$35 Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Launched with a Faster Processor, 802.11ac WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, and Optional PoE

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just introduced a updated version of their popular Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board with a Model B+ that increases the processor clocked up to 1.4 GHz, adds dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.2, Gigabit Ethernet (via USB 2.0 to Ethernet bridge), as well as support for PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) via an external HAT add-on board.

 

Click to Enlarge

Raspberry Pi 3B+ specifications:

  • SoC – Broadcom BCM2837B0 64-bit ARMv8 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.4GHz with dual core VideoCore IV GPU
  • System Memory – 1GB LPDDR2
  • Storage – micro SD slot
  • Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 and 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port
  • Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (via Microchip LAN7515 USB 2.0 to GbE bridge), maximum throughput 300 Mbps), WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.2 LE (via Cypress CYW43455 based module)
  • USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB port for power
  • Expansion
    • 40-pin GPIO header
    • MIPI DSI for Raspberry Pi touch screen display
    • MIPI CSI for Raspberry Pi camera
  • Power Supply
    • 5V up to 2.4A via micro USB port
    • PoE via HAT board
  • Dimensions – 85 x 56 x 17 mm

The new Raspberry Pi board is said to improve PXE network and USB mass-storage booting, as well as thermal management thanks to a heat spreader placed on top of BCM2837B0 SoC.

Optional (and upcoming) PoE HAT

Since they’ve only done a few tweaks, software support will remain the same with NOOBS, Raspbian, and the many other available distributions.

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is now sold for $35 on Element14 or RS Components, and will remain in production until at least January 2023. The PoE HAT is available on backorder for $20 with stock expected for April 9, at least on Newark.

Share this:

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress

ROCK 5 ITX Rockchip RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
The comment form collects your name, email and content to allow us keep track of the comments placed on the website. Please read and accept our website Terms and Privacy Policy to post a comment.
81 Comments
oldest
newest
blu
blu
6 years ago

Amazing. The RPI foundation keeps addressing the non-issues, while neglecting the actual issues.

ahrlad
ahrlad
6 years ago

So they added more high-speed interfaces to share the single USB 2.0 bus?

TLS
TLS
6 years ago

@ahrlad
Spot on…
But you get shiny bits of metal now as well…

It’s quite impressive they manage to retain the pricing though.

TLS
TLS
6 years ago


But it’s not 100% compatible across the different models though, since they moved from 32-bit to 64-bit with the RPi 3.
I think this is more of a ecosystem issue, i.e. housings, hats etc.

Tomm
Tomm
6 years ago

Dang, fanless aluminum case not supported, different layout for components.

2GB RAM + improved Micro SD card (faster write and reads by default) are missing 🙁

Mark Birss
Mark Birss
6 years ago

Wish they instead upgraded LAN7515 to LAN800 to provide USB 3.1 Gen1

http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/ProductCompare/LAN7800/LAN7500

Su
Su
6 years ago

I’m not sure why they should upgrade to USB 3.1 when the SoC is stuck to one USB 2.0 for all the devices.

-
-
6 years ago

@blu

Exactly what I was thinking. I was really hoping for giga Ethernet, but instead it’s half-baked. I hope this is a stepping stone to the Pi4 with “proper (not shared)” giga Ethernet.

blu
blu
6 years ago


I don’t think RPF ever moved to 64bit — raspbian is the bastion of 32-bitness, and understandably so, given the amount of effort it would take the foundation to move to 64bit (VC-what?), and upgrade their boards to something above the gargantuan 1GB…

RAM
RAM
6 years ago

So disappointing, and this thingy suppose to last to 2020 or later… for the future release of the Pi 4 *cough cough*
By the look of things they might not even getting 2 GB RAM. More like 1.5GB RAM LPDDR2.

By the time they release that, most of the other chip maker will be on 4GB standard. And if you can spend $50 on top of the Pi 4. You can get something the Pi is getting in 10 years time. Like can run Windows.

Mark Birss
Mark Birss
6 years ago

@Su
Yes, indeed. Hope they can better the SoC soon

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Nice, so I were right back in January forecasting ‘most crappy Gigabit Ethernet’ ever implemented soon by RPi folks: https://forum.openmediavault.org/index.php/Thread/18991-New-approach-for-Raspberry-Pi-OMV-images/?postID=166467#post166467

Folks, please understand that all Raspberry Pi since the first one sold 6 years ago are all more or less the same. It’s an old an boring 32-bit processor called VideoCore IV that got one or more crappily integrated ARM cores to the die. All the limitations (only 1 x USB2, only 1 GB DDR2 and so on) are due to this and RPi Foundation can’t change that since they would loose their only asset: backwards compatibility.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Mark Birss :
Hope they can better the SoC soon

Not easy. When they come up with a new SoC they loose backwards compatibility which none of their customers will be able to understand. They would either need new OS images or they can convince Broadcom to add the anachronistic VideoCore IV bootloader crap to a decent SoC design (which I doubt).

