Orange Pi 5 isn't much more expensive than the Raspberry Pi.

Software and support-wise, it is definitely safer to go with RPF.  I don't think I've seen any of the others playing Youtube 1080p as smoothly as the Pi 5 and that is the most make or break critical thing many consumers do with these boards.

[SiliconWizard]

For sure, software support is better overall for RPi products. Many SBC alternatives have half-assed support.
If only they could have added at least an eMMC chip. Maybe for the Pi5B. Or Pi6.

[beanflying]

That said, one thing that REALLY bugged me about this release announcement is that all the usual suspects had prerelease boards, which means they ALL have relationships with the pi foundation, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes their review close to worthless. Nobody who had a board today is going to say anything seriously critical about pi stuff because they know where their bread is buttered.

Most of them are only comparing against the Pi 4, true. But Yearling, at least, also showed benchmarks vs Rock 5 and Orange Pi 5 showing that they are up to 50% faster on many things. The RK3588S version of the Orange Pi 5 isn't much more expensive than the Raspberry Pi.

Software and support-wise, it is definitely safer to go with RPF.  I don't think I've seen any of the others playing Youtube 1080p as smoothly as the Pi 5 and that is the most make or break critical thing many consumers do with these boards.

If you are looking for a solid RK3588S or 3588 OS then make sure you look at this one https://github.com/Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip it has been great on my OPi5+ for several months now. I spent a week or so using it as my daily driver including a bunch of YouTube and frame drops were minimal after the first few seconds.

Some of the other statements about documentation or Raspberry over the rest had prior foundation in fact but of more recent times some them are getting their act together finally. The RK complete specs and build notes are out there and I have a bunch of them I could post elsewhere if anyone wants them.

[brucehoult]

If you are looking for a solid RK3588S or 3588 OS then make sure you look at this one https://github.com/Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip it has been great on my OPi5+ for several months now. I spent a week or so using it as my daily driver including a bunch of YouTube and frame drops were minimal after the first few seconds.

Looks interesting. I have an OPi5+ that arrived a couple of weeks ago but I've so far taken out of the box only to photograph it.

"For the server image you will be able to login through HDMI or a serial console connection. The predefined user is ubuntu and the password is ubuntu."

WHYYYYY???

There are two perfectly good ethernet ports. My RISC-V board vendor server images manage to throw up DHCP and sshd. So much easier than having monitors on a dozen SBCs -- or serial console to the other side of the room or house.

[themadhippy]

The school boy in me wonders if there'll be an incremental upgrade to 5.5

[djacobow]

"For the server image you will be able to login through HDMI or a serial console connection. The predefined user is ubuntu and the password is ubuntu."

WHYYYYY???

There seems to be a pervasive view that if ssh is enabled by default with a default password that your machine will get owned the instant you plug it in. The same reasoning seems to have influenced why raspbian dropped the default user and password.

I don't know what networks people are using to bring up their toy sbcs, but I'm quite sure there aren't black hats pounding my home network from the inside.

It's a minor inconvenience, and I kind of like that my rock 5b has a serial console. Come to think of it, the $30 Le Potatoes have it, too. Then again, I'm an embedded dev and always have FTDI cables laying about.

[SiliconWizard]

Regarding actual prices - this is as expected *right now* already and for people living in the EU.
If you have access to it, just look at prices on this web site (which is a big reseller over here): https://www.materiel.net/produit/202309280029.html

79.90 EUR for the 4GB, 119.90 EUR for the 8GB, VAT included. So given the conversion between USD and EUR, that is over +50% compared to the announced prices. Aren't we lucky over here!!

[abeyer]

I don't know what networks people are using to bring up their toy sbcs, but I'm quite sure there aren't black hats pounding my home network from the inside.

It might be manageable when you're at home but can be a real hassle in labs, offices, classrooms, etc... where you have a shared wifi network and have potentially many users with many devices. When raspbian shipped a default user, people would take advantage of that to write scripts to "make things easy" that would just poke the first pi device they saw on the network (assuming there would only ever be one) with the default creds and could easily get the wrong one when there were many and they all had the same user account.

[ejeffrey]

I don't know what networks people are using to bring up their toy sbcs, but I'm quite sure there aren't black hats pounding my home network from the inside.

It might be manageable when you're at home but can be a real hassle in labs, offices, classrooms, etc... where you have a shared wifi network and have potentially many users with many devices.

Yeah a better way to handle this is to have a unique default password that's on a sticker on the device.  That requires a unique hardware ID and extra manufacturing time steps but it's the way to go for consumer electronics.

But the best option  for the RPi is to use the raspberry pi imaging tool to write your SD card or USB boot device rather than buying a pre images SD cards.  Then you can enable SSH, create a user account, and set a password.

[NiHaoMike]

I'm curious if the RP1 chip can be programmed to interface to a high speed ADC at least up to a few tens of MSps, could make a great new SDR if so.

[DiTBho]

My RISC-V board

I'm waiting for a small RISC-V board with SMP full support and a couple PCIe that's a little better supported by Haiku/OS, then I'll definitely go back to dealing with it (even to develop a simple kernel driver for MGA chip, Matrox, dual channel), on the front line, so even if it were unstable or full of bugs, it would be fine.

At the moment, however, I find the two MIPS boards from 1992 (R3000 32bit) and 1995 (R4000, 32/64bit) much more pleasing, one from IDT, the other from Algorithmics, things that have no { GNU/Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD } support, and that's fine, as you program in assembly, because that's all you can do, but you relax more than using the last super powerful generation SBC for the same things you would do with your smartphone.

I have never bought an RPI. I worked on a couple of Allwinner ARM/32bit SoCs, and on a MediaTek ARM/32bit SoC, and I was very stressed by the terrible level of both the firmware and the kernel.

Well, comparing my experience with Allwinner and MediaTek: the second one is 5 times better!

[AndyBeez]

So one needs the $5 heatsink to keep the CPU from throttling?

I am still undecided if the latest incarnation of the Pi is trying to be a Power PC for tinkerers, whilst maintaining the toy price?

[DiTBho]

So one needs the $5 heatsink to keep the CPU from throttling?

it's required. Heatsink + fan

I am still undecided if the latest incarnation of the Pi is trying to be a Power PC for tinkerers, whilst maintaining the toy price?

