4 ms·

ARM SBC entry costs have jumped upwards of $100 and low powered Intel machines (used thin clients, nucs, workstations) have become more accessible than ever. Wh

by igou 3y ago

ARM SBC entry costs have jumped upwards of $100 and low powered Intel machines (used thin clients, nucs, workstations) have become more accessible than ever. When the 4 was brand new, 4 cores/4gb was pretty killer for the entry price. The Pi had an incredible impact but it's pretty obvious it doesn't fit very well into a lot of usecases any more given other options. I hope that over the next few years the Pi foundation can focus on its original goal for the Pi: a cheap and accessible device that could be used in schools to teach programming

kytazo 3y ago
Yes but when you compare the TDP and compute/watt of such a system compared to an arm sbc it pales in comparison. Being fan-less hence much more compact is another thing they lack as well.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  NUC and other platforms get down to single-digit watts idle. I have a much larger, very performant Ryzen 7 system that idles at 30 watts with an Nvidia GTX 1070. The GTX 1070 alone is 10w idle and tiny (under 1 sec) 70 watt peaks for inference in my various uses (the fan doesn't even start). The x86_64 architecture has come a long way in terms of energy usage and even the much older NUCs, thin clients, etc can pretty easily get to the 10 watt range. I'm not one for wasting energy but 30 watts at 24/7 usage at some of the highest energy costs in the world ($0.23/kWh) comes to roughly $5/mo and enables many, many, many things that just aren't fundamentally possible (or very ill-advised) with a Raspberry Pi. For me personally I'm more in the $0.12/kWh range and I can run this system, with a crazy amount of functionality, for around $3/mo. Yes a Raspberry Pi would be something like $0.26/mo but a few dollars a month is completely unnoticeable in a typical household utility bill. The level of your toaster or how long you microwave leftovers adds up to be significantly greater.
  - derefr 3y ago
    That's all fine if you're powering the thing off mains power. A lot of Pi use-cases involve running them on batteries, e.g. any of the Pi-powered "retro handheld" devices.
- SecretDreams 3y ago
  I'd say ADL e-core beelink esque smallboxes for $150 offer good value and decent tdp. No where near pi, but also not like the old Skylake thin boxes, either. We're talking probably sub 65w all in, maybe even closer to 35w.
bemusedthrow75 3y ago
> I hope that over the next few years the Pi foundation can focus on its original goal for the Pi: a cheap and accessible device that could be used in schools to teach programming. FWIW I think they really are. In the middle of last year they deliberately pivoted both MagPi and Hackspace Magazine to projects involving the Pico, and they've done, IMO, a very good job in demonstrating that many of the educational projects around the Pi Zero are little more than simple Python (usually) scripts that toggle a few GPIO pins. Not only do they run just fine on a Pico or Pico W, it's arguably of more obvious educational value to see them running on such simple devices.
moffkalast 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't post like this here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. You can make your substantive points without snark, flamebait, or name-calling, so please do that instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by igou 3y ago

kytazo 3y ago

Yes but when you compare the TDP and compute/watt of such a system compared to an arm sbc it pales in comparison. Being fan-less hence much more compact is another thing they lack as well.

kkielhofner 3y ago
NUC and other platforms get down to single-digit watts idle. I have a much larger, very performant Ryzen 7 system that idles at 30 watts with an Nvidia GTX 1070. The GTX 1070 alone is 10w idle and tiny (under 1 sec) 70 watt peaks for inference in my various uses (the fan doesn't even start). The x86_64 architecture has come a long way in terms of energy usage and even the much older NUCs, thin clients, etc can pretty easily get to the 10 watt range. I'm not one for wasting energy but 30 watts at 24/7 usage at some of the highest energy costs in the world ($0.23/kWh) comes to roughly $5/mo and enables many, many, many things that just aren't fundamentally possible (or very ill-advised) with a Raspberry Pi. For me personally I'm more in the $0.12/kWh range and I can run this system, with a crazy amount of functionality, for around $3/mo. Yes a Raspberry Pi would be something like $0.26/mo but a few dollars a month is completely unnoticeable in a typical household utility bill. The level of your toaster or how long you microwave leftovers adds up to be significantly greater.
- derefr 3y ago
  That's all fine if you're powering the thing off mains power. A lot of Pi use-cases involve running them on batteries, e.g. any of the Pi-powered "retro handheld" devices.
SecretDreams 3y ago
I'd say ADL e-core beelink esque smallboxes for $150 offer good value and decent tdp. No where near pi, but also not like the old Skylake thin boxes, either. We're talking probably sub 65w all in, maybe even closer to 35w.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago

> I hope that over the next few years the Pi foundation can focus on its original goal for the Pi: a cheap and accessible device that could be used in schools to teach programming. FWIW I think they really are. In the middle of last year they deliberately pivoted both MagPi and Hackspace Magazine to projects involving the Pico, and they've done, IMO, a very good job in demonstrating that many of the educational projects around the Pi Zero are little more than simple Python (usually) scripts that toggle a few GPIO pins. Not only do they run just fine on a Pico or Pico W, it's arguably of more obvious educational value to see them running on such simple devices.

moffkalast 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please don't post like this here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. You can make your substantive points without snark, flamebait, or name-calling, so please do that instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html