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

TLS : But it’s not 100% compatible across the different models though, since they moved from 32-bit to 64-bit with the RPi 3. Software wise it’s 100% compatible since they let the Cortex-A53 cores remain in 32-bit mode. And while a lot of people continually ask for 64-bit RPi support that’s both challenging on this platform (since the main CPU is the old and boring 32-bit VideoCore IV and not the ARM cores! No idea why no one wants to understand/accept this) and also somewhat stupid when the SoC is limited to laughable 1 GB DRAM (since 64-bit software eats… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Mark Birss : Wish they instead upgraded LAN7515 to LAN800 to provide USB 3.1 Gen1 The VideoCore IV has only one single USB2 OTG port and this will never change as long as RPi Foundation relies on this platform. What do you want to do with peripherals that are SuperSpeed capable if 1) the host is only capable of ultra slow ‘Hi-Speed’ and 2) all USB receptacles and the Ethernet chip have to share the horribly limited bandwidth of the one USB2 port? The average RPi buyer still doesn’t realize this ‘shared bandwidth’ limitation, now reads ‘maximum throughput 300 Mbps’… Read more »

Mark Birss
Mark Birss
6 years ago

@tkaiser
Yes, agreed.

Which product can you recommend that offers form example a PCI Express slot and USB3 ?

Freddy
Freddy
6 years ago

@tkaiser

> The average RPi buyer still doesn’t realize this ‘shared bandwidth’ limitation,

The average RPi buyer is not *YOU* @tkaiser.

You’ve never understood or appreciated the market the RPi is aimed at, so why do you (and others of your ilk) routinely bore everyone to death with your SBC “insight” and demands that the RPi should be a frickin’ supercomputer for $35?

If the RPi (even this 3+) isn’t for you, why not just ignore it, eh? Your rants reveal you to be such a fanboi.

Tomm
Tomm
6 years ago

https://www.gearbest.com/raspberry-pi/pp_400625.html

Anyway, heatspreader on top of SoC doesn’t fit with that fanless type.

And LAN component is moved.

manuti
6 years ago

@Mark Birss
Maybe in Raspberry Pi 4

manuti
6 years ago


The Flirc cases maybe not.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Mark Birss :
Which product can you recommend that offers form example a PCI Express slot and USB3 ?

Depends always on the use case of course. If headless operation is an option you get both (and real Gigabit Ethernet + real SATA) on an EspressoBin for example. With ‘general purpose’ use cases in mind maybe one of the many (soon to be released) RK3399 boards fits your needs?

Inder
Inder
6 years ago


But the Raspbian OS is still 32 bits, so in terms of software compatibility, the change of word length does not change a bit!

Xalius
Xalius
6 years ago

I fear that the addition of the new wifi module and the GbE PHY in the USB hub will make the power problems of the RPi even worse… also while before you had more or less no contention issues with the Ethernet on USB due to it’s low bandwidth, the network interface can now saturate the USB bus and if you have some storage class device attached – it will be probably worse than before if there is no traffic shaping for mass storage/ethernet…

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

manuti : @Mark Birss Maybe in Raspberry Pi 4 Why should they choose USB Ethernet in an upcoming incompatible RPi 4? If they will ever move away from a SoC designed in last decade (VideoCore IV) to one that has been designed in this decade then why should this new SoC be that limited as the VC4 is? If they switch to an incompatible modern SoC I would assume the feature list contains native Gigabit Ethernet, a memory controller capable to deal with more than 1 GB DRAM (DDR2) and everything else that’s more or less standard today on ARM… Read more »

Tomm
Tomm
6 years ago

I would suggest to use 3A atleast (even they say 2.5A should be okay)