PowerPC? 

PPC601?603?750?7410?7450?e500?... or what?

[dmendesf]

Not really. Apparently the RP1 is the I/O controller they designed for the RPi5, it contains pretty much all I/O interfaces (USB, Ethernet, ... and yes, the GPIOs and some UARTs, SPI, I2C), but there is no indication that the GPIOs will even be programmable with something similar to the RP2040's PIO, and I doubt it at this point, but we'll see. Even if this is the case, a complete MCU beside the SoC would IMO have been a good addition, something other SBC vendors do offer, and something that would have made sense for a RPi. So, the RP1 is said to have been designed by the same team as the RP2040, but that doesn't mean that it is anything close to it and even less so that it actually contains a CPU core of some kind. So, this RP1 may be cool and a good idea for lowering costs and integration, but adding a RP2040 to the board wouldn't have hurt IMO. We'll see what this RP1 can really do.

Seems not only it has PIO but also two Cortex-M3:

https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1707714277438529644?t=m-siXK6TEQYUU5gokrQgSw&s=19

What I really want to know is if it still has SMI.

[SiliconWizard]

Not really. Apparently the RP1 is the I/O controller they designed for the RPi5, it contains pretty much all I/O interfaces (USB, Ethernet, ... and yes, the GPIOs and some UARTs, SPI, I2C), but there is no indication that the GPIOs will even be programmable with something similar to the RP2040's PIO, and I doubt it at this point, but we'll see. Even if this is the case, a complete MCU beside the SoC would IMO have been a good addition, something other SBC vendors do offer, and something that would have made sense for a RPi. So, the RP1 is said to have been designed by the same team as the RP2040, but that doesn't mean that it is anything close to it and even less so that it actually contains a CPU core of some kind. So, this RP1 may be cool and a good idea for lowering costs and integration, but adding a RP2040 to the board wouldn't have hurt IMO. We'll see what this RP1 can really do.

Seems not only it has PIO but also two Cortex-M3:

https://twitter.com/arturo182/status/1707714277438529644?t=m-siXK6TEQYUU5gokrQgSw&s=19

What I really want to know is if it still has SMI.

That's interesting. Hopefully they'll document the RP1.

[brucehoult]

I'm waiting for a small RISC-V board with SMP full support and a couple PCIe that's a little better supported by Haiku/OS

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-running-haiku-on-visionfive-2/13369

At the moment, however, I find the two MIPS boards from 1992 (R3000 32bit) and 1995 (R4000, 32/64bit)

What's that? 133 or 166 MHz?  You can make your own SMT machine in an FPGA with just about that speed, with exactly the design and peripherals you want.

[brucehoult]

So one needs the $5 heatsink to keep the CPU from throttling?

It depends how you use it. Reviews show it needs about 30 seconds of 100% all cores CPU load to get to throttling.

Most people who aren't programmers or recompressing video would never max out the CPU for more than a couple of seconds at a time.

[DiTBho]

@brucehoult

R3000@50Mhz, 16Mb ram, AUI
R4000@60Mhz, 64MB ram, AUI

I have already implemented a mips32r2 in fpga@50Mhz, 96kb ram, but real hardware, and specially where everythig began has a better appeal 

[David Hess]

Giving eMMC storage options, to replace the potentially unreliable microSD cards.

At least a microSD card is replaceable.  How reliable is eMMC compared to a good microSD card?

[beanflying]

Giving eMMC storage options, to replace the potentially unreliable microSD cards.

At least a microSD card is replaceable.  How reliable is eMMC compared to a good microSD card?

Typically eMMC is just plug or unplug and you can get USB adapters to program them in some cases. Costs on them are still a bit more but not by a lot.

Not impossible to fit both and and find room for an m.2 header while you are at it.

[brucehoult]

Typically eMMC is just plug or unplug and you can get USB adapters to program them in some cases. Costs on them are still a bit more but not by a lot.

If you look in the big electronics distributors you will find eMMC chip, but not cards/modules.

Hardkernel just made up something themselves to make removable eMMC for their Odroid boards. First Pine64 and then later other Chinese manufacturers have adopted Hardkernel's defacto standard.

[brucehoult]

According to Yearling the RP1 shares a lot with the RP2040, is used to drive the GPIO, and is probably user-programmable with code running with the Pi "off".

Not really. Apparently the RP1 is the I/O controller they designed for the RPi5, it contains pretty much all I/O interfaces (USB, Ethernet, ... and yes, the GPIOs and some UARTs, SPI, I2C), but there is no indication that the GPIOs will even be programmable with something similar to the RP2040's PIO, and I doubt it at this point, but we'll see. Even if this is the case, a complete MCU beside the SoC would IMO have been a good addition, something other SBC vendors do offer, and something that would have made sense for a RPi. So, the RP1 is said to have been designed by the same team as the RP2040, but that doesn't mean that it is anything close to it and even less so that it actually contains a CPU core of some kind. So, this RP1 may be cool and a good idea for lowering costs and integration, but adding a RP2040 to the board wouldn't have hurt IMO. We'll see what this RP1 can really do.

I know what the RP1 is. I am quoting what Yearling has said subsequent to using and reviewing the board and asking Raspberry Pi a lot of questions. He's good buddies with Eben and I'm sure gets his questions answered.

e.g.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37686458

Vindication!

[tszaboo]

Regarding actual prices - this is as expected *right now* already and for people living in the EU.
If you have access to it, just look at prices on this web site (which is a big reseller over here): https://www.materiel.net/produit/202309280029.html

79.90 EUR for the 4GB, 119.90 EUR for the 8GB, VAT included. So given the conversion between USD and EUR, that is over +50% compared to the announced prices. Aren't we lucky over here!!

So 120 EUR, plus you need to buy a power supply, a case, a small heatsink probably still, an SD card just to make it work.
That's only just a bit more expensive than a used mini PC with a Core i5 processor and 250 GB SSD.
I'm sure people will find the justification to buy it.

[langwadt]

I'm curious if the RP1 chip can be programmed to interface to a high speed ADC at least up to a few tens of MSps, could make a great new SDR if so.

https://iosoft.blog/2020/07/16/raspberry-pi-smi/

[aeberbach]

So one needs the $5 heatsink to keep the CPU from throttling?

