Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

According to the official Raspberry Pi claims, the processing power of the Raspberry Pi 5 is two to three times that of the Raspberry Pi 4, which is already a powerful single-board computer. The Raspberry Pi 5 offers 4GB and 8GB RAM options (with 1GB and 2GB models to be released later), its basic size and shape are the same as Model 4 B, but it adds many features that people have long requested, such as a built-in real-time clock, a PCIe 2.0 connector, and a power button.

Perhaps more importantly, the Raspberry Pi is equipped with a new quad-core 2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 Arm CPU (the old model originally ran at 1.5 GHz Cortex-A72, but firmware updates have pushed it to 1.8 GHz), a new southbridge promising improved USB 3 throughput, and a new VideoCore VII GPU running at 800 MHz (compared to the 500 MHz VideoCore VI on the Pi 4). There are many small improvements across the board, including a built-in fan header with mounting holes, faster dual-camera connectors, and a microSD card reader that can work with high-speed cards.

The official suggested retail price for the 4GB and 8GB models is only $60 or $80, just $5 more than the same memory capacity SKU of the Raspberry Pi 4, making it a powerful upgrade. But how good is the performance of the Raspberry Pi 5? How does it work with the existing HAT and accessory ecosystem? We conducted some tests to find out.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

The Raspberry Pi 5 bears a striking resemblance to the Raspberry Pi 4 and 3B+.

At first glance, it looks like another classic Raspberry Pi board design reminiscent of the B+ redesign from 2014, but take a closer look! The 3.5mm composite jack has disappeared, so this generation of Raspberry Pi does not have analog video/audio. That said, we haven’t used that port since the Raspberry Pi 3.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

The Raspberry Pi 5 has an amazing similarity to the Raspberry Pi 4 and 3B+. At first glance, it is another classic Raspberry Pi board design reminiscent of the B+ redesign from 2014, but take a closer look! The 3.5mm composite jack has disappeared, so this generation of Raspberry Pi does not have analog video/audio. That said, we haven’t used that port since the Raspberry Pi 3.

The camera and display connectors are smaller, matching the smaller 15-pin connector of the Raspberry Pi Zero (instead of the original 22-pin). Note that there are now two adjacent connectors, allowing us to connect two cameras, two DSI displays, or a mix of both.

The third interface is for PCIe devices. This is a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface for fast peripherals, which means NVMe SSDs. We asked Upton about this interface, and he confirmed it will work with NVMe drives of all sizes, but for that, we need a specially designed M.2 HAT, which has not yet been prepared for release at the time of this review.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

The Raspberry Pi 5 retains the dual micro HDMI ports introduced with the Raspberry Pi 4. Each port is capable of 4K 60 output, but to be honest, we have never used a Raspberry Pi with dual displays. There is a UART connector between the micro HDMI ports that can be used with the Raspberry Pi Pico debugging kit or to establish a UART connection with other microcontrollers.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Sharp-eyed observers will notice that the USB and Ethernet ports have swapped places. The Raspberry Pi 5 seems to have drawn inspiration from old motherboards. The Raspberry Pi 4 saw the port positions swapped, and now they have swapped back. What does this mean? It means the Raspberry Pi 5 will require a new case. Besides the port changes, there are some subtle differences that will make cases designed for the old Raspberry Pi B model incompatible. Interestingly, the Raspberry Pi 5 product brief states, “If used inside a case, the case should not cover the case.” The reason for this will be addressed during our review, but overall, the Raspberry Pi 5 CPU needs to stay cool.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Let’s introduce two new features of the Raspberry Pi 5. First, we have a real-time clock backup battery. Yes, your Raspberry Pi can now keep the correct time without an NTP server or an additional board that takes up GPIO space.