Tomm
Tomm
6 years ago

@manuti
Flirc case is okay, as only SoC is covered.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Xalius : the network interface can now saturate the USB bus and if you have some storage class device attached – it will be probably worse than before if there is no traffic shaping for mass storage/ethernet… This is exactly what’s happening with external Gigabit Ethernet adapters connected to an RPi today. As soon as the access patterns affect disk and network at the same time performance drops drastically compared to Fast Ethernet. This affects tasks like opening/closing small files as well as overall sequential write performance dropping from ~9MB/s with Fast Ethernet to lower numbers with GbE. Though as… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Tomm :
I would suggest to use 3A atleast

Why? You would need to increase input voltage maybe to even 6V to be able to feed that high amperage to an RPi: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/12/05/libre-computer-renegade-sbc-features-rockchip-rk3328-processor-with-up-to-4gb-ddr4-ram-crowdfunding/#comment-549684

BTW: The Micro USB connector is still rated for 1.8A maximum (for a reason). I would fear to burn my fingers touching Micro USB jack or receptacle when trying to get 3A through those laughably tiny contacts 🙂

Brett Cooper
6 years ago

Gigabit over USB2 bridge… something tells me this will be slow especially when you are also accessing other USB drives/devices. Looking forward to seeing benchmarks.

Mark Birss
Mark Birss
6 years ago

@tkaiser

Headless for OpenWRT / Linux. Im looking at using CJDNS (either with SoC encryption support or for example a Silicom PESC62-RoHS Security Protocol Processor adapter – will need adapter to convert to PCI-E x4)

So will maybe try a Gemeni Lake X86 baord (NUC or Motherboard) also

So will look at the ESPRESSObin (it offers OpenWRT support)

Thank you for your recommendation

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Mark Birss : SoC encryption support Well, the older RPi 3 does not support ARMv8 crypto extensions (AFAIK the only two 64-bit ARMv8 SoCs that miss this feature are Broadcom BCM2837 and Amlogic S905 on ODROID-C2 and NanoPi K2) which can have a huge impact on AES performance if this matters for you. Without those crypto extensions AES performance is magnitudes lower than with, see for example https://forum.armbian.com/topic/4583-rock64/?do=findComment&comment=37829 The SoC on the aforementioned EspressoBin supports both ARMv8 crypto extensions and an own Marvell proprietary ‘5Gbps Security Engine’ — mainline kernel support has been added recently and you find some information… Read more »

theguyuk
theguyuk
6 years ago

The other reason they do not change the SoC is that no other SBC builder can get the SoC. It ties, padlocks the buyers into RPI software, hardware and excludes competition. Other SBC maker have to use other SoC brands, designs. If I recall correct, the original SoC which inspired RPI is a media player SoC ( think Roku box or bottom end Now TV box , white original. Low specs). Hence the original was never designed with more than one USB in mind. Bits have been bolted on and parts tinkered with, hence it is a home brew monster… Read more »

chewitt
chewitt
6 years ago

@manuti The flirc case is a slightly tighter fit than before as the heat spreader adds about 0.5mm, but it fits. I’ve been using the Kodi case with a test sample for the last month.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Brett Cooper :
Gigabit over USB2 bridge… something tells me this will be slow especially when you are also accessing other USB drives/devices. Looking forward to seeing benchmarks.

Me too: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=207897

willy
willy
6 years ago

tkaiser : Mark Birss : Which product can you recommend that offers form example a PCI Express slot and USB3 ? Depends always on the use case of course. If headless operation is an option you get both (and real Gigabit Ethernet + real SATA) on an EspressoBin for example. With ‘general purpose’ use cases in mind maybe one of the many (soon to be released) RK3399 boards fits your needs? There’s also the Clearfog Base which is pretty decent and comes with an enclosure now. The price is of course much higher but might be OK depending on your… Read more »

willy
willy
6 years ago

Freddy : You’ve never understood or appreciated the market the RPi is aimed at, so why do you (and others of your ilk) routinely bore everyone to death with your SBC “insight” and demands that the RPi should be a frickin’ supercomputer for $35? If the RPi (even this 3+) isn’t for you, why not just ignore it, eh? Your rants reveal you to be such a fanboi. Well, with this product not improving over time, the gap between its capabilities and all other boards is significantly increasing. People want to use it for everything so it needs to be… Read more »

