The Most Powerful Raspberry Pi Now Has 8GB of RAM (raspberrypi.org) 77
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has doubled the maximum amount of RAM available in the Raspberry Pi 4 to 8GB with a new device it's selling for $75. An anonymous reader writes: To take advantage of the RAM increase, the foundation is also releasing a new 64-bit version of its operating system in early beta. The new Raspberry Pi 4 is otherwise identical to the device that was announced in June last year, meaning it has the same ARM-based CPU, and HDMI, USB 3, and Ethernet ports. 8GB is a lot of RAM considering the Raspberry Pi's size and price. It's the same as many flagship smartphones released this year, and enough for an entry-level gaming PC. The Raspberry Pi Foundation says the additional memory should be useful for compiling large pieces of software, running heavy server workloads, or maybe just having more browser tabs open at once. We're sure that it won't take long for the community to come up with many interesting uses.
Any other uses for this? (Score:1)
Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought access to the GPIO was cool.
To do what?
Automate stuff connected to GPIO, silly.
Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:4, Informative)
I was always a bit disappointed with the lack of real peripherals on the GPIO. You can bit bang but real hardware is much nicer and lower overhead.
For a product I designed using Pi Compute Modules I just had a separate microcontroller that did all the lower level stuff and power management for the system, with the Pi running apps.
Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:5, Informative)
Well the Raspberry Pi 4 should suit you well given it's dramatic increase in the number of real peripherals. You now have:
- 28 GPIO
- 6x I2C interfaces (4 of which are multiplexed together (1&3, and 0&6), so max of 4 can be hardware attached).
- 6x SPI interfaces (again 4 of which are multiplexed together (1&6 and 0&4))
- 5x UART interfaces (2 of which are multiplexed (0&1))
And frankly if you still need more interfaces than that maybe you should look towards an industrial control system ;-)
Yeah the previous Pis have been a desert when it came to proper interfaces with (IIRC) 28 GPIO, 2x serial, 1x SPI, and 1x I2C, but the Pi4 in terms of hardware interfaces on GPIO is competitive with basically most microcontrollers now. Better still all interfaces support DMA and are able to operate at higher speeds than most microcontrollers.
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That's interesting, thanks. I hadn't really looked at the 4 but maybe I will now. The 3 made a nice wireless sensor hub/IoT gateway but lack of peripherals was always an issue.
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Re: Any other uses for this? (Score:1)
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I imagine you could rig up a serial or parallel port using them. Maybe use that to receive data from an ADC monitoring temperature, humidity, etc. I don't know. Maybe even rig them up to a 16-bit DAC and make your own sound card.
An Arduino can do any of those tasks at a lower cost and with less power.
You can buy Arduino boards on Amazon for $3.50 each (10-pack for $35).
Of course, you can develop, compile, and program your Arduinos with a Raspberry Pi.
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Or even better, an ESP32. They're cheaper or similar priced [aliexpress.com], dual core, an order of magnitude faster, and have built in WiFi and Bluetooth and a decent amount of peripherals. WiFi is power hungry of course but it'll run forever on a battery if you can use the ULP.
That's what I use for most projects nowadays, like garden automation, to drive a LED sign, fish tank monitor, etc. You can even re-use your arduino code if you want, though there's a separate lower level SDK available too. I actually only got my fi
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That's like asking why 3D printers, CNC routers, drills and hammers exist.
If you can't see a use for it, move along.
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There are probably a lot of niche applications. I set one up as an active video sign for a local business. Hook the PI (any) to a cheap TV or monitor from the thrift store, and you're in it for maybe $50 or $60?
I spent a couple hours making some slides with LibreOffice Impress, and handed it over to the business owner to finish.
Re: Any other uses for this? (Score:3)
The pi 4 can do 4k. There's also a version of Kodi specifically for the pi4 (18.3 i think?)
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Damn, I need 8k. Guess I'll wait for the Raspberry Pi 8.
Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:5, Informative)
I really can't find any use for them.
You need some more hobbies. There are plenty of uses for it. Like to brew beer? Automate it: https://www.brewpi.com/ [brewpi.com]. Got a 3D printer? Make it intelligent: https://octoprint.org/download... [octoprint.org] Feel like home automation without selling your life to a Chinese cloud vendor? https://www.home-assistant.io/ [home-assistant.io].
