Raspberry Pi 4

Raspberry Pi 4 is now on sale, starting at $35. This is a comprehensive upgrade, touching almost every element of the platform. For the first time we provide a PC-like level of performance for most users, while retaining the interfacing capabilities and hackability of the classic Raspberry Pi line. page

Key spec upgrades include an ARM Cortex-A72 CPU (~3x performance improvement) up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM, Bluetooth 5.0, USB 3.0 ports, and USB-C power supply.

How does the Raspberry Pi 4 fare on paper when compared to the previous model? We’ve got you covered with our Raspberry Pi 4 vs Raspberry Pi 3 Model 3B+ rundown. Android Authority

As detailed by Tyler Ward, the Raspberry Pi 4 has a non-compliant USB-C charging port and doesn't work with as many chargers as it should. Ars Technica A work around is to buy and use the official Raspberry Pi USB-C power supply.

I've seen reports on Reddit that the Raspberry Pi 4 runs hotter than the prior models. Most are suggesting that if you are going to use it for heavier workloads to add active cooling (aka a fan). Jeff Geerling writes about this and provides instructions for how to add a fan to a standard Rasperry Pi 4 case. page

Benchmark testing of SD cards shows that the Samsung Evo+ and Sandisk Extreme are the best performing SD cards for the Raspberry Pi 4. page Here are the same benchmarks across multiple model Raspberry Pis. page

Further benchmark testing of newer A2 class of SD cards does not show any better performance. Author concludes A2 designation is marketing BS. page Author notes that in some of his tests A1 class cards perform nearly 2x better than A2. page

The Raspberry Pi org released a SD card test app that tests the speed of SD cards in a Raspberry Pi. I installed the tool on my Raspberry Pi 4, ran it, and found the card I am using writes at 12,000 kbps, above the 10,000 baseline. On 2020-06-20 I configured this Pi4 to boot from a SSD connected to the USB 3 port. The sequential write access is 100,824 KB/SEC, a significant improvement over the SD card speed I report above and 10x over the baseline.

The latest Raspberry Pi is about to get a whole lot cooler, literally speaking. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a firmware update for the Raspberry Pi 4 which reduces its power usage and correspondingly its heat output -- and this time it doesn’t come with a nasty bug that causes certain USB 3.0 devices to switch from throughput measured in hundreds of megabytes to single-digit kilobytes. Tom's Hardware

I have ordered the Raspberry Pi4, power supply, and the Flirc case , which is supposed to help with cooling.

I received the Pi4, power supply and Flirc case on 11.22.2019. No installation instructions are provided with the case, so I searched for and found a YouTube video that provides the instructions.

Unfortunately, I did not order the micro HDMI to HDMI adapter that I need to connect the Pi4 to my monitor, so I ordered the cable for overnight delivery from Amazon.

In the mean time I configured the SD card so that the Pi4 will boot headless, enable SSH, and connect to my home network. page

Next, I ran apt update and apt upgrade to update the operating system. I note that included is a recent firmware update that enables the Pi4 to run cooler overall. I confirmed the current firmware was installed after reboot by running the command below, found on Tom's Hardware

I observe that the current and latest eeprom dates are the same as are the codes: 000137ab.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides good documentation about the Raspberry Pi4 boot EEPROM .

I observe the current temperature of the Pi4 by running the following:

So far temperatures range from 38.0'C to 40.0'C within the terminal and as high as 44.0'C while running the Raspbian desktop, which is well below the 82.0'C threshold where after the CPU clock speed is throttled. I watched some 4K video on YouTube and observed the CPU temp reach 48'C.

On 2020-06-20 I configured this Raspberry Pi4 to boot from an external USB drive using the beta of the 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS. The drive is powered by the Pi4. Subsequently I am observing higher temperatures of around 55.0'C.

I installed the Pi4 in the Flirc Raspberry Pi4 case that provides passive cooling to the CPU. Jeff Geerling has written a great blog post that shows how the Flirc case handles cooling in comparison to other cooling techniques. page Here is an explanation of Geerling's testing methodology. page

As far as I can tell, the main negative with the Flirc case is that the GPIO pins are not accessible.

I've received the micro HDMI to HDMI adapter that I ordered from Amazon and I am now checking out the Raspbian desktop performance. In fact, I am entering this text in Chromium and I observe that browser performance is noticeably better than older Raspberry Pis. From what I am seeing right now, I could actually use this desktop regularly.

Ran Octane 2 in Chromium and the Pi4 scores 8247, which is actually not the slowest of my computers, the Surface 3 scores 5567. After I configured the Pi4 to boot from a SSD the Octane 2 score was 8385. For comparison, the Octane 2 score on the 2013 Macbook Air is 10372, the iPad Pro 10.5 scores 28361 and the Google Pixelbook is 27035.

Octane measures web browser Javascript performance. which is not a direct measure of a computer's performance but does measure my main computer use case, which is web applications.

Another upgrade with the Pi4 is support for WiFi on 5 Ghz. Previously I have only been able to connect my Raspberry Pis to the 2.4 Ghz WiFi network.

I've decided that for my first personal use case for this Raspberry Pi I am going to try using for my personal Internet access during my work days. See Using The Raspberry Pi4 As A Remote Desktop.

There are a few applications that I regularly use beyond Chrome and one of them is Typora , which is a markdown editor. I use Typora when I write essays that I publish on my essays site.

Unfortunately, there is not an ARM version of Typora that will run on the Raspberry Pi so I have had to search for an alternative markdown editor, see Markdown Editors for the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched a new version of the Raspberry Pi 4 that features 8GB of RAM. Liliputing In my use of the 4 GB version of the Pi 4 (See Using The Raspberry Pi4 As A Remote Desktop) I rarely see memory consumption exceed 1 GB.

Simultaneous to the release of the above, a beta of a 64-bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS is available for download . The Raspbarian name appears to be going away.

I installed and am currently running the beta 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS and observe that with three browser tabs and terminal window open RAM consumption is sitting at 1.33 GB, a tad higher than under the 32-bit version, but this OS is currently not optimized.

I found instructions for configuring the Raspberry Pi 4 to boot from a USB SSD drive that uses the 64-bit beta of Raspberry Pi OS. The instructions worked perfectly and I am now running my Pi4 with a 256 SSD as the boot disk.

The built-in VNC Server is not currently available in the beta build of the 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS but I found instructions for Installing X11VNC Server that I am using as an alternate so that I can continue Using The Raspberry Pi4 As A Remote Desktop.