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

@willy Yep – though the RPi foundation’s core aims are still education – not flogging hardware for profit. The Raspbian ecosystem with stuff like NOOBs etc. usually ‘just works’, and has a much better ‘novice experience’ than a lot of the other ARM boards which are less well developed in software terms. The huge numbers of Pis out there compared to pretty much every other SBC, and the massive number of developers, means you end up with a much better experience in lots of areas. I’ve got ODroid C1, C2, HC1 (and had a U2). I’ve got a Rock64. All… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

willy : This new optional fan makes it unsuitable for any domestic use case. Well, the fan is really optional and based on what they showed should really not be needed. They closed the gap to cheap ‘competing’ devices by copying their design: the RPi 3 B+ is said to use the PCB’s ground plane as giant heatsink for the first time and they also use ‘fancy’ stuff like an I2C accessible PMIC (that’s what we’ve seen on an $15 Orange Pi PC already years ago). Quoting James Adams, Chief Operating Officer, Raspberry Pi: ‘The MxL7704 has allowed us to… Read more »

manuti
6 years ago

@chewitt
Lucky guy having test units!!!

crashoverride
crashoverride
6 years ago

I see the April Fool hoaxes started early this year. This one is the best ever!
😉

(sarcasm)

Jerry
Jerry
6 years ago

I’ll expect this to sell more units for pure NAS use than all the competing dev boards in total.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

tkaiser : Wrt BCM2837B0 on the new RPi and ARMv8 crypto extensions I thought I simply ask those who could know already: raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=207888 So the results are: ‘new’ BCM2837B0 lacks ARMv8 Crypto Extensions as before so everything AES related will perform really poorly. It’s also funny that the openssl benchmark numbers done with RPi 3 B+ are much lower than those from a RPi 3. But that’s (not so) surprisingly just the result of the RPi (under)powering sh*t show related to Micro USB. Thank you RPF for again ignoring the problem instead of fixing it. The recommendation for a Micro… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Jerry :
I’ll expect this to sell more units for pure NAS use than all the competing dev boards in total.

Yes, me too. And that makes me really sad since I care about users and not RPi Trading’s sales…

nobitakun
nobitakun
6 years ago

Videocore IV is gonna be proclaimed as the successor of mali 400 lol

I wonder why they don’t just do the migration is a seamless way, releasing a board with the compatible stuff and an alternate one with a new shiny SoC to start creating a solid base. After a couple of years it will have almost everything fixed and they will be able to cease releasing old ones. Simple and clean.

willy
willy
6 years ago

tkaiser : Jerry : I’ll expect this to sell more units for pure NAS use than all the competing dev boards in total. Yes, me too. And that makes me really sad since I care about users and not RPi Trading’s sales… Then probably that having a page showing the NAS performance of a few boards with their price will help users realize that the board they choose is the problem, not the architecture. Also maybe a warning at boot on OMV could be instructive, something like “Warning: Ethernet is shared with USB2, this board is not suitable for use… Read more »

willy
willy
6 years ago

tkaiser :
So the results are: ‘new’ BCM2837B0 lacks ARMv8 Crypto Extensions as before so everything AES related will perform really poorly.

Not surprised if they’re running in 32-bit mode, then they’re booting in armv7 mode and the extensions are not exposed. It was the same with the nanopc-t3 (octo-A53) with older 32-bit only kernels and was automatically fixed with the recent ones booting in 64-bit mode.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

nobitakun : Videocore IV is gonna be proclaimed as the successor of mali 400 lol The VC4 is not just some random 3D GPU like old and boring Mali 400 but the main CPU on every Raspberry Pi running a proprietary realtime OS that controls the hardware. Completely proprietary and not documented but essentially defining the ‘RPi experience’. If you try to boot without ThreadX (that’s the RTOS called ‘the firmware’) close to nothing will work any more, if you try to avoid all the proprietary VC4 stuff contained in Raspbian it gets pretty boring wrt the usual ‘RPi experience’… Read more »

crashoverride
crashoverride
6 years ago

I think the most news worthy piece of information in this press announcement has been entirely overlooked. There is now an official release window for RPI4:

“The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ […] will remain in production until at least January 2023.”

This means you can expect RPI4 in 2022.

tonny
tonny
6 years ago

If they are planning for the future, I expect them to (at the very least):
1. Start the development for new board prototype (RPI4) from now. Choose among the best cheap ARMv8 with quite open architecture.
2. Max memory cap at least 4GB.
3. USB 3 (better 3.1), GB ethernet, wifi (better if it has integrated wifi on the SoC <- my opinion)
4. 28nm at the minimum.
5. 64bit OS.

The have 6 year long experience with RPI, so for new board, I think they can pull it < 2 year from now

crashoverride
crashoverride
6 years ago


My crystal ball works very well!
https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/08/08/work-on-videocore-v-gpu-drivers-could-pave-the-way-for-raspberry-pi-4-board/#comment-544965

‘“PI next” will launch next year (2018).’
‘ All indications are it will be an incremental update: more Pi3+ than Pi4; a product “refresh”.’