It makes a great print server for those people who don't feel like having a PC always on in the house, or don't have some fancy cloud / wifi printer.
It's good for some retro game consoles https://retropie.org.uk/ [retropie.org.uk]
These days it's plenty powerful enough to use as a home security system, and you can even get a hat for it to connect a SATA drive or multiple. This also makes it relatively good for a low power low performance NAS.
Personally I use it as a high quality audio source for my hifi https://volumio.org/ [volumio.org]
I've been thinking of building a 2 way smart mirror https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/... [makeuseof.com] in the house, but have better things to do right now.
Your imagination is the limit.
Re: Any other uses for this? (Score:3, Informative)
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Or use a pi3 with no fan for half the price.
Not sure what you're talking about. My Pi4 doesn't have a fan, and my Pi3+ outright shits itself doing 4K video, and is significantly slower and laggier to use in many scenarios.
The GP specifically pointed out Raspberry Pis were under-performing for him and your answer was "but you can get a worse one for cheaper!!! Wooo!", and all to save so little money that you couldn't even get dinner for the savings. This isn't the one-laptop-per-child project. The majority of Slashdot posters do not live on an income
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Pi3 thermal throttles at idle without a fan FFS.
A fan will improve performance.
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Err no it doesn't. The Pi3 does thermally throttle under heavy load, but it definitely doesn't in idle, unless you're the type to do silly things like build fancy wooden enclosures with no airflow, then sure after running it for an hour or two the hotbox will cause it to throttle.
3x Rpi 3s in the house (two "+" models). They are currently sitting at 36, 44, and 47C all idle. The one at 36C has a small heatsink on it because without it it would throttle under load. The RPi 3+ throttles at 82C.
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I have one running Volumio also, it works great.
I also have a first generation Pi running a slideshow on an old monitor in the lounge.
I helped my neighbour and his kids set one up as a wildlife camera in their backyard so they could watch the goings on inside their birdbox.
They ended up watching a pair of thrushes raise a clutch last year.
Re: Any other uses for this? (Score:1)
Any other uses for this?
You could replace Msmash with it. You wouldn't even have to plug it in.
Many uses ... (Score:3)
I really can't find any use for them.
Raspberry Pi are primarily an educational tool, awesome for both software and hardware.
Raspberry Pi are an inexpensive off the shelf solution for some industrial applications. Monitoring, logging, control, etc. They have also found a niche in emulators.
Raspberry Pi are an incredibly low cost general purpose Linux box. Headless Linux boxes sitting in the closet, ie retired Windows boxes, are sometimes replaced with a RPi to reduce noise and power consumption. If the application requires real storage an
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I still use one for my TV since I don't have or need 4k. I use a pi zero w for an octoprint server. I have one coming that will become a small file server. I have used Pis for internal security scans.
Re:Any other uses for this? (Score:4, Interesting)
If I could find a big-endian OS to run on these, I'd order a dozen. We've got some long-running tests to ensure big- and little-endian interoperability and they're entirely CPU-bound. We literally can't find any current hardware/OS that'll run big-endian, and the iMac G5s we got from eBay are dying, so we're not inclined to pick up more obsolete hardware...
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Wow, what a sad comment. Total lack of imagination. Bad geek karma!
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Any other cool stuff I can do with this?
As a retro console owner I'm currently using one to play my owned PlayStaion 2 games over an ethernet connection with the pi running a samba server and the games stored on an external USB drive mounted to the pi. Works much better than connecting the USB drive directly to the PS2 as the USB 1.1 port transfer speed is slow. Also, using Free McBoot to soft-mod the PS2 and OPL 0.92 to launch the games. Saves the laser from crapping out.
Happy 3b+ plus user waiting for RPi5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Happy 3b+ plus user waiting for RPi5 (Score:2)
Really hoping for good solution.
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Re: Happy 3b+ plus user waiting for RPi5 (Score:4, Informative)
It does [hackster.io].
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Sure, you can have NVME storage, but you have to squeeze it through USB 1.0.
For previous generations of RPi that would have been USB 2.0. For RPi 4 there is USB 3.0 but there is an issue that prevents 5 Gbps but it is still about four times faster than before, over 2 Gbps vs the former 0.5 Gbps.
