Who still remembers the release date of Raspberry Pi 4B? I checked, and it was released in 2019. Four years later, in October 2023, Raspberry Pi finally launched their new product, Raspberry Pi 5. Although it has been released, the number of people who can get it is quite small. It took me a couple of months to get my hands on Raspberry Pi 5.

Now let’s talk about the changes in Raspberry Pi 5. The first change is in the name.

The previous generation product was called Raspberry Pi 4B, while this new development board is simply called Raspberry Pi 5, without any suffix. Does this mean that there might not be models like Raspberry Pi 5A in the future? I think it’s very likely.

Because the A series during the 4B era seems to have not been updated, it only remains at the latest generation 3A+

This time, the official has completely cut off the 5A model. I even believe that this fifth-generation product will not have Zero3, because the heat generated by the chip used this time, I estimate, the small size of the Zero series cannot bear it at all.

If there is, it probably won’t use the same model SoC as 5. However, there will still be Raspberry Pi CM5, which is aimed at industrial applications.

In terms of configuration, this time Raspberry Pi uses a new BCM2712 SoC. Although it seems like a small upgrade, this CPU uses quad-core 2.4GHz Cortex-A76 cores. It is roughly equivalent to RK3588 without all the small cores. The official says the processing performance is two to three times that of Raspberry Pi 4B.

The GPU has also been upgraded to a new 800 MHz VideoCore VII (compared to the 500 MHz VideoCore VI on Pi 4), and this time it adds a new feature to support HDR display. It also supports Vulkan 1.2 and OpenGL ES 3.2

This time the memory uses LPDDR4X -4267 SDRAM, which is slightly better than the LPDDR4 of 4B. Currently, there are only 4GB and 8GB versions, with 1GB and 2GB versions to be released later.

In terms of interfaces, there has been a significant change this time, the USB interface and network port have swapped positions, which means that previous Raspberry Pi cases will not fit Raspberry Pi 5.

This time, Raspberry Pi has also added some very useful features that should have existed long ago, it has added a power button

Next to the power button, there is a light to show the working status, but it is a tactile switch that allows for quick sleep. However, it will not directly cut off the power. It has added a clock, but the battery needs to be connected externally (it has provided an interface for RTC battery).

It has onboard a fan interface, so you can finally plug it directly into the board without looking at GPIO. It also has an onboard UART interface.

This time the MIPI interface has undergone a major change, no longer separating the display interface and camera interface, but both are compatible, meaning you can plug in two cameras or two MIPI display interfaces.

This change is really nice and offers a lot of flexibility. I hope other manufacturers can learn from this. However, the MIPI interface this time is not compatible with previous interfaces and has become a 15-pin ribbon cable like Raspberry Pi Zero, instead of the previous 22-pin.

One of the biggest changes in this Raspberry Pi is that it finally has a PCIe channel, this time Raspberry Pi has provided a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface.

Finally, you can directly connect NVMe solid state drives, but there is no onboard interface on the development board, it needs to be connected via ribbon cable, to be honest, it’s not very elegant, and you also need to buy a PCIe expansion. We can already look forward to domestic expansion boards in the future. The advantage of this approach is that it gives us a lot of flexibility, and this PCIe interface still has great potential.

The SD card also supports the SDR104 protocol, which can reach the current UHS I maximum speed of 105 MB/s. You can use U3 and V30 cards, and the write speed can reach 30 MB/s.

However, this time, due to the lack of space on the development board, the very advanced 3.5mm interface has been removed. If you want to create a HiFi player or Wi-Fi player, you’ll need to do a bit of tinkering. Raspberry Pi has not completely removed the audio interface, it has provided a soldering position, so you can solder a header on it later, but the 3.5mm interface cannot be placed, you need to connect it with wires.

There are also some changes, such as the official power adapter has changed to a 5V 4A power supply, and the official even recommends 5V 5A instead of the previous 5V 3A, as the four A76 cores will definitely consume more power and generate more heat. The official also provides an active cooler, which is priced at 42 in China.

In terms of price, the official retail price:

4GB 60 USD

Equivalent to Chinese Yuan427

8GB 80 USD

Equivalent to Chinese Yuan570

5 USD more expensive than Raspberry Pi 4B with the same configuration. In fact, the current domestic prices are 4GB for 495 and 8GB for 670, but they are out of stock. The Raspberry Pi 4GB version is 55 USD and 75 USD. If the 4GB version can be sold for 399 or even lower, it still has a certain competitiveness.

However, due to supply issues, Raspberry Pi 5 is currently priced over a thousand Yuan in China, reaching four digits. At this price, to be honest, there are too many alternatives. The Raspberry Pi official said that production will be much better next year. Since Raspberry Pi is no longer produced in China, and insists on self-production, it has become something that can easily increase in price, turning into something speculative, which I think is not a good phenomenon. Honestly, I really dislike this kind of hunger marketing. If Raspberry Pi 5 can be bought for 427 next year, I think it can still be recommended, but for now, I suggest waiting and seeing.

Another point to note is that Raspberry Pi has indeed put effort into chip manufacturing. First, they created the Raspberry Pi Pico with the RP2040, and this time Raspberry Pi 5 also uses their developed RP1

Various interfaces are implemented through this chip, while Broadcom’s BCM2712 seems to only need to provide the PCIe interface, with everything else designed by Raspberry Pi itself.

I also discovered while browsing the Raspberry Pi official website that the SoC of Raspberry Pi Zero 2W has been replaced with Raspberry Pi’s RP3A0

It is a custom system-on-chip designed by Raspberry Pi in the UK. It is a quad-core A53 CPU with a frequency of 1GHz, equipped with 512MB SDRAM. Instead of the previous Broadcom BCM2710A SoC.

Raspberry Pi is also accumulating chip design experience, and the progress is faster than we think. Perhaps the next generation Raspberry Pi 6 will be based on their own designed chip..

My evaluation of Raspberry Pi 5 is that there are changes, there are improvements, and more interfaces, and it is more flexible than before, giving us options.

However, the issue is still supply, we need to be able to buy it, buy it at the original price, and buy it cheaply for Raspberry Pi 5 to be worth recommending. And with Raspberry Pi’s production being so unstable, I suggest waiting this year and seeing if it can be cheaper next year.

Also, the ongoing issue of NVMe solid-state drives, there’s no slot, needs ribbon cable, and expansion board to install, and it is not a full version, it’s PCIe 2.0 x1.

Another area that is currently being focused on is artificial intelligence. Raspberry Pi has virtually no hardware changes, its GPU might be stronger, but there’s no NPU, so it probably can only be used as a makeshift solution. Meanwhile, domestic chips are almost standard with NPUs, is it really not considering this direction?

I have just received Raspberry Pi 5 and haven’t started playing with it yet. After I play with it, I will share more detailed information with you all in the next issue. See you next time.

Raspberry Pi 5

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