The other new feature is the power button! Some may scoff at this added feature, but it is a frequently requested feature that has led some manufacturers to invent their own/buy third-party products. After turning on the Raspberry Pi, press once to bring up the shutdown/logout menu. Pressing it again will trigger a safe shutdown. This shutdown is more like standby, with the Raspberry Pi consuming 1.4W. Pressing the power button will start the Raspberry Pi 5. You can also program the operating system to make the button perform other actions, as it is a momentary button rather than a hard switch that cuts power.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

One thing that remains unchanged is the now ubiquitous 40-pin GPIO. The 40-pin GPIO was first introduced with the Raspberry Pi B+ in 2014, along with the HAT (HAT Add-on Hardware) standard. HAT is a standard similar to Arduino’s Shield, providing a standard design template and electronic standardization for an increasing number of add-ons. The GPIO of the Raspberry Pi 5 is basically the same as the previous models, but there are some changes that will be detailed later.

Raspberry Pi 5 Heat and Power Performance

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Your current question is, “How does this compare to the Raspberry Pi 4?” At idle, the Raspberry Pi 4 has a running temperature of 45.7 C and a power consumption of 1.02 W. Under stress, we see the temperature jump to 79.8 C, with the Pi 4’s power consumption at 6.2 W.

The power consumption of the Raspberry Pi 5 increases by about 1W, with greater computing power. The Raspberry Pi 4 beats the Pi 5 in terms of its non-cooled stress test temperature: 79.8 C, while the Pi 5 reaches 86.7 C (thermal throttling). However, with an active cooler, the Pi 5’s temperature drops to 59.3 C, providing us with excellent processing power while keeping relatively low temperatures.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is the hottest product of the Raspberry Pi line, which means that for optimal performance, we need cooling. We tested the official Raspberry Pi Active Cooler, which worked quite well. The cooler consists of an aluminum heatsink (with a lovely anodized Raspberry Pi logo) and a fan combination.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

It can cool the Arm-based SoC, RAM, and the new RP1 chip. The active cooler is not connected to the M2.5 mounting holes but has its own mounting holes. One is located next to the USB C port, and the other is between the GPIO and USB ports. The active cooler uses push-fit plastic/nylon pins to secure the cooler in place. The cooler can be removed. Carefully squeeze and push the plastic pins with needle-nose pliers or a plastic pen tube.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

The official cooler connects to the new fan connector, located right next to the USB port, which is a significant improvement over previous Pis, where any fan you connected had to occupy GPIO pins, sometimes interfering with HAT usage. The fan will start when the CPU reaches 50°C. At idle, the heatsink keeps the Raspberry Pi 5’s temperature at 39.5°C, with a power consumption of 2.6 watts. Running our stress test found the temperature rising to 59.3°C (6.8 watts), well below the thermal throttling point. Thus, it seems that running the Raspberry Pi 5 with cooling consumes less power than without cooling.

The Raspberry Pi 5 introduces a new feature: the power button. I know this isn’t groundbreaking news for many of us. In the 1970s, we already had power buttons on our home computers, but the Raspberry Pi has never had a power button until now.

This button is a soft power button that calls scripts to choose logout/shutdown/restart, or pressing it again will soft shutdown the Raspberry Pi, putting it into standby mode. In standby, the Raspberry Pi 5 consumes 1.3 watts, about half the idle power consumption of the Raspberry Pi. But we can go lower. The Raspberry Pi engineering team provided us with instructions on how to reduce standby power consumption, and we saw the results!

Now our standby power consumption is 0.05W, significantly lower than before. This keeps the 5V GPIO pin in a high state, while the 3V3 pin is in a low state. This may be an issue for your favorite HAT, as it may not be able to shut down with the Raspberry Pi. The revised version of the HAT specification, HAT+, will address this issue, and Raspberry Pi will provide instructions.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Can we cool the Raspberry Pi 5 with existing heatsinks and fans? The answer is yes, but not every cooler fits due to the changes in the circuit board layout. Our favorite passive cooler is the Akasa Gem Pro.

The sci-fi decor that looks like it’s from the 1970s does not affect its cooling performance. A solid block of aluminum absorbs heat from the chip. Unfortunately, this cooler is not suitable for the Raspberry Pi 5.

