Raspberry Pi 5 finally revealed alongside major upgrades

Raspberry Pi has finally launched the Pi 5, its next major single-board computer. It has been four years since its last major release.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is ready to hit the market, as the company prepares to launch the single-board computer in October.

Coming in two flavors, 4GB and 8GB, it’ll cost $60 and $80 respectively. This is a $5 overall increase for both versions over the Raspberry Pi 4. Since the electronics shortage in 2020, the Raspberry Pi 4B and CM4 have been missing in action, with stores unable to procure stock.

According to electronics reseller Mouser, the next time they’ll see stock for the 4B board is November. They also have over 5000 on backorder.

Raspberry Pi 5 set to launch in October

The Raspberry Pi 5 marks the company’s first big-numbered release in four years, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been busy. Between the Pi 4 and the Pi 5, the CM4 (an industry-aimed embedded solution) and Pi 400 (a Pi 4 embedded in a keyboard), Pi Zero 2, and Pico devices have also been launched.

Pi 5 will introduce the company’s own silicon as the system-on-chip (SoC). This SoC is capable of much more than the Raspberry Pi 4, with claims that it’s 2-3 times more powerful than its predecessor.

Pi 5 brings new M.2 & POE+ HAT modules

A majority of the hardware onboard will be familiar to those with the Pi 4. However, the SoC is now capable of running PCIe 2.0, for faster hardware. There are still dual 4K micro-HDMI inputs and two USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports.

Ever present is the 40-pin GPIO, the General Purpose Input/Output pins for tinkerers. These can output up to 5 volts of power for the various HAT add-ons and other gizmos you might want to implement into a project.

Speaking of HAT modules, Raspberry Pi will be launching an updated Power Over Ethernet+ (POE+) HAT. This will sit on top of the Pi 5 and despite being shown unfinished, already appears sleeker than the original.

With the addition of PCIe 2.0, it unlocks more that can be done with external hardware. A pair of new M.2 SSD HATs will be released. One will be your traditional barebones, but supporting full-sized M.2 drives, while another will be smaller to fit inside the case. This will support 2230 and 2242 sizes – similar to those used in the Steam Deck.

However, those using the Pi for camera-based applications will need to purchase a new cable. The company has changed the pinout on the camera connectors to be higher density. Raspberry Pi will be selling the new connectors starting from $1. All current camera modules made by Raspberry Pi will come with the necessary connectors.

Real-Time Clock

Thankfully, the Raspberry Pi 5 will come with a real-time clock. The 4 caused us some headaches when we were originally working on it, as some projects would require a real-time clock. This is different from the internal software clock, and having it embedded onboard the Pi 5 will make things a heck of a lot easier.

Raspberry Pi 5 should improve emulation

For emulation fans, it would appear the Raspberry Pi 5 is the next big thing to wait on. The Pi 4 made for a fantastic device to play retro games on, but had a hard limit on what it could run. Anything further than the Dreamcast on home consoles, and the PSP – in certain games – for handheld.

The additional GPU power from the new SoC should allow it to get a huge jump in performance, and hopefully bring in support for the sixth generation of consoles.

This new GPU, the VideoCore VII, will also be backed by a new 4K60 HEVC decoder. With this software onboard, it should make the Raspberry Pi 5 a low-cost and excellent Plex or multimedia server.