It's been 4 years since the Raspberry Pi 4 launched and a lot has happened since then. The pandemic and resulting chip shortage caused the world to struggle to get hold of the Pi 4, with scalpers reselling any boards they could get for ridiculous prices. But the Rasperry Pi Foundation have been hard at work getting the Pi 5 ready for release, and it looks like it could be a solid upgrade.
The new 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 is the first to be created in-house, and promises two to three times the performance of the old processor. The graphics chip has also seen improvements, allowing it to run dual 4k monitors at 60Hz.
All that extra power comes at a cost though - it now pulls up to 25W which will require a substantial power supply. All that extra power translates into heat, and for the Pi to run without any thermal throttling it requires an active cooler.
Connectivity gets an overhaul too, with double the USB bandwith for faster transfer speeds to external USB storage devices, and an increase in MicroSD performance. In addition, the Pi now features a single-lane PCI Express 2.0 interface, which should open the doors to some high-bandwith peripherals.
This Pi 5 is certainly a departure from the low-cost, low-power boards of the past, but as they have other boards to fill in that gap the Pi 5 is a welcome upgrade to the maker ecosystem.
The Pi 5 is available now, and costs $60 for the 4GB version , and $80 for the one with 8GB.