For active cooling, we tried Pimoroni’s Fan Shim. A board that slides onto the GPIO, still providing access and not interfering. At idle, the Raspberry Pi 5’s temperature is about 29.6 C, very quiet, not as quiet as the new active cooler, but almost silent. The Fan Shim cools up to 60.4 C (while the official active cooler cools to 59.3 C), and if you already have the official active cooler, it is a viable alternative to the official active cooler. If not, buy an active cooler, but we still don’t know its price.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

For passive cooling, we bought a set of generic self-adhesive heatsinks from Amazon. Using adhesive, we placed appropriately sized heatsinks on the SoC, PMIC, and Wi-Fi chips. Did they work? Well, somewhat. The idle temperature of the Raspberry Pi 5 is 41.1 C, while the temperature without cooling is 50.5 C.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

We did reach thermal throttling (80°C) with heatsinks, at a temperature of 85.6°C, only 1.2°C lower than the no-cooling test. So what we learned from this test is that active cooling is crucial for the Raspberry Pi.

Can we overclock the Raspberry Pi 5?

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

In short, the answer is yes, but how fast you can go depends on the “silicon lottery.” Overclocking is a simple process that requires some adjustments to the configuration file. In our tests, we managed to overclock the CPU to 3 GHz, and we did manage to get to 3.2 GHz, but the speeds reported in neofetch and vcgencmd differ. Neofetch reports 3.2 GHz, but vcgencmd reports 3 GHz. After speaking with the Raspberry Pi engineering team, we are confident that the 3.2 GHz speed is incorrect, and the data was omitted in the review.

For any overclocking, you need good cooling. Passive cooling with small heatsinks won’t work because you need active cooling to keep temperatures below the 80°C thermal throttling trigger point. At 3 GHz, the idle temperature of the Raspberry Pi 5 is 46.6°C, with a power consumption of 3 watts. Under stress, the Raspberry Pi 5’s maximum temperature reaches 69.2°C, with a power consumption of 10 watts.

64-bit Operating System

Our review device is equipped with a microSD card running the latest pre-release version of the Raspberry Pi operating system, but this time it is a 64-bit operating system running Linux kernel 6.1.0. The 64-bit Raspberry Pi operating system version has long lagged behind the popular 32-bit version. This is mainly due to many old motherboards only supporting 32-bit operating systems. But support for 64-bit operating systems began with the Raspberry Pi 3.

The new operating system is based on Debian 12, codenamed “Bookworm,” released in July 2023. Bookworm has undergone many changes, one of the biggest being the new version of Python. In previous versions, we saw Python 3.9 as the default version, but for Bookworm, we see an upgrade to 3.11, which changes the way we install Python modules.

In the past, we would install Python modules at the system level or per user. This worked well for many users, but it could break/conflict with your base operating system Python installation, which would use the package manager and install Python modules via pip. In Python 3.11, we see the introduction of PEP 668 to prevent or at least mitigate the impact.

PEP 668 aims to minimize the possibility of user-installed Python modules interfering with the Python version installed for the operating system, used for operating system-specific tools and end-user applications. PEP 668 does not allow users to install Python packages into the main operating system using pip. Instead, we must create a virtual environment (venv), activate it, and then install the Python modules of our choice. This venv is isolated from the operating system and will not cause any issues. It does make it a bit tricky for newcomers to install Python modules, but it has a bigger impact for companies producing third-party add-ons and HATs.

Processing Performance

With faster boot times, faster microSD card performance, and a 64-bit operating system, we have a system that is more speed-focused. Raspberry Pi claims the Raspberry Pi 5 is 2 to 3 times faster than the Raspberry Pi 4, and it certainly feels that fast overall.

Opening applications is much faster. On the provided microSD card, opening Gimp on the Raspberry Pi 5 takes 5.5 seconds, while on the Raspberry Pi 4 it takes 10.8 seconds. Opening Firefox on the Pi 5 takes 5.1 seconds, while on the Pi 4 it takes 8.6 seconds.