Not required - depends what you're doing. I read an interview where Eben said that it does not throttle in normal use (i.e. Linux desktop etc) without the heatsink but if you are one of those people who likes to work the CPUs as hard as possible then the heatsink is enough to prevent throttling in all cases.

[langwadt]

Giving eMMC storage options, to replace the potentially unreliable microSD cards.

At least a microSD card is replaceable.  How reliable is eMMC compared to a good microSD card?

Typically eMMC is just plug or unplug and you can get USB adapters to program them in some cases. Costs on them are still a bit more but not by a lot.

if you cna live with the extra stickout you can also get eMMC on an sdcard shaped adapter, it is basically the same interface

[gmb42]

Regarding actual prices - this is as expected *right now* already and for people living in the EU.
If you have access to it, just look at prices on this web site (which is a big reseller over here): https://www.materiel.net/produit/202309280029.html

79.90 EUR for the 4GB, 119.90 EUR for the 8GB, VAT included. So given the conversion between USD and EUR, that is over +50% compared to the announced prices. Aren't we lucky over here!!

Seems to be a pricy reseller.  Pimoroni in the UK have the following (VAT included, £3.95 postage to UK)

4GB - Pi4 £54.96, Pi5 £59.40
8GB - Pi4 £74.94, Pi5 £78.90

[David Hess]

Giving eMMC storage options, to replace the potentially unreliable microSD cards.

At least a microSD card is replaceable.  How reliable is eMMC compared to a good microSD card?

Typically eMMC is just plug or unplug and you can get USB adapters to program them in some cases. Costs on them are still a bit more but not by a lot.

Not impossible to fit both and and find room for an m.2 header while you are at it.

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

[MK14]

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

That is a very good, question.

My understanding is that microSD cards, on previous Pi’s, had issues with damage to the data on it, sometimes so bad (in time), that the Pi would no longer, even boot from it.  Especially vulnerable during power down.  Maybe because previous Pi’s, had no power button.

Also, microSD cards have a reputation of being (but NOT as bad as USB flash pens) poor quality (salvaged rejected flash chips).  Especially really cheap, unbranded ones.  Might be missing some of the features built into SSDs, which helps keep the data safe, such as wear evenly (levelling) and proper handling of things like data corruption (recovery).

I’m not sure why, in comparison, eMMC is held in such high regard.  Perhaps it has decent quality, long life flash, with a degree of similarity to SSD techniques.

[JPortici]

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

That is a very good, question.

My understanding is that microSD cards, on previous Pi’s, had issues with damage to the data on it, sometimes so bad (in time), that the Pi would no longer, even boot from it.  Especially vulnerable during power down.  Maybe because previous Pi’s, had no power button.

so, basically this.

[SiliconWizard]

It's because some SD cards (not quite all) are relatively vulnerable to being powered off suddenly, even when using a journaling filesystem.

The power button won't do anything about it - it just triggers the shutdown/reboot/... menu when you are booted into Linux under a desktop environment, just a "hotkey" in other words. You could use the same shutdown option from Linux before.

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

[MK14]

The power button won't do anything about it - it just triggers the shutdown/reboot/... menu when you are booted into Linux under a desktop environment, just a "hotkey" in other words. You could use the same shutdown option from Linux before.

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I suspect, some people would either lose interest, in shutting down properly, or wouldn’t know how.
Without a quick and easy power on / off button.

Also, the average user, might have no perception, that sudden power loss can corrupt the microSD card.

A physical power button, may either teach such people, or persuade them, to do the right thing (safe shut-down requests).

[abeyer]

I suspect, some people would either lose interest, in shutting down properly, or wouldn’t know how.
Without a quick and easy power on / off button.

Also, the average user, might have no perception, that sudden power loss can corrupt the microSD card.

A physical power button, may either teach such people, or persuade them, to do the right thing (safe shut-down requests).

Sure, that was always part of the problem... but if you intend to keep a device on any extended periods of time, power failures are a reality you have to face. (and it's silly to think about spending the money it would take to put a reliable UPS in front of a $35 computer.)

Also the problem is more than just file system corruption... it seems to actually damage the flash. My 3B has pretty consistently destroyed any card that's mounted if the power goes down unexpectedly -- any further attempts to read or write the card even on other devices end up in a death spiral of bad blocks and hardware errors.

[MK14]

Sure, that was always part of the problem... but if you intend to keep a device on any extended periods of time, power failures are a reality you have to face. (and it's silly to think about spending the money it would take to put a reliable UPS in front of a $35 computer.)

Also the problem is more than just file system corruption... it seems to actually damage the flash. My 3B has pretty consistently destroyed any card that's mounted if the power goes down unexpectedly -- any further attempts to read or write the card even on other devices end up in a death spiral of bad blocks and hardware errors.

My approximate understanding is as follows:
Consider a high end, proper consumer SSD.  Cheaper ones may lack some of these features, such as supercapacitors, DRAM etc.

Behind the scenes, it has many data protecting / preserving mechanisms.

Such as a supercapacitor, so if the power suddenly disappears, it can finish all writes and flush any cached write data, to the disk.
A sizeable DRAM, so that if the same sector is continually updated / changed, it can update the DRAM copy, without wearing out the flash.
A powerful processor and / or controller chip, whose extensive firmware can attempt to detect bad sectors (data), then correct it (moving recovered data, to a good sector) if possible (e.g. small number of bit errors), or failing that.  Reliably mark it as unreadable, hence at least allowing everything else to work as normal.   Unlike much simpler microSD  cards, which under similar circumstances, may just crash or have lots of errors.

Also microSD cards, seem to be design and built to a bare minimum cost.  So can have poor cooling and lack many SSD features.

In other words.  A microSD card is not the best of choices, to use as a ‘HDD’ (SSD).

[abeyer]

Consider a high end, proper consumer SSD.  Cheaper ones may lack some of these features, such as supercapacitors, DRAM etc.

Behind the scenes, it has many data protecting / preserving mechanisms.

Yeah, exactly... which gets back to the original point of people wanting some built-in storage interface other than microsd, so they can get those things if they care.

I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out. Switched to a pine64 board, which despite the poor software support side of things, was much more stable because I can put a proper sata ssd on it.

[MK14]

Yeah, exactly... which gets back to the original point of people wanting some built-in storage interface other than microsd, so they can get those things if they care.

I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out. Switched to a pine64 board, which despite the poor software support side of things, was much more stable because I can put a proper sata ssd on it.

You have hit the nail on the head!
That is EXACTLY what I was worried about.
Possibly unreliable and data losing, microSD cards.

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

[ejeffrey]

I did some studying over the weekend and nothing makes an MMC or eMMC more reliable than a microSD or other SD card.  The protocol is different so may be more suitable for things like in-place execution, but they both now rely on standard NAND flash technology.  An eMMC is more accurately thought of as a MicroSD that can be soldered in place, so cheaper.

My assumption always has been that the "more reliable" part was 10% "tends to use higher quality flash chips" and 90% "avoids a flaky connector and the possibility of the user unplugging them while active"

[beanflying]

It might make more sense on the Pi5 to make an eMMC hat/plugin to suit the PCIe port that takes the fairly common de facto standard modules.

The USB adapters stick out a long way and would be easy to knock but they are still an option of sorts I guess.

[rteodor]

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

A reliable and long lasting solution is SLC SDCards. I use such cards for almost 10 years now and they are more reliable than the Pi's they run on.

And not to forget: Pi's are not used only in "edu" market but also in industrial and commercial applications where reliability is important.
But then I guess those applications are much less likely to use the latest Pi versions or use customized versions. Or they use CM versions.

[SiliconWizard]

Or they use CM versions.

Which come with eMMC.

Wondering if there's going to be a CM5?

[thermistor-guy]

...
I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out..

I run a few rpi model 3b units, always on, as network appliances. Transcend and Sandisk microSD cards have worked well as main storage.

[rteodor]

Or they use CM versions.

Which come with eMMC.

Wondering if there's going to be a CM5?

There are clients with pockets, capable to design products and integrate Pi CM modules. Would Pi Foundation miss the chance to sell them RP1 once they poured 25M into developing it ? I would bet that CM5 will be much more interesting than CM3&4.

[Karel]

...
I gave up running an always on device on that Pi after going through multiple thrashed cards and cycles of restoring from backups when power went out..

I run a few rpi model 3b units, always on, as network appliances. Transcend and Sandisk microSD cards have worked well as main storage.

The same here. Spend a couple of bucks more for better cards and try to avoid accidental powerloss.

I use Libreelec on an RPI3B almost every night  and I never had a corrupted card.
Use mostly Sandisk cards class 10 speed bought from an offical retail shop, not some webshop with discounts.

Don't blame the RPI because of poor quality SD-cards.

[bitwelder]

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I'd hope that there is also a header available on the board for the 'power button' function, so one can connect some other remote switch to turn on the Pi (e.g. a self-powered IR receiver)

[SiliconWizard]

The handier part of it is not really about shutting down, but more about powering on. In previous versions, once shut down, the board could not be powered back on without power cycling it (pretty annoying). Now you can just press the button.

I'd hope that there is also a header available on the board for the 'power button' function, so one can connect some other remote switch to turn on the Pi (e.g. a self-powered IR receiver)

Good point and good question.

[abeyer]

The same here. Spend a couple of bucks more for better cards and try to avoid accidental powerloss.

I use Libreelec on an RPI3B almost every night  and I never had a corrupted card.
Use mostly Sandisk cards class 10 speed bought from an offical retail shop, not some webshop with discounts.

Don't blame the RPI because of poor quality SD-cards.

I can't speak for others, but mine has consistently killed good name brand cards, and even a variety of several brands from different vendors. Maybe there's something wrong w/ my board, but I've never had the power fail on it and not had the card die... so, yeah, I'm gonna blame the pi.

[Infraviolet]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

Seems to be away from the direction the Zero and Zero W aimed for.

*they're already doing this with the rp3040 as a very good product for that entirely separate field of use

[themadhippy]

rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such

Aint that the pi picos market?

[langwadt]

rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such

Aint that the pi picos market?

pico is an MCU, not what I'd call an SBC

[beanflying]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

Seems to be away from the direction the Zero and Zero W aimed for.

*they're already doing this with the rp3040 as a very good product for that entirely separate field of use

Not just you https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/are-high-end-sbc-toast-or-is-12thgen-amd-x64-going-to-kill-them-off/

After some decent playing with both my view has sort of solidified that there is still a place for high end SBC's BUT there is significant downsides to them for general purpose computing work because of software and mainline support issues. By the time you power supply, case and storage some higher end SBC's you can actually now buy an N100 Intel 'system' for less.

[Infraviolet]

In a robot you'd often have several Picos (rp2040) handling realtime control of sensors and actuators, dealing with feedback loops which need to happen fast, all as slaves to a small SBC which would make higher level longer term decisions, the sort of thing for which having a full OS software stack and the ability for your robot's program to call other existing programs  and handle files is really helpful. These sort of things work well together, MCU and smal SBCs, whereas large higher performance SBCs can become more challenging to mount and power, space and power constraints can get quite tight. Cost is an issue too, although once you account for the cost of sensors and actuators the cost of the SBC is less significant a factor than the importance of being small and not drawing so much current. Cost applies more where your "robot" is some sort of IoT device with perhaps just one actuator or sensor, again size and power consumption* matter.

*an actuator might take rather more power than an SBC, but the actuator might only move occasionally, the SBC is on all of the time

[SiliconWizard]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such?

Maybe, maybe not.
To begin with, embedded stuff has never really been the core point of the RPi foundation. It's been to give access to ultra-cheap computing to the masses, in particular poor people who can't afford more expensive stuff.

Sure people have been using these boards for all kinds of things, but purely focusing on embedded would IMO defeat the main goal of the RPi. So they have to update their designs on a regular basis to match the level of performance that's still relevantly equivalent to what their goal has always been.

Now, arguably, prices going up would be against the RPi's core goal, but if you look at it and compared to the previous generations, at constant value (especially considering the current level of inflation everywhere), the price raise is still reasonable. (And the prices we get here in the EU as I mentioned are not RPi's concern, they are all due to various taxes.)

Also, they have released simplified variants (the "zeroes") in the past, at a very low cost. We'll see if they release a "zero" variant of the RPi5 (as well as a CM5 OTOH, as I mentioned earlier.)

[IanB]

I don't know how things work in NZ, nor the deal about this $1000 threshold. Over here in EU, we pay VAT on absolutely everything starting at the first cent.

