The Raspberry Pi 5 is the latest in a line of tinkerer-friendly single-board computers (SBCs). It launched in late 2023 at a slightly higher price than the Pi 4, which understandably left some people unhappy. Now, nearly a year after its original launch, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has unveiled a cheaper version.
The Raspberry Pi 5 is now available with 2 GB RAM for $50. Previously, the 4 GB model was the cheapest at $60 and there is also the 8 GB model for $80. Less RAM makes this variant cheaper, but that’s not all.
Broadcom didn’t design the BCM2712 chipset specifically for Raspberry Pi, but also sells it to other companies. This means that the silicon has features that these other companies need, but the Pi doesn’t. Even so, these features take up space on the silicon chip and drive up the price.
However, Broadcom has now developed a new stepping (D0) that excludes these extra bits and makes the chipset slightly cheaper. This and the lower amount of RAM have allowed the Foundation to offer the 2GB model for $50. Whether the 4GB and 8GB models will switch to the new stepping remains to be seen (current boards use the C1 stepping).
The BCM2712 is a 16nm chip with four Cortex-A76 cores (typically running at 2.4GHz) and a VideoCore VII GPU, plus other elements like a PCIe 2.0 x1 bus that enables more advanced applications for the Pi 5—for example, if you build a NAS with it, you no longer need to connect storage to the USB 3.0 port.
🚨 A new member joins the Raspberry Pi 5 family 🚨
With 2GB of RAM and a price tag of just $50, this new entry-level product continues our mission to lower the cost of powerful general-purpose computers.
Read me: https://t.co/2WAJIC9Qh2 pic.twitter.com/lVDHpWXsZv
— Raspberry Pi (@Raspberry_Pi) 19 August 2024
In addition to the BCM2712, the Pi 5 also features an RP1 chip, developed by Raspberry itself, which enables features that make the Pi a Pi, such as the 40-pin header. The RP1 is also responsible for Ethernet, USB, the display and camera ports, and more.
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