In comprehensive benchmarks, the differences between generations are evident. In the Sysbench single-threaded CPU test, the Pi 5 generates 2,729 events per second, while the Pi 4 generates 1,766 events per second (the more events the better). When we raised the stakes to four threads, the Pi 5 again won with 10,912 events, a 54% improvement.

When we ran the 7-Zip compression benchmark, the Pi 5’s compression speed was 9,543 MIPS, while the old model’s compression speed was 4,287, a 122% improvement. It also provided 13,231 MIPs decompression, while the Pi 4 provided 7,568.

We have not run a full suite of AI tests, but we were able to run the TensorFlow Lite benchmark from the Phoronix Benchmark Suite using the SqueezeNet neural network. In this test, the score (the microseconds taken for the computer to complete the task) is better when lower. The Pi 5 took 25,276 microseconds, while the Pi 4 took 80,327 microseconds, a difference of 68%.

Video Playback and Streaming

Like the Raspberry Pi 4, the Pi 5 can output to two displays at up to 4K resolution via its dual microHDMI ports. With its enhanced GPU, the board promises to deliver 60 Hz refresh rates on each screen, even using HDR colors (if available).

We (still) couldn’t get it to perform HDR or verify if it outputs at 60 Hz, but it can easily output to a single 4K display, and we have every reason to believe it can power a second display (as its predecessor did). The bigger question is how the board handles challenging scenarios, such as high-resolution streaming video from YouTube.

Streaming video has long been a fatal weakness for the Raspberry Pi, and the faster GPU and CPU were expected to improve this. However, in our testing, YouTube performance remained lackluster. Running at 1080p resolution, we played “Tears of Steel” on YouTube at 1080p / 30 (actually closer to 24 fps), and performance was very smooth with almost no frame drops. When we switched to a 1080p, 60 fps natural video, the image still looked quite smooth, although YouTube’s “Stats for Nerds” overlay reported a fair amount of frame drops.

When we ran the screen at 4K resolution but kept the video at 1080p, both videos were very unstable and slow. Stats for Nerds’ statistics showed that their frame rates dropped by about two-thirds each. This was the case whether the video was played in full screen or just in part of the browser window. Even resizing the video player was slow.

Perhaps future software updates or configuration adjustments will improve YouTube streaming. However, the fact that it plays quite smoothly at 1080p when the screen is 1080p is still a significant improvement over previous Pis.

USB and MicroSD Card Performance, RP1 Chip

The Raspberry Pi board features a new “Pi Silicon” chip, the RP1. The RP1 looks very much like the RP2040 (Raspberry Pi’s first foray into custom silicon), providing the Raspberry Pi 5 with a lot of I/O.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

According to the product brief we received, the USB bandwidth provided by the RP1 is more than double that of previous models, so using USB drives with UAS (USB Attached SCSI) will transfer faster. The RP1 also provides a dedicated four-channel 1.5 Gbps MIPI camera and display interface. This increases the total bandwidth for camera and display combinations threefold. But remember, the theoretical maximum speed of the USB 3.0 ports is the same as the Pi 4 at 5 Gbps, so we rely on the enhanced processing power to increase throughput.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

To understand how fast the USB 3 connection speeds are on the Pi 5, we conducted storage benchmarks on the built-in microSD card reader and a PCIe 3.0 SSD located in the case and connected via USB. Using Sysbench’s file IO test, the Raspberry Pi 5 was able to read data from the Kingston Canvas Go Plus microSD card at 12.75MB/s and write at 8.5 MB/s. Meanwhile, the SSD’s read speed was 31.33 MB/s and write speed was 20.89 MB/s.

How does it compare to the Raspberry Pi 4? The Kingston Canvas Go Plus had read speeds of 8.78 MB/s and write speeds of 5.85 MB/s. The SSD’s read speed was 12.96 MB/s and write speed was 8.64 MB/s. Thus, the speeds of both the USB 3.0 and microSD card reader interfaces are more than double.

