The Raspberry Pi 4 brings faster CPU, up to 4GB of RAM

Article note: This is far sooner than I'd been expecting from the rumors, and has a bunch of actually-useful changes. 4GB of RAM is enough to run a browser for the modern web, that option is a big deal. Not sharing USB and Ethernet bandwidth, and having USB3+GigE is a _huge_ deal for server (and especially NAS) applications. Dual-HDMI is a win for the many signage-type applications. 4K is a win for use as a media player type device on modern TVs. The presence of the 4-pole 3.5mm for headphones and composite video is useful for lots of dumb fun rig-ups. It's a little power-hungry (3A USB bricks are not the norm, though switching to a USB-C connector with fewer awful high-drop cables should help some) and MicroHDMI is not the most convenient connector, but neither is a huge deal. I'll inevitably pick one or more up once things settle down, my spare 2B is too feeble for the last couple things I've tried to use it for, but tasks that that sort of SBC would be good for keep coming up.

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  The Raspberry Pi 4. [credit: Raspberry Pi ]

Today, Raspberry Pi is introducing a new version of its popular line of single-board computer. The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is the fastest Raspberry Pi ever, with the company promising "desktop performance comparable to entry-level x86 PC systems."

The new model is built around a Broadcom BCM2711 SoC, which, with four 1.5GHz Cortex A72 CPU cores, should be a big upgrade over the quad core Cortex A53 CPU in the Raspberry Pi 3. The RAM options are the even bigger upgrade though, with options for 1GB, 2GB, and even 4GB of DDR4. The Pi 3 was limited to 1GB of RAM, which really stung for desktop-class use cases.

There has been some upgrades and tweaks to the Pi 4 I/O, too. The Gigabit Ethernet returns, as do the four USB ports, but two of them get an upgrade to USB 3.0. Power is now supplied via a USB-C port, instead of the aging Micro USB of the Pi 3. The headphone jack returns, too, and it's still a four-pole solution providing audio and composite video.