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The Pi 4 has USB 3.0.
Re: Happy 3b+ plus user waiting for RPi5 (Score:1)
Give it an 8 core CPU, 8 GB RAM and a NVME storage
I'm hoping this $250 walmart-special HP laptop w/ryzen 3200U is "socketed FP5" rather than soldered and has two DDR4 slots but I haven't cracked it open yet. It supposedly's got an M.2 slot, tho...
What do you do with all those cores? (Score:1)
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More power, obviously! - Tim Allen
As long as they keep the small ones ... (Score:5, Insightful)
there is a place for small, cheap, low power devices. Not everything needs a lot of resources.
Meh (Score:1)
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There's no difference in power consumption between the 2GB, or 4GB variants of the Pi4 so I presume the 8GB is likewise.
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Sorry replied to the wrong post.
Price and Power? (Score:2)
So what is the added cost in both dollars and watts?
Re:Price and Power? (Score:4, Informative)
To the correct person this time: there's no difference in power consumption between the 2GB, or 4GB variants of the Pi4 so I presume the 8GB is likewise.
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That seems difficult to reconcile with physics, since DRAM cells require a refresh. More cells, more power consumption.
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Let me rephrase: There's no significant power consumption difference between them. RAM is not a driving factor behind the power consumption of the Raspberry Pi 4, and the power differences between models with different RAM would be instantly blown out of the water if you dare to do something like open a terminal on the thing causing it's CPU to wake.
And if you for a moment dare to actually use that significantly more powerful multicore CPU which is likely a driving factor behind you not buying a cheaper Ras
What happened to Moores law? (Score:2)
I like the d3evice, but the price.
Compare it to a Raspberry Pi 3 with a double increase in power, and it should be about the same price.
Raspberry ThreadRipper (Score:5, Funny)
Now with 768 threaded cores and 12,437 CUDA cores as a free bonus.
Stacked with a whopping 512GB ram on the size of a business card.
Image all the DIY projects you could power with this!
Available soon at a RadioShack store near you.
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Do not forget the Risc 5 cores.
We're getting closer (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall something like 20 years ago, musing (possibly even in a /. post) that computers would some day be something that you picked up for $0.25 as an impulse buy at the checkout. They'd be there right next to the gum, maybe taking the place of magazines.
The lower end Pi machines are certainly close to that at what, $5? The batteries aren't included though, so consumers wouldn't impulse buy such a thing. Phones are closer, but locked up behind the display cases because they're still too tempting for thieves to use as "burners".
Maybe we'll never get there, but it's almost like "computer" is just another block in a circuit diagram, and you'd buy some to put in the circuit. You'd buy them for $1-$5 each at RadioShak if it still existed.
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Were you that guy who'd said that they'd be so cheap, we'd be pulling them out of Cracker Jack boxes..?
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No, but I wish. That's a good way to put it. Last time I looked into it though, the quality of Cracker Jack prizes went way down. Even when I was a kid they were mostly lame stickers and stuff. I seem to recall seeing something online where if you go back far enough, there were little toy cars with wheels that moved and everything.
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Kinder Surprise was always superior to Cracker Jack.
Re:We're getting closer (Score:4, Interesting)
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The Pi Zero was given away on the cover of the official Raspberry Pi Magazine in the UK, I think it was on sale for about 5 bucks.
I guess it depends what you call a computer, you certainly can get quite capable microcontrollers for 25 cents. In fact the cheapest ones are in the single digit cent range now, e.g. you can get a one time programmable 8 pin model for about 2-3 cents in bulk.
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And then you have people still bothering to mess around with 555 timers and all the required hardware around it while microcontrollers are cheaper and take less space on the board.
A little disapointed with the 4 overall, it's ok. (Score:5, Interesting)
I picked one up because I can't damn well help myself.
The good? Well it's faster, with more memory, has a modern power plug (USB-C) and they fixed some shortcomings with USB and network, if I recall.
The bad? /marginally/ faster than a Pi3.