Speaking of microSD, the Pi 5’s card reader now supports faster microSD cards using the SDR104 standard. SDR104 is a subset of the popular UHS-I card standard, theoretically allowing transfer speeds of up to 104 MBps. While few cards are actually marked as supporting SDR104, you can find UHS-I cards that claim transfer speeds exceeding 100 MBps. The Pi 4’s card reader has a theoretical maximum speed of around 50 MBps, but in practice, we have never seen cards exceed 40 MBps.

We tried several different microSD cards on both the Pi 5 and Pi 4. Using the storage benchmark IOZone, we found that the Kingston Canvas Go Plus rated at 170 MBps had sequential read and write speeds in the range of 86 and 55 MBps. The same card had sequential write speeds in the range of 37 to 41 MBps on the Pi 4.

The Raspberry Pi 4 also has an M.2 connector that allows you to connect SSDs directly to it. This is quite a significant improvement, and we can’t wait to test NVMe drives with it once the required M.2 HAT is available. These already impressive numbers should be wiped clean.

Using GPIO

GPIO is the crowning glory of the Raspberry Pi. These 40 GPIO pins open the world of electronics projects using our preferred programming language. Raspberry Pi has a long association with Python, which is the primary preferred language for many projects, but we can also write GPIO code in Lua, Go, C, JavaScript, BASIC, or other languages.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Our tests usually involve interacting with GPIO using the Python modules RPi.GPIO and GPIO Zero. We performed the usual GPIO zero battery test, with no issues, which is good news for beginners looking to familiarize themselves with electronics and Raspberry Pi. While GPIO Zero works perfectly, RPi.GPIO has proven to be problematic, attributed to some behind-the-scenes configurations.

The RPi.GPIO module was created by Ben Croston in the early days of Raspberry Pi, and it quickly became the standard for many Raspberry Pi projects and hardware. RPi.GPIO is likely at the core of your favorite Raspberry Pi HAT software modules, meaning your experience with the Raspberry Pi 5 may not be smooth sailing at first. In fact, we failed to test any commonly used third-party HAT correctly. The official Raspberry Pi Sense HAT tested correctly, likely because it uses libgpiod on top of RPi.GPIO.

Raspberry Pi CTO Gordon Hollingworth provided a statement regarding PEP668 and Raspberry Pi 5 HAT compatibility.

“The Raspberry Pi operating system will follow the Debian operating system, Ubuntu, and other operating systems in adopting PEP668, which encourages users to understand the issues they may encounter when using pip to install, update, and remove software packages from the system. We will provide additional documentation to help our users understand this change, and we will introduce tools like virtualenvwrapper that make the process easier.

Any HAT that communicates using standard Linux interfaces will work without software changes. However, there is a lot of HAT software that relies on non-portable interfaces, such as RPi.GPIO, which get broken every time we release a new hardware device. During the pre-release phase, we are working closely with manufacturers to ensure their software is updated in time for the release of the Raspberry Pi 5, which is one of the clear advantages of releasing and launching our products separately!”

As Hollingworth said, the time between this announcement and the retail release of the Raspberry Pi 5 will give manufacturers time to prepare many of the best Raspberry Pi HATs and plugins for the Raspberry Pi 5. Once released, we will retest some of the boards. The official launch has already occurred.

Also, note that when the active cooler is in place, your access to the GPIO for jumpers will not be blocked. Finding a pin may be a bit tricky, but not impossible. Just make sure the wires are away from the rotating fan. If you plan to use HATs or other plugins with GPIO, purchase a 2×20 female-to-male adapter board. This will give you clearance above the cooler, keeping the intake clear. Some M2.5 standoffs and screws (about $10 on Amazon) will help stabilize the board.

Dual Camera Support

The Raspberry Pi 5 introduces multi-camera support to the mainstream Pi board, and compute module users will be accustomed to multi-camera support as it has been integrated into the compute module IO board from day one, but most Pi fans may not have the compute module.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

In terms of coding, both the libcamera and Picamera2 Python modules support multiple cameras, and we successfully tested by passing libcamera’s camera parameters (0 or 1) and using the correct camera constructor (also 0 or 1) with Picamera.

