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