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

crashoverride : My crystal ball works very well! So far they released every year around the same time something ‘new’. For those people who ignore that it’s always the same (VC4) the replacement of one secondary slow ARM core with 4 faster secondary ARM cores was a ‘big update’ while for those familiar with the platform it was just an incremental step. Maybe next year we’ll see Wi-Fi using two antennas as one possible further ‘innovation’ or a ‘new’ Zero using the BCM28370B combined with the MxL7704 PMIC allowing for four cores still keeping consumption low (should be now easy… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

tonny : Choose among the best cheap ARMv8 with quite open architecture Currently they use the most closed architecture possible which everyone ignores for whatever reasons. Prior to any secondary operating system being able to boot the VC4 SoC they use now needs to load a proprietary RTOS called ThreadX to initialize the hardware (and to control it later). Only after the primary OS finished booting parts of the hardware are allowed to be controlled by the guest operating system (be it Linux, Win IoT, a BSD, whatever). All the proprietary / closed source stuff running on the VC4 is… Read more »

willy
willy
6 years ago

tkaiser : BTW: pretty amazing experience to join RPi forum: while the RPi people themselves are absolutely honest about their platform limitations and constantly emphasize on the nature of things (VC4 being somewhat ‘special’) none of the fanbois does take notice. It’s really an impressive amount of ignorance present there I noticed the same there. You see a lot of “yay”, “I can’t wait to get mine” or “I need one” while for anyone with a little bit of technical background, this one is a regression from the previous ones. In fact the amount of clueless fanboys is very likely… Read more »

blu
blu
6 years ago

@willy
RPF going iMX8.. Our species will populate Mars first ; )

Mark Birss
Mark Birss
6 years ago

@willy
Yes, thanks. Clearfog Base bit on the expensive side.

Theguyuk
Theguyuk
6 years ago

@tonny
As I mentioned earlier RPI stick with this SoC because only they have it, it stops competition, or other SBC makers boards being fully compatible with the RPI software.

It is same as having a cool Ferrari looking car, with turbo chargers, but look under the bonnet, engine cover, and its just, a 800cc 4 stroke engine with the combustion cylinders bored out. Liable to breakdowns, overheats and does not deliver what the looks promise.

manuti
6 years ago

@tkaiser
Looking at Linkedin explain many things: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebenupton/

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

@manuti
Might explain why they started with VC4 8 years ago. But not necessarily what’s happening next (e.g. Broadcom releasing an VC5 with four A55 cores or something like that to be used on a Pi 4 or whatever will follow)

Most probably I don’t get the hint? 🙂

tonny
tonny
6 years ago

@tkaiser
I’ve seen people start ‘dirty’ but when they success, they start a new (clean). Hope RPF can follow their step 🙂

@Theguyuk
I see. Didn’t think that way. True that only RPI using broadcom & VC4 so far. Really hope others like hardkernel, or orangepi could be alternatives beside RPI.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

willy : this one is a regression from the previous ones. Hmm… why a regression? It’s just another ‘incremental update’. After dealing 36 hours with new board and the interesting RPi vendor community my preliminary (very subjective) conclusions as follows: Pros: 1) Ethernet speed improvements: not ten times better as usual when switching from Fast to Gigabit Ethernet but up to 3.5 times when USB storage is not involved at the same time (94 Mbits/sec vs. 330 Mbits/sec) and 2 times faster when USB storage is in use (9.5 MB/s with Fast Ethernet vs. 19 MB/s with GbE — the… Read more »

itchy n scratchy
itchy n scratchy
6 years ago

Im wondering what sbc i could get to replace my boring raspi3 as a libreelec box….
Do i really have to get x86? That would be sad and a capitulation for arm…

itchy n scratchy
itchy n scratchy
6 years ago

@tkaiser did you check the performance of fast Ethernet, is it maxing out the 100? Not that it would matter 😛

