Raspberry Pi Launches Fifth Generation; Touted As 2X+ Faster Than Pi 4

October 2, 2023 by Dave Haynes

The organization behind the long-running series of Raspberry Pi series of micro PCs announced the launch late last week of the fifth generation of the units – with upgrades on just about everything.

It is the first major release since the Pi 4 came out four years ago.

The headlines are that it is more than twice as fast as its predecessor, and is the first Raspberry Pi computer to feature silicon designed in‑house in Cambridge, UK.

The bullet point highlights:

• Faster CPU, 2x-3x compared to RPi4
• Faster GPU, with a 2x-2.5x performance boost
• 4GB & 8GB available on launch
• $5 price bump: $60 for 4GB, $80 for 8GB
• Onboard power button
• PCIe connector (FPC)
• Mini-jack with audio/composite output removed
• Variable-speed fan connector
• Real Time Clock battery connector
• H.264 h/w decoding and encoding remove, now in software only

This post from the Raspberry Pi people gets into the technical details, as well as back-story on the line. One interesting note is that the version 5 has a purpose-designed case available for $10. One of things that can get missed about the Pis is that $60 or $80 gets users a barebones board, not a complete PC. You have to add stuff like memory and a case to make it more than a paperweight.

Several digital signage software companies support or even focus on the Raspberry Pi as their go-to hardware.

I don’t think Vangelis Mihalopoulos, CEO of the Greek CMS software firm Yodeck, will mind if I reference his observations, posted last week on Linkedin:

What does that mean for digital signage on the RPi?

Well, performance is much better than the RPi4, so HTML content rendering will be faster. The removal of the h/w H.264 decoding takes away some of that performance boost, as the CPU gets to 50%-60% for 1080p@60FPS decoding. But still, there is a lot of juice to work with. The rest of the changes is less critical. The RTC is a nice addition as is the power button, which can be repurposed as a general button. The audio jack makes it more difficult to use the audio output, which can sometimes be utilized for background music.

That’s for hardware. But, the biggest changes is the software. Raspberry Pi has moved from proprietary APIs to standard Linux APIs. For industrial users working with media, this is a significant change.

Overall, it is a significant upgrade and we are looking forward to supporting RPi5 in Yodeck!!

Here, as well, is a video from Pi CEO Eben Upton: