- Broadcom BCM2712 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU, with cryptography extensions, 512KB per-core L2 caches and a 2MB shared L3 cache
- VideoCore VII GPU, supporting OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.2
- Dual 4Kp60 HDMI® display output with HDR support 4Kp60 HEVC decoder
- LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM (4GB and 8GB SKUs available at launch)
- Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi®
- Bluetooth 5.0 / Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
- microSD card slot, with support for high-speed SDR104 mode
- 2 × USB 3.0 ports, supporting simultaneous 5Gbps operation
- 2 × USB 2.0 ports
- Gigabit Ethernet, with PoE+ support (requires separate PoE+ HAT)
- 2 × 4-lane MIPI camera/display transceivers
- PCIe 2.0 x1 interface for fast peripherals (requires separate M.2 HAT or other adapter)
- 5V/5A DC power via USB-C, with Power Delivery support
- Raspberry Pi standard 40-pin header
- Real-time clock (RTC), powered from external battery
- Power button
Yeah, the Pi 4 seems to be the only model Best Buy stocks.
Is that a bad thing? I’m brand new to the RPi world (as in, I just discovered I may want one two days ago) so I’m not sure if one model is better for certain things or are they just incrementally improved from one generation to the next. I am not tech savvy so I couldn’t answer that by looking at specs.
It simply may be overkill for some projects. No reason to get a 4 when a 3b or pico will do the job just fine at a fraction of the cost. Same deal with the 5; It’s more powerful, but it’s also more expensive and not every project needs the most recent version. The original goal of the Pi was to provide cheap accessible processing for whatever you may need. But as innovations keep happening, things keep getting more expensive.
For an extreme example, you wouldn’t build a $3500 gaming PC for your grandparents who will only use it for Solitaire and checking their email.
It’s not bad, just more expensive and more powerful, so it would be overkill for certain projects. If you want a cheaper or smaller (but less powerful) option, you’d have to get it from somewhere else.
If you want to use it for emulating games for example, you’d probably want the best performance you can get. If you’re just making a digital picture frame though, you don’t need to spend the extra money for a Pi 4 and can get away with the cheaper models.
I’d recommend looking up what you want to do and seeing what model Pi other people have used. I use a Pi 3 to control my 3D printer, which isn’t too demanding of a task for it.
I guess that makes sense. I’m looking to set up a jellyfin server for myself and a few friends so I think I’ll need a bit more performance but I’m sure I can do that with older models as long as they’re equipped with the 8g of ram.
Thanks for the response!
Pretty much just incremental improvements. Faster processor, more RAM, slightly better peripherals (like faster ethernet or newer wifi specs), but essentially they’re all the same thing.
Thank you for the info!
Depends. Most of my Pi’s are 3 or under, and they’re doing mundane tasks like printserver or VPN. This takes little power or speed. I did use a pi B+ with Kodi and that tended to choke up occasionally, I think mostly due to heat though even after applying heat sinks. The 4 and 5 should handle that job a lot better.