Well the drivers for the GPU - I don't know much about linux bot what I've read, it's STILL not fully working using a modern driver, I don't know the term but the GPU driver isn't supported in the kernel yet, something like that. So if you use it for say, Kodi (LibreElec) it's
Despite the benchmarks of the raw processor being astoundingly better than Pi3, if you upgrade to the 4 hoping to get the UI slick and smooth in Kodi? Not going to happen for a while yet (apparently, it will... the unit is nearly a year old already)
The USB-C power issue - it's finally fixed, mind you, good luck identifying which model you've purchased in stock - only sure fire way to avoid it, buy an 8GB. It's not too bad an issue, since my cable worked (I have the 'bad' model)
The processor doesn't support any cryptography acceleration. This is pretty big for people wanting to get fancy with the Pi with things like OpenSense and PfSense - the unit will be significantly worse at these functions, despite the fact (apparently?) crypto modules in hardware are fairly common nowadays and when the unit was designed. Don't quote me but I even read the processor in the Pi comes in a Crypto capable edition they didn't opt for - for cents more (something, along those lines)
The unit doesn't do HDMI 2.1 (that's fair, I guess)
The unit doesn't do AV1 (that's also entirely fair)
If you're wanting an EXCELLENT 1080p HTPC machine, the Pi 3B+ and Pi4 are great at this. No question, LibreElec is a masterpiece of reliable code. It's frustrating the UI is about 20->35 fps instead of 60 on the Pi4 but honestly once the video is playing, even the Pi3B regular is great.
Furthermore, the Pi4 should never ever have launched with 1GB. I get they wanna keep costs down but please guys, move forward, 2GB should've been the minimum from the Get-Go (I believe the 1GB is now retired for the 2GB)
I estimate, the Pi5 will not come out for a solid 3+ years. My hope is the Pi 5 has AV1 decoder, HDMI2.1, 2 or 4GB minimum and Crypto hardware. In about 3 years, that may be feasable in the $35 to $50 price range. We'll see. It would make an astoundingly good machine. The Pi4 is starting to creep up in price. $75 US you can start to buy some semi-decent used real hardware for that money.
Re:A little disapointed with the 4 overall, it's o (Score:5, Informative)
The pi community has always been strong, so that's a benefit, and the power consumption is brilliant. I look forward to running Linux on a RISC-V or something in the future, but for now the Pi is priced pretty reasonably if you don't need PCI or SATA.
The problem with the cheap used hardware of yesteryear is that it has either little RAM, little GPU, big power consumption, or any combination of the three. The problem with the Pi has always been low memory. This fixes that problem. I've got PogoPlugs running Debian to provide SATA ports. What I'm missing is a super low power PC, which can be ARM or amd64.
I'd prefer even more RAM, but honestly I was almost sold at 4 GB.
Full disclosure, I have an original (256MB) Pi and a Zero W.
Re:A little disapointed with the 4 overall, it's o (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they finally using a USB controller that can support more than 7 USB device endpoints [raspberrypi.org]? Because that's the bug [github.com] I've been waiting to see fixed.... It would be really nice to be able to plug in, say, an LTE modem + Wi-Fi module + camera or serial adapter and still have interrupts work.
Finally (Score:4, Informative)
A Pi with real memory is a real desktop. I'm getting one.
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If it gets any more expensive... (Score:3)
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If $75 is expensive to you, perhaps you should reconsider your career path.
-jcr
Maybe he should consider *any* career path. Even the basement won't stay free for ever.
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That $75 only pays for motherboard, CPU, and some memory. You still need: case, storage, keyboard, mouse, monitor.
I can get a 5 year old PC on craigslist for next to nothing.
Want something low powered? Get an old smartphone, or tablet.
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Get an old smartphone, or tablet.
...with terrible software support? Hell, with a Raspberry Pi you even get a copy of Mathematica for free.
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I'm guessing he meant "expensive for what it is, not for what it cost".
The Raspberry Pi Zero W, for example, is more than worth its price.
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Apple Pi?
Wishing for m.2 nvme (Score:2)
I know an m.2 ssd is still slightly too arge to fit on a Pi and I have no idea what the power requirements might be, but it won't be long before you can get a fast terabyte+ ssd drive that will be small enough and plug right in. Then you can carry your NAS in your pocket.
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"large". Something ate a letter.
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Is an M.2 2230 SSD really too big?
RPi evolved from 1/16 of typical RAM to equal (Score:4, Interesting)
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If anything, it should shame Apple into putting more RAM in their base model Macs.