The camera/display connectors use a 15-pin connector, which was previously used on the Raspberry Pi Zero series boards, and the recent Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The camera module and older Raspberry Pis use a 22-pin connector, requiring a cable or adapter change. We tested with the Raspberry Pi 5, and everything went smoothly.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

Power over Ethernet Support

The Raspberry Pi 5 supports Power over Ethernet (PoE), but you will need to purchase a new PoE HAT to use it. The PoE connector was initially placed between the GPIO and Ethernet ports on the Raspberry Pi 3B+ and Raspberry Pi 4, which is now the location for the fan connector on the Raspberry Pi 5, but the PoE connector has now moved to the underside of the board, located between the camera/display connector and the Ethernet port. So we can’t just connect it with some jumpers. A replacement PoE HAT is expected in the near future.

Emulation with Raspberry Pi 5

At the time of writing, emulation on the Raspberry Pi 5 is catching up. There’s no doubt that RetroPie, Lakka, Recalbox, etc., will be working to update their respective products. Once compatible images are available, we will test this.

We hope that emulation for consoles post-PS2 will be better. Boards like Khadas’s VIM4 and Edge 2 Pro have excellent emulation performance for PS2 and PSP-era games. Gamecube/WiiU emulation will be the best fit, and we can see the Raspberry Pi 5 being adopted as a low-cost option for retro emulation.

If your tastes go even further back, we are 100% confident that the Raspberry Pi 5 has enough processing power to support 8-bit, 16-bit, and many 32-bit consoles. It can even improve the performance of some later arcade cabinets (since the late 90s) that have custom chips that need emulation.

Raspberry Pi Models

With a $5 price increase compared to previous models, is the Raspberry Pi 5 worth buying? For raw computing power, yes. We don’t reach the heights of the Khadas VIM4, Edge2 Pro, or LattePanda Sigma, but then again, we’re not spending that much.

Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

The Raspberry Pi 5 moves towards a low-cost, low-power Linux desktop, benefiting from GPIO. In the past, the Raspberry Pi was often seen as a GPIO-connected Linux computer. However, the initiative to align the Raspberry Pi operating system with Debian and Ubuntu standards makes it feel more like a Linux computer than ever before. PEP688 and its impact on HATs is an example of this change. In the short term, companies producing Raspberry Pi plugins will struggle to adapt their products, but that will happen. Some older plugins may not receive updates, in which case the fallback option is to use the Raspberry Pi 4 or earlier versions.

The weeks between this announcement and the official release should provide sufficient time for plugins and HATs to be ready for release. Get ready for the public to start using the Raspberry Pi.

In many ways, the Raspberry Pi 5 is a product that stands up to scrutiny. If you are a fan of the Pi, you will be eager to buy one, and considering the price of $60 or $80, you can probably afford it (just spend a few more dollars on cooling).

Like us, most makers will find many advantages in the Raspberry Pi 5: faster overall performance, smoother video playback, and greater storage bandwidth are the best reasons to choose the Pi 5 over the 4. Many will find that the RTC or power button will be game-changers.

As we tested the Pi 5 after its launch, we encountered some difficulties in HAT compatibility. HAT vendors like Pimoroni and Adafruit will need to update their Python libraries to work with the new version of Linux required by the Pi 5. However, we expect that most major HATs will be updated before consumers get their hands on them. Older or lesser-known HATs may have support issues.

If you don’t need the power button, then the Raspberry Pi 4 is still a good option; the old model can do more work without an active cooling system and has rock-solid support four years after its launch. If you don’t need Linux and just need GPIO, then the $8 Raspberry Pi Pico W has proven itself to be a versatile microcontroller. However, if you want the best single-board computer, then the Raspberry Pi 5 is your new leader.

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Raspberry Pi 5: Features Overview and Review

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