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posted by takyon on Monday June 24 2019, @03:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the pie-4-u dept.

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B has been launched, despite months of tricky misdirection implying that it wouldn't be on the market until 2020. The technical specifications include two micro HDMI ports, two USB3 ports, two USB2 ports, dual band Wi-fi, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet, and either 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of RAM. Power consumption is noticeably higher than similar earlier models and the power can be supplied over USBC.

From the spec sheet:

  • Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz
  • 1GB ($35), 2GB ($45), or 4GB LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM ($55)
  • 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz IEEE 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 5.0, BLE
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • 2 USB 3.0 ports; 2 USB 2.0 ports.
  • Raspberry Pi standard 40 pin GPIO header (fully backwards compatible with previous boards)
  • 2 × micro-HDMI ports (up to 4kp60 supported)
  • 2-lane MIPI DSI display port
  • 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port
  • 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port
  • H.265 (4kp60 decode), H264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode)
  • OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics
  • Micro-SD card slot for loading operating system and data storage
  • 5V DC via USB-C connector (minimum 3A*)
  • 5V DC via GPIO header (minimum 3A*)
  • Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled (requires separate PoE HAT)
  • Operating temperature: 0 – 50 degrees C ambient

takyon: Review at Tom's Hardware. Cons: "Key software doesn't work at launch, Poor high-res video playback". Cases for the previous Pi don't work due to the new micro-HDMI ports. Tom's measured nearly ten times better storage performance using one of the new USB 3.0 ports, and the gigabit Ethernet port can actually reach nearly 1 Gbps (943 Mbps vs. 237 Mbps for the previous model).

Also at The Verge and Ars Technica.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Monday June 24 2019, @04:08PM (2 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 24 2019, @04:08PM (#859388) Journal

    Roy Longbottom has published the results of his 32-bit benchmarking tests [researchgate.net] at ResearchGate:

    This report contains results of my numerous benchmarks run on the Raspberry Pi 4. In this case, they were 32 bit versions using Raspbian Buster Operating System. Existing benchmarks were used to provide comparisons with the old 3B+ model. The benchmarks were also recompiled using gcc 8, that came with Buster, to provide further comparisons. The early opportunity to run the programs was due to my acceptance of the request for me to become a volunteer consultant, exercising the system prior to launch.

    His measurements include I/O and stress tests. He has the source code for the tests available for download as a tar ball.

    With the dual graphics, these seem to be aiming at the desktop, in addition to anything else they might be taking on. They will make a mark there. These are probably outpeforming the desktops we had less than 15 years ago, but for two orders of magnitude less cost. However, I hope they are able to retain focus on their stated goal to "further the advancement of education of adults and children, particularly in the field of computers, computer science and related subjects".

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 24 2019, @04:25PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday June 24 2019, @04:25PM (#859392) Journal

    The education goal is tied to OS, software, and outreach, but improved hardware helps. With 50% to 1000% better performance in various areas, it should be less of a chore to use.

    I think there had been some speculation that Google would partner with Raspberry Pi to add an on-board TPU for machine learning, which is obviously a hot computer education topic. But they seem to have created their own board [hackaday.com] instead (never heard of it). The price is much more than a RasPi.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 24 2019, @04:51PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 24 2019, @04:51PM (#859400)

    I hope they are able to retain focus on their stated goal to "further the advancement of education of adults and children, particularly in the field of computers, computer science and related subjects".

    $120 for a bring your own monitor desktop PC / development environment, and $35 a throw for development boards with full wired and wireless networking capabilities plus 40 pins of GPIO? Standardized by a trusted community of supportive developers and tinkerers? "Guaranteed" production through 2026? Sounds like a killer tool for education of adults and children, particularly in the field of computers, computer science and related subjects.

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