What I understand about the UK is that if you buy something from the UK that is to be shipped to an overseas address (such as NZ, or the EU), then UK VAT should not be charged. However, you will of course be subject to VAT and import duty for the country (France?) where you receive the goods, and it may be that a customs agreement between the EU and the UK requires the UK seller to collect EU VAT on your behalf and record it on the customs form.

This is, for example, the case if you buy something from China for delivery to the UK (and also the EU). The Chinese seller is obligated to collect VAT on the sale and remit it to the UK government.

[David Hess]

Is it me, or does it feel like R Pi is moving in somewhat the wrong direction? Higher performance, higher price, higher current consumption single board computers to rival laptops/desktps/servers, rather than smaller medium performance SBCs to embed in robots and such? I'm not meaning heading toward microcontrollers*, always smaller, cheaper and lower consumption than SBCs, but embedded computers to have a full OS and file system on them. The Pi Zero and Zero W as the ideal examples.

The path recently was:
Pi 3, pretty much never needed a fan andother cooling help
Pi 4, often bu not always needs a fan for the high powered versions when doing any fairly heavy computatio
Pi 5, almost always needs a fan

If they had originally placed the processor where a board sized aluminum heat sink could be placed, or the processor could contact the enclosure like on my x86 based Alix, then passive cooling would never have been a problem.  Some of the Pi alternatives are designed this way with the processor exposed on the back of the board.

The original design was optimistic about cooling even with its low power processor.

You have hit the nail on the head!
That is EXACTLY what I was worried about.
Possibly unreliable and data losing, microSD cards.

Hence wanting a very reliable, long lasting alternative.
Which I hoped would be eMMC, but as a result of this thread.  I’m not so sure, so maybe M.2 SSD, via case/HAT/adaptor/etc, is best?  If eMMC is not available and/or not as reliable.

My solution has been to use full size 2.5 inch SATA SSDs, and I have had no problems with the Crucial BX and MX 500 units that I have, but M.2 SSDs could be good also.  I tested a SATA Samsung 870 EVO for a while which did have data corruption issues but it was not clear what caused it.

In the past I had good results with industrial Compact Flash cards, but had problems with limited endurance.

[MK14]

My solution has been to use full size 2.5 inch SATA SSDs, and I have had no problems with the Crucial BX and MX 500 units that I have, but M.2 SSDs could be good also.  I tested a SATA Samsung 870 EVO for a while which did have data corruption issues but it was not clear what caused it.

In the past I had good results with industrial Compact Flash cards, but had problems with limited endurance.

I've had good results (in their day), with Compact Flash card(s).  Essentially a fully solid state, IDE interfaced hard disk equivalent, before people even used terms such as SSDs etc.
I don't know if it was just the mini-PC (probably a thin-client class of device) causing it, but I think it was on the slow side.  But totally reliable.

Some people seem to recommend, making the microSD card, effectively read only (after installing the OS, and setting it up).  Which then makes it very reliable.
Which would work, if you only use it for booting, then have some extra/external HDD/SSD connected up for bulk storage (or a network NAS etc).

Thin-clients, seem to have tiny SSD (like) devices, on small PCBs, which are a bit like miniature, PC RAM DDR4 like things.  They would seem somewhat idea for Raspberry Pi's.  I.e. Compact dimensions, with the reliability of full sized SSDs (hopefully).
Different versions / types, only one pictured here as an example:

[David Hess]

Thin-clients, seem to have tiny SSD (like) devices, on small PCBs, which are a bit like miniature, PC RAM DDR4 like things.  They would seem somewhat idea for Raspberry Pi's.  I.e. Compact dimensions, with the reliability of full sized SSDs (hopefully).

My Alix has some variation of an M.2 form factor SSD, but one of the shorter ones so it is quite small.

Crucial says that their current generation M.2 form factor NVMe SSDs have power loss protection, like their BX and MX 500 SATA SSDs, but without a capacitor bank I am not sure how that works.  Years ago Sandforce made similar claims for their SSD controllers but they regularly corrupted data during power loss.

I trust Crucial because of their connection to Micron, and so far that has worked out.

[MK14]

have power loss protection, like their BX and MX 500 SATA SSDs, but without a capacitor bank I am not sure how that works.

I don't know, specifically, for those manufacturer's.  But, one method (possibly the one they use), is to treat a section of the SSD's flash memory, as if it was only a SLC (single level cell, so it takes up perhaps, what would have given a useable 80 GB of space (in e.g. QLC, 4 bits stored per cell), as 20 GB of SLC.
My understanding is, the more data bits stored in a single cell, the longer and longer it takes, to reliably read or write, that data.

So it is using SLC, to make it fast enough to keep up with even very, very fast data-streams.  Potentially unlike, schemes such as QLC.

That then means, it can be used as a super fast, scratch pad.  Filling up with any data, BEFORE any possible power loss.
AFTER the power loss event, it can then leisurely convert the SLC scratch pad copy, into the proper QLC format, taking its time.

Hence those supercapacitors are no longer needed.

Also, if the space runs out, the SLC scratch pad, can be repurposed, back to high density QLC, to allow them to claim the SSD, still has the specified maximum capacity, of e.g. 2 TB.

[Karel]

Raspberry Pi 5: Hot takes and cooler mistakes

How does the device fare as a daily driver, and is cooling really optional?

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/17/life_with_pi_5/

[ataradov]

This is the most pointless article I've seen in a while. They mention "daily driver" a ton without ever mentioning what they actually do. I also used it as a daily driver and thermals were fine, I did not even have to power it up because I'm a gardener and don't use technology on a daily basis.

And there is no need to use for a week if you just want to stress the thermals, artificial tests do that just fine. It is not like it will get worse a week from now.

[IanB]

This is the most pointless article I've seen in a while. They mention "daily driver" a ton without ever mentioning what they actually do.

I guess some people might try to use an RPi as a desktop computer for everyday use? Not that it seems sensible to do so, but someone could try?

[ataradov]

It is fine, but when writing an article, describe what you actually do. If all you do is type up a couple articles in the browser, then Pi5 will do fine. If you edit videos, then may be not.

The article here is a world salad of obvious facts, which boils down to "If you do any real work, you may need an active coiling". This was obvious from day one, there is no need to "test drive" it for a week.