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

itchy n scratchy : @tkaiser did you check the performance of fast Ethernet, is it maxing out the 100? Talking about bandwidth you get on all Fast Ethernet equipped Rasperries what you can expect: between 90 and 95 Mbits/sec at the TCP/IP layer and with an OS image using good settings (e.g. OMV using the Armbian tweaks) ~9.5MB/s NAS throughput. Latency is a bit of an issue but that’s expected with USB2. No idea whether this will change now with the new board and GbE (it’s still USB2 connected to the host — on other platforms with USB3 GbE chips… Read more »

manuti
6 years ago

Maybe RPF want to go to VC5 but the driver/firmware are really crap to use with Linux and don’t want to show an image of “regression” or performance lost with his flagship.
I find a presentatios called “Status of Broadcom’s vc4 and vc5 Drivers” from 2017-09-21 by Eric Anholt
https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2017/anholt_vc4_vc5.pdf

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

The thermal images here are worth a look: https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi-3-b-plus-44122cf3d806 Nice improvement or let’s better say an impressive demonstration how broken the thermal design of both BCM2837 and RPi 3 are compared to how it’s done everywhere around and now finally with BCM2837B0 / RPi 3 B+ too. To sum the changes up: ‘They have flipped the chip (SoC) upside down, the back of the chip is completely flat and can make excellent thermal contact with the heat spreader that is mounted directly to it, the heat spreader in turn is thermally attached to the ground plane of the PI, so… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

willy : In fact the amount of clueless fanboys is very likely their best asset In fact they generate those clueless fanboys. As many know censorship is an integral part of the ‘Raspberry Pi experience’ at least in their forum and communication channels. Say something negative there and it gets deleted. Say something that could result in their users realizing that there’s a larger world around and it gets censored away. Happenend twice today after I explained in their forum what’s important when choosing a heatsink using the picture of a ‘competitor’, an Orange Pi Lite. The 2nd time I… Read more »

theguyuk
theguyuk
6 years ago

@tkaiser
I hear what you say on RPI forum, having experienced my self, and watched other being abused by RPI forum, managers and staff.

RPI have a upgrade path, but the logical chips to use, are available to other makers too.
It really is all about exclusive SoC chip, gives RPI hold over customers. While blocking competition from other using the same SoC.

RPF’s other market is the Zero line, so a upgraded SoC for that line is another branch they could make, maybe even use their quad A7 SoC again in a upgraded Zero.

pmos69
pmos69
6 years ago

*sigh*

ahrlad
ahrlad
6 years ago

itchy n scratchy :
Im wondering what sbc i could get to replace my boring raspi3 as a libreelec box….
Do i really have to get x86? That would be sad and a capitulation for arm…

Why would you choose x86? Get yourself a cheap s905/s905x box or board, that’s pretty much the best libreElec choice either way.

willmore
willmore
6 years ago

@ahrlad
When I asked a developer a week or so ago, they said S905 or a Rockchip. The latter was a “it’s not quite there now, but it’s heading in the right direction–given it being in many chromebooks–and the chips are fairly good.”

So, an ODROID-C2 or one of the Rock64 boards might be good candidates.

I’m still using a C1, but my TV is only 1080p.

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

RPi trying to be competitive to any recent ARM SoC released within the last 5 years is somewhat succesful. They now implement DVFS in a better way than before: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=208057&sid=1562232267b5eb9fc220cf3c7673b627#p1287591

slackstick
slackstick
6 years ago

Fear of deletion is why you post on raspberry forums on Sundays? 😉

The increased energy consumption looks quite wired to me. Might they have switched back to a linear voltage regulation?

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

The increased consumption is due to Gigabit Ethernet now and the more capable Wi-Fi chip. If you switch off the USB hub (kills all USB ports and Ethernet) then you’ve 1W less. Switching between Fast and Gigabit Ethernet also affects consumption and for whatever strange reason even if no Ethernet cable is connected the following call to bring down the eth0 interface results in 200mW less: ifconfig eth0 down 1 ifconfig eth0 down When you also kill the wireless stuff with the following command idle consumption is at around the same level as the old Pi 3: rfkill block all… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
6 years ago

Now that first people outside the little censored RPi micro world start to test we get also Wi-Fi numbers: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ iperf -c 192.168.0.2 -r ------------------------------------------------------------ Server listening on TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Client connecting to 192.168.0.2, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 91.9 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 5] local 192.168.0.140 port 51148 connected with 192.168.0.2 port 5001 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 5] 0.0-10.0 sec 128 MBytes 107 Mbits/sec [ 4] local 192.168.0.140 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.2 port 47466 [ 4] 0.0-10.0 sec 279 MBytes 233 Mbits/sec pi@raspberrypi:~ $ iperf… Read more »

Boardcon Rockchip RK3588S SBC with 8K, WiFI 6, 4G LTE, NVME SSD, HDMI 2.1...