Raspberry Pi 5 announced – see the full spec and find out how to get one as Cambridge company promises it’s a major upgrade
Raspberry Pi 5 is to go on sale towards the end of October, it has been revealed - and it represents a major upgrade on the last model.
Offering a significant improvement in speed over the Raspberry Pi 4, released in 2019, the bargain-priced computer features silicon built in-house by the Cambridge company for the first time.
A spokesperson for Raspberry Pi told the Cambridge Independent: “Raspberry Pi 5 delivers a substantial speed increase, running two-three times faster than Raspberry Pi 4, with a 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor clocked at 2.4GHz.
“We’re especially excited that, for the first time, this computer features silicon designed in-house here at Raspberry Pi. Our new chip RP1 allows us to deliver a huge improvement in peripheral performance and functionality.
“Raspberry Pi 5 also offers significantly improved graphics performance and camera support, a PCIe 2.0 interface, and a host of other new features and enhancements.
“Initially, it will be available in 4GB and 8GB RAM variants, priced at $60 and $80 respectively.”
At current exchange rates, that means you can expect to pay about £49.50 for the 4GB model or £66 for the 8GB version if you order from one of the Raspberry Pi resellers. While they are not due to be on sale until sometime late in October, you will be able to reserve one at the Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge’s Grand Arcade from today, and then pick it up on release.
Raspberry Pi is aiming the new computer at both consumers and industrial customers and the company said it will remain in production until at least January 2035.
The company is one of Cambridge’s biggest success stories.
Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton pioneered the concept of an affordable, credit card-sized computer after witnessing a decline in the interest in computer science and coding among young people as games consoles grew in popularity.
The concept captured the imagination of a generation with the 2012 release of a £25 no-frills Pi, which could connect to the internet and was suitable for programming. Other iterations built on its phenomenal success with the most recent, Raspberry Pi 4, offering a complete multimedia desktop PC for just £33.
Raspberry Pi surpassed ZX Spectrum sales in 2015 to become the biggest-selling British computer.
Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi Foundation works to promote the study of computer science, funded by profits from Raspberry Pi (Trading), and has inspired coding clubs for young people to be set up around the country.
The Raspberry Pi 5 full specification
Processor
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
Features
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
‘Substantial uplift in performance’
Discussing the specifications, the company added: “Alongside a substantial uplift in graphics performance from an 800MHz VideoCore VII GPU; dual 4Kp60 display output over HDMI; and state-of-the-art camera support from a rearchitected Raspberry Pi Image Signal Processor, it provides a smooth desktop experience for consumers, and opens the door to new applications for industrial customers.
“The RP1 ‘southbridge’ provides the bulk of the I/O capabilities for Raspberry Pi 5, and delivers a step change in peripheral performance and functionality.
“Aggregate USB bandwidth is more than doubled, yielding faster transfer speeds to external UAS drives and other high-speed peripherals; the dedicated two-lane 1Gbps MIPI camera and display interfaces present on earlier models have been replaced by a pair of four-lane 1.5Gbps MIPI transceivers, tripling total bandwidth, and supporting any combination of up to two cameras or displays; peak SD card performance is doubled, through support for the SDR104 high-speed mode; and for the first time the platform exposes a single-lane PCI Express 2.0 interface, providing support for high-bandwidth peripherals.”