[IanB]

That's cool 

To be honest, I didn't have time to click through the link and see what the article was saying.

Many of the things I have seen people doing with Pi's involve monitoring and logging. In which case, for most of the time it is just sitting there waiting for something to happen.

[thermistor-guy]

...I guess some people might try to use an RPi as a desktop computer for everyday use? Not that it seems sensible to do so, but someone could try?

I tried the rpi4 for that - a lightweight desktop for web browsing - but it choked running Firefox. That's when I got a Udoo Bolt Gear, which worked fine.

The rpi5 might work as lightweight desktop. Worth testing if you also have another use for it, if it doesn't work out.
Personally, I'll wait until Akasa makes a silent case for it and Debian supports it.

[SiliconWizard]

Properly set up, no reason you can't web browse on a RPi4... two things to consider though: the amount of RAM, and how RAM-hungry Firefox is. Forget about any version below 4GB. And even with that... when you see how much RAM Firefowx can gobble up with a few tabs open, you'll quickly run out of RAM. That's more a RAM problem than raw performance, although of course disk access is also a bottleneck and the RPi4 has a limited microSD card speed, so you'd need to at least set up Firefox (or any other web browser) to write its cache to an external drive, forget about using a microSD card for that.

The RPi5 should have twice the bandwidth for microSD cards so that should be definitely better, it also has PCIe although that will require an external adapter just to be able to use a SSD.
A RPi5 with 8GB RAM and an external drive should be plenty fine for that, but anything below that bar and you'll be in for disappointment.

I'm using Firefox and it's currently using 10GB of RAM. So, yeah. If you are using that on a SBC with limited RAM that will start swapping to a microSD card very quickly, that of course becomes completely unusable.

[themadhippy]

Properly set up, no reason you can't web browse on a RPi4.

If your very  patient   even the original b model can browse the web

[Karel]

Raspberry Pi 5: available now!

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-5-available-now/

[SiliconWizard]

Me personally, I would be more excited to see the RP1 chip being available for purchase along with good documentation, than the RPi5 itself.

[Karel]

Raspberry Pi 5: available now!

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-5-available-now/

[YurkshireLad]

Raspberry Pi 5: available now!

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-5-available-now/

Still only available a pre-order at my local store.

[radiolistener]

Properly set up, no reason you can't web browse on a RPi4... two things to consider though: the amount of RAM, and how RAM-hungry Firefox is. Forget about any version below 4GB. And even with that... when you see how much RAM Firefowx can gobble up with a few tabs open, you'll quickly run out of RAM. That's more a RAM problem than raw performance

Yes, with 4GB and more RPI4 and RPI5 allows you to read text web sites with no issue. But there is a lack of HD video playback in browser. It is pretty usable for youtube with 480p, but 720p has lags, frame drops and artifacts, 1080p is even worse. 1080p is playable on youtube, but you will notice a lot of frame drops, blurred and crumbling picture for dynamic scenes.  And there is a big problem with video playback even with low resolution on some modern web sites, like telegram. It starts to lagging even if you don't playing video, just mouse cursor starts jerky moving and text scrolling is jittery.

It can play offline video files with 1080p resolution up to 60 fps with VLC or MPV player with hw acceleration, but video file needs to be encoded with H265 HEVC codec. H264 AVC1 also supported, but max playable resolution is 1080p up to 30 fps. With 60 fps it starts to lagging.

There are also some issues with apps. On raspios Bullseye there is a big issue with screen tearing and low graphics performance. On raspios Bookworm screen tearing and graphics performance is fixed but there are a new issues with window positioning and sizing due to switching on Waylaynd/wayfire, it works with great speed and with smooth graphics, but Xwayland don't implement some functions like XMoveWindow, so it leads to window layout issues for apps which using dynamic window collapse/expanding/repositioning, like context menu, video players, messengers, etc.

Ubuntu works good, but has 3x times lower graphics performance than raspios Bookworm and 2x times lower performance than raspios Bullseye. Firefox on Ubuntu works a little bit laggy even for text web sites.

So, RPI4 and RPI5 is nice machine for a text browsing, but if you're planning some home media center there is a lack of HD video playback support, so if you want to use it with large HD or UHD display there is a sense to looking for something more powerful.

Regarding to RPI5, I don't have it to test, but I read many review and resposnes about it and I'm not sure if it worth to replace RPI4 with RPI5, because RPI5 has higher power requirements, and despite the fact that it has twice faster CPU with hw cryptoextensions but it still not enough to support UHD displays and play UHD videos. So, my impressions are contradictory about it. I think it will be nice as a low power home server, but as a desktop it depends on what you're planning to run...

I'm interesting to test Orange Pi 5 for comparison, according to some videos it can better play HD and UHD videos and has better OpenGL performance, but I'm not sure... At least it shows twice higher glmark2 performance, if this is true, then I think it may be a better choice as desktop or media center replacement.

If your very  patient   even the original b model can browse the web

it depends on what site you're want to browse. It lags like hell when scrolling telegram page with videos, also google maps is slow, graphics games in browser are unplayable due to very low speed.

I know this is not high power station with powerful GPU, but modern smartphones allows to play it very well and smooth. So unable to play it on a new modern SBC looks a little bit strange...

But there is needs to say that for many text web sites it works well, I'm using it every day and I wrote this message on rpi4 

[djacobow]

I think I'm pretty much finished with the Pi foundation. I'll miss raspbian, because the os just works and the community is huge, but I'm finding their devices increasingly just weird.

Like if I want a little PC, I'll get an n100 device, and if I want a low power sbc with gpio, the are other devices that are just better.

I like the Le Potato for simple stuff that needs gpio, but still needs a proper os. Super cheap.

For compute power, the rock-5b is a monster by sbc standards and has m.2, pcie 3, emmc, and it still has gpio. It's too expensive, though. It's being up into PC territory when you trick it out. I put an nvme ssd in mine and it is a rocket by comparison to any other sbc I've used.

I'm also tired of the pi's killing sdcards. As others have pointed out, this is not just filesystem corruption, the cards themselves are typically murdered. I've switched to emmc on the rock devices and it is more reliable and faster.

Anyway, Upton has made it clear that he wants to make little desktop computers. That direction doesn't interest me very much. That plus the whole supply chain thing getting me off my duff to try other boards, and I'm finished with Pi Foundation.

[Simon]

We’re incredibly grateful to the community of makers and hackers who make Raspberry Pi what it is; you’ve been extraordinarily patient throughout the supply chain issues that have made our work so challenging over the last couple of years. We’d like to thank you: we’re going to ringfence all of the Raspberry Pi 5s we sell until at least the end of the year for single-unit sales to individuals, so you get the first bite of the cherry.

Don't get too exited, they still have supply chain issues. I suspect that they are feeling the pain of previous issues. At work we swapped a product design to the Rock 4 and have not sold any yet so while RPi3/4 may be available now they have screwed their sales there to us. The RPi5 clearly is not worth considering until there is certainty of supply. To be honest, I'd not even bother personally, after my firs-t cool project will I be able to get another?

[onsokumaru]

I am looking forward to the release of a CM5 module, and wondering if they'll continue to use the same connectors and pinout. I think the new IO chip is a great move to maintain future IO compatibility despite the SoC choice.

[Karel]

Don't get too exited, they still have supply chain issues.

Any reliable sources for that? Because from what I understood, they are baking Raspberry Pi's like crazy but the problem now is that the demand is higher than wat they can produce.
Once most (pre)orders have been serviced, situation will go back to normal. The RPI is simply too successful... 

[YurkshireLad]

Can you plug a small/cheap GPU card into the RasPi5 to offload video decoding?

[beanflying]

Can you plug a small/cheap GPU card into the RasPi5 to offload video decoding?

PCIe 2.0 x1 so very unlikely. There are SBC's out there based on the RK3588 with PCIe 3.0 x4 that will run 'some' supported Nvidia GPU's, I have been playing with an old Quadro on one.

[Simon]

Don't get too exited, they still have supply chain issues.

Any reliable sources for that? Because from what I understood, they are baking Raspberry Pi's like crazy but the problem now is that the demand is higher than wat they can produce.
Once most (pre)orders have been serviced, situation will go back to normal. The RPI is simply too successful... 

Yea, further down the article you quoted is the quote I posted. So they can't keep up with demand as things are but have gone with preorders further burdening their supply, sounds more like a desperate move to sure up finances.

[Karel]

Don't get too exited, they still have supply chain issues.

Any reliable sources for that? Because from what I understood, they are baking Raspberry Pi's like crazy but the problem now is that the demand is higher than wat they can produce.
Once most (pre)orders have been serviced, situation will go back to normal. The RPI is simply too successful... 

Yea, further down the article you quoted is the quote I posted. So they can't keep up with demand as things are but have gone with preorders further burdening their supply, sounds more like a desperate move to sure up finances.

That's not what I read. Are you talking about the Raspberry Pi organization or resellers like Sparkfun?
From what I understand is that a lot of Pi's are sent to resellers every day but those resellers have too many preorders.
What isn't nice is that somebody seemed to preorder an RPI5 from Sparkfun and got immediately charged but is still waiting.
But that's hardly the fault of the Raspberry Pi organization.

[Simon]

It's in Raspberry pi's own article: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/introducing-raspberry-pi-5/

[SiliconWizard]

It's been out of stock for a while now (let me know if you can buy one right now though), everything went very fast due to the massive preordering and the hype around the Pi5. Good for them, but not sure how sustainable the supply will ever be.

[Microdoser]

So it seems that the camera and screen connectors are a different size on the 5 than they were on the 4.

Anyone know whether converter cables are a thing?

[langwadt]

So it seems that the camera and screen connectors are a different size on the 5 than they were on the 4.

Anyone know whether converter cables are a thing?

yes, I believe they are the same as for the CM4 dev-board and they are different for the cam and display

[50ShadesOfDirt]

3 months or so later since I ordered some on Sparkfun ... keep getting messages once/month that some have come in, but not enough. Implication is that I'm still way down on the list to receive some. Apparently, demand now exceeds supply before these beasts even start shipping.

Bummer ...

[Simon]

Raspberry Pi need to decide who their customers are and cater for them. I am just starting to take my baby steps in using a single board computer, and yes I say SBC, any SBC, even though I am practicing with a P400 for simplicity I will not use a single feature that is Pi specific as I know it would be a waste of time.

[langwadt]

3 months or so later since I ordered some on Sparkfun ... keep getting messages once/month that some have come in, but not enough. Implication is that I'm still way down on the list to receive some. Apparently, demand now exceeds supply before these beasts even start shipping.

Bummer ...

look around, here there's several shops with pi5 in stock, I just got one

[Veteran68]

look around, here there's several shops with pi5 in stock, I just got one

This. I've had several opportunities to buy the Pi 5 recently, but passed (I have too many Pi's and other SBCs to keep me busy right now). I can usually find at least one model in stock somewhere between Pishop, Pimoroni, DigiKey, etc. They'll go OOS but are pretty quick to come back. Just hit all those places and signup for their stock notifications.

[brucehoult]

3 months or so later since I ordered some on Sparkfun ... keep getting messages once/month that some have come in, but not enough. Implication is that I'm still way down on the list to receive some. Apparently, demand now exceeds supply before these beasts even start shipping.

I ordered one from Pimoroni (UK) on 29/9 and it shipped on 25/11 and was delivered in NZ on 7/12.

I haven't had time/need to play with it yet, but it's sitting ready when I do.

[radiolistener]

A reliable and long lasting solution is SLC SDCards. I use such cards for almost 10 years now and they are more reliable than the Pi's they run on.

How to check which sdcard type I have? Unfortunately there is no any mention if it SLC or something else...

[Karel]

A reliable and long lasting solution is SLC SDCards. I use such cards for almost 10 years now and they are more reliable than the Pi's they run on.

How to check which sdcard type I have? Unfortunately there is no any mention if it SLC or something else...

You'll need to find the datasheet from the manufacturer. If you can't find the datasheet, assume it's not SLC.

Also, when looking for a new card, you can filter on "SLC" when looking for SD cards at Digikey.

[rteodor]

A reliable and long lasting solution is SLC SDCards. I use such cards for almost 10 years now and they are more reliable than the Pi's they run on.

How to check which sdcard type I have? Unfortunately there is no any mention if it SLC or something else...

In my case I bought Integral Endurance (the white ones made in Japan) being advertised as SLC. I don't remember having a datasheet for them and now I can not find them anymore. It seems that the Internet has memory issues as well.

Two of my Pi1's failed because of LAN chip. Replaced LAN chip and put back the old SD card in one of them (those QFN chips are a bitch to solder back). The resilience of those cards is impressive because I installed the first Pi1 in 2014 and the SD cards about the same time. In the meantime on a companion Rpi2 I had about 4 or 5 micro SDcard hard failures ranging in time from 3 months till the latest fail after 4 1/2 years with a quality SandDisk. And Pi1's wrote a lot more data than Pi2. Compare that with only one logic failure so far on the 4 Endurance SDcards in almost 10 years.

Last time I checked for SLC on Mouser was during the pandemic. Prices were sky high and not in stock.

[DiTBho]

For one reason or another, I don't like *ANY* RPI, except one thing: they have great support for RiscOS6.
I am planning to invest more time with Haiku/Beta4++ on RiscV this year 

[DiTBho]

canbus

what do you use/are you planning to use on the GNU/Linux SBC side (hw/sw) to operate with CanBus? 

[Postal2]

... to use on the GNU/Linux SBC side (hw/sw) to operate with CanBus? 

Here there are Linux and can-buses for your convenience (photo).
_
I'm waiting here for a custom water-cooled "Embedded" RPI (RPI 5 or 6..7).

[radiolistener]

You'll need to find the datasheet from the manufacturer. If you can't find the datasheet, assume it's not SLC.

Also, when looking for a new card, you can filter on "SLC" when looking for SD cards at Digikey.

There is no datasheet, I'm using SanDisk A2 Extreme sdcard:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005661979512.html

How to check it's flash type?

[Karel]

You'll need to find the datasheet from the manufacturer. If you can't find the datasheet, assume it's not SLC.

Also, when looking for a new card, you can filter on "SLC" when looking for SD cards at Digikey.

There is no datasheet, I'm using SanDisk A2 Extreme sdcard:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005661979512.html

How to check it's flash type?

Without the datasheet, you'll never know for sure. But you already have a much bigger problem: don't buy stuf from aliexpress if it needs to be reliable...

If you need a reliable sd-card, you must be prepared to pay more for it. If you don't want that, forget reliability.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/memory-cards/501

At the filter section, go to "technology" and select "SLC".

[brucehoult]

Aliexpress is just a web store interface. There are thousands of individual vendors on there, some good, some bad, some with good products, some with bad.

Stick to the good vendors and there is absolutely no problem e.g. as just a couple of examples the WCH and Sipeed official stores:

https://sipeed.aliexpress.us/store/1101739727

https://wchofficialstore.aliexpress.us/store/1102052740

If you do a generic search for a generic product like SD cards and pick the lowest price for some random shit from some random vendor then sure you may well get what you deserve.

On that particular topic: the Amazon Basics SD cards seem to be very good.

[Karel]

On that particular topic: the Amazon Basics SD cards seem to be very good.

Are they SLC? Do they offer a (technical) datasheet?
Or do you think that people who are looking for a reliable sd-card should simply buy amazon basics sd cards because they "seem to be very good"?

[Veteran68]

There are plenty of "good" SD cards that are not SLC. I use a multitude of SD cards between devices ranging from multiple Pi's and other SBCs to mobile devices to 3D printers to cameras, they're all name brand but I doubt many if any of them are SLC. I think I can count the number of failed SD cards I've experienced on a couple of fingers.

Sure, spec SLC if you have a mission critical application. If you're just doing something at home, take a backup image occasionally and have spare cards on hand for when one fails, and just about any brand card that isn't fake and meets its specs will likely do just fine.

[brucehoult]

Sure, spec SLC if you have a mission critical application.

If it's really mission critical then I'd be worried about the effects of vibration, dust, corrosion on the SD card connector. The Odroid defacto standard eMMC module connector should be more reliable or better still soldered in eMMC as found in a number of recent SBCs.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, I'll consider the next RPi when they add eMMC onboard. Oh, and if they can document the RP1, that'll be great too.

[Postal2]

Why nobody ask me about what kind of SBC inside industrial device on photo above? No interest? May be RPI inside, under top cover?

[rteodor]

Why nobody ask me about what kind of SBC inside industrial device on photo above? No interest? May be RPI inside, under top cover?

Last mount time 2011 with kernel 3.18 ? By that date alone it can not be Raspberry Pi. Looks more like a car ECU. Teardown ?

LE: now I see the date on the stamp seem to be 2019. Also:
"Dungheinrich Industrial Electronic Recycling Repair is a 15+ year old Family-owned company located in Kernersville, NC proudly serving individuals and businesses in the United States with their computers and electronics recycling/repair needs."

[Postal2]

Looks more like a car ECU. Teardown ?

Yes (photo).
What does it look like?

[rteodor]

I can make a quess about what that is, but I can not see the connection with the RaspberryPi.
It is not the only Linux SBC board with on-board CAN probably pre-dating RaspberryPi. Just that those SBC's were dedicated to some specific purpose and usually only available to their clients only.

[Postal2]

I can not see the connection with the RaspberryPi.

I can not see the connection with the RaspberryPi and "Embedded" (last model).
SBC embedded to this industrial device is BeagleBone.
Example provided as answer where Linux-SBC and CAN-bus together (question above).

[rteodor]

I can not see the connection with the RaspberryPi.

I can not see the connection with the RaspberryPi and "Embedded" (last model).
SBC embedded to this industrial device is BeagleBone.
Example provided as answer where Linux-SBC and CAN-bus together (question above).

As long as there are GPIO pins I2C and SPI, one can claim "embedded". You are partly right: the gap is getting bigger. I prefer to have a RPi1/2/3 for heat control radio music and what not, and a separate Pi5 as an always on desktop replacement and not mess with its pin header. Still, knowing that I can always put a HAT on any of them is just great. It holds value as the Pi5 model is ageing.

[Postal2]

rteodor, OK. I hope my info is interesting and useful.

[SiliconWizard]

Watercooling for your Pi5! 
https://www.seeedstudio.com/High-Performance-Liquid-Cooler-for-Raspberry-Pi-5-p-5854.html

[Postal2]

I have no words. "Cluster of RPIs..." Try CUDA with passive GT710 and compare.