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> At this price point, it’s easy enough to throw one in your basket when you’re already spending a decent chunk of change and be done with it, safe in the knowl
by teruakohatu 2y ago
> At this price point, it’s easy enough to throw one in your basket when you’re already spending a decent chunk of change and be done with it, safe in the knowledge that you have a well-performing boot device. I do still think it’s a bit naff that the M.2 HAT+ doesn’t fit in the official case but I won’t re-open that can of worms.
An rpi5 plus M.2 hat plus a branded ssd and you are well into the realm of Intel N100 SBC that don’t need a hat, have a good GPU with encoding/decoding and a lot of CPU power. I really don’t understand rpi anymore beyond the Zero, 2040 and CM range for commercial use.
- shadowpho 2y agoYep rpi5 does not make sense anymore. N100 goes for $110 on sale with 512gb nvme/16gb of ram/psu/case all included. It completely roasts rpi5 while staying with x64 Linux.
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- cosmotic 2y agoPower consumption is a good contender for reasons to stick with rpis. The rough, quick search numbers I'm seeing for idle power are ~6w for the N100 SCB and ~1 to 2w for the pi. Max performance is like ~15w to ~4w.
- gjsman-1000 2y agoDepends on where you live then. My home state of Minnesota has electricity for 11 cents per kWh, with only 19% coal. Very different than, say, Germany. Power efficiency becomes a much lower priority.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoHow often is that the case? Are you really saving so much more money with a 10W board vs a 15W system to offset the purchasing price?
- nine_k 2y agoIt's like 1.5x longer run time on battery power :shrug:
- brokenmachine 2y agoMost things I see rpi being used for would be better done at 1/10 of the power with an ESP32, STM32 or arduino. The things that need an rpi and therefore must use power from the wall anyway, I always find myself thinking would be better done by a minipc, eg one using a laptop cpu like a 7730U. Costs more, but you get like 3-4x the speed at a similar power use, and have much more flexibility on what OS you can use because it's a "proper" PC. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of rPi. I have a Pi Zero that I've used exactly once because I wanted to do something and I came across a project that did exactly what I needed that used rPi. I just find there's always a better option than rPi for every project I find myself doing.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoHow many PIs did you see in battery powered applications?
- chronogram 2y agoIs it really 1.5× longer in practice? The N100s are efficient, and you can simply choose a lower power profile by sending a different energy/performance preference to the CPU, and it finishes tasks quicker.
- throwaway19972 2y agoWhile there is some commercial/industrial use of RPi, that seems like an odd consideration when generally considering how they've positioned the brand. Meanwhile you can write and run very similar code across everything from the zero all the way up to the 5—which is enormous flexibility that x86 simply doesn't offer. Plus, my understanding is that the N100 still tends to have poor driver support issues that the Pi likely doesn't with such a large community.
- robotnikman 2y ago>While there is some commercial/industrial use of RPi I thought the whole reason for the shortages the last few years was due to commercial applications buying out most of the Pi's available?
- throwaway19972 2y ago> I thought the whole reason for the shortages the last few years was due to commercial applications buying out most of the Pi's available? Sure, but that's not why people find raspberry pis interesting or valuable.
- MisterTea 2y ago> Meanwhile you can write and run very similar code across everything from the zero all the way up to the 5—which is enormous flexibility that x86 simply doesn't offer. This doesn't make sense, can you elaborate?
- mrguyorama 2y agoEvery raspberry pi, from Zero, Zero W, Zero 2 (great name guys), Pi 1, Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi 4, Pi 5 and every variation are all general purpose linux computers that can run pretty much any code you can run on a normal linux computer. They are all the same compilation target IIRC. If you wrote a program for the original Pi, you could have run it on every other Pi without modification or recompilation, depending on peripheral specifics I guess. Are you getting confused by the 2040?
- m463 2y agoI suspect you are describing a large part of consumer behavior. Someone gets a sporty-car, then starts working on the engine, the suspension, the exhaust, gets new rims and tire, new seats... and in the end they could have bought a porsche Thing is, it all depends on your use case. For the pi, it is lots better for hardware projects than a nuc style machine, via the gpios/csi/dsi. and specialized hats. There is also a huge community of forums/documentation/people to help you do new things, solve problems, get unstuck. But if you are doing linux PC kinds of things, like a nas or a media server, you need to do the math.
- erinnh 2y agoMost hardware projects I tend to look at dont need the power of a Pi5 and are fine with a 2040 or zero. The niche of the Pi5 just has gotten so much smaller, imo.
- NovemberWhiskey 2y agoI started down this thought path and ended up with a pair of reconditioned DL369 G9s.
- wkat4242 2y agoTotally true. If you want a small server just get a N100. The pi makes sense for something where you need power (eg more than esp32 or 2040) and gpio. Not as a small server. Those days are gone.
- teamonkey 2y agoI’d argue they were never a particularly good option as a server, especially a file server, because of their poor IO. You’d often get better performance by installing Linux on a NAS. Ironically the Pi5 is the only one that is actually ok at being a file server. Pis are very good at being lots of other things though.
- ThatPlayer 2y agoThe Pi 4 still makes sense for 35$ if your use case doesn't require power but still requires something more featured than a esp32 or rp2040. Most of my Pis are either video displays or 3d printer controllers, so I'll keep getting Pi 4s for these. Maybe the 3A+, I like the form factor of that one.
- wkat4242 2y agoOh yeah if you like the 3A+ you might even be able to get away with the Zero 2W, it has the same chip. And it's even cheaper.
- ThatPlayer 2y agoI don't mind spending a bit more for the 3A+ to not have to deal with the adapters like microUSB to USB-A host ports for my 3D printers. Or for video displays having Ethernet and full-sized HDMI. I do have a Zero 2W just in case, but for my current use cases I just like the 3A+ more.
- wkat4242 2y agoAh I see that makes sense! The adapters are indeed a big annoyance with the zeros. The 3A+ doesn't have ethernet either though (like none of the A models).
- Koshkin 2y agoOne example: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/radxa-x4-cheap-intel-n100-raspberry-pi-alternative https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/radxa-x4-cheap-intel-n10...
- jamesu 2y agoOne issue I have with a lot of the N100 systems is there seems to be a lot of variants from different manufacturers, slightly different form factors, etc. The PI may be worse but at least you have a pretty good idea what you are actually getting most of the time.
- skrtskrt 2y agoit's a known quantity with known good support for various things and a large community. People and particularly businesses want to buy something they know works, rather than trying to change and figure out new configuration nuances every time something with a slightly better looking spec sheet comes out.
- icelancer 2y agoWe've replaced most of our RPi units with the Beelink SER MAX 5 or whatever at $300ish price point; just too good of a deal (and all of its hardware works with Linux, unlike some other MiniPCs). But we still use RPi4/5s when we want the ecosystem of the RPi, particularly around the GPIO stuff. Typical things include environment monitoring such as lighting and air quality - super simple plug-in devices that easily interface with Raspbian and the GPIO system. Power draw is much lower on the RPis which I think is relevant for some people; not really us. But that's a pretty valuable use case for those who are shipping battery-backed devices.
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- amanzi 2y agoI agree - I've got a couple of N100 micro PCs that have replaced Raspberry Pi devices at home. One of them is running Home Assistant and a bunch of addons, and the other is my Plex server. Both of them have more than enough power and super easy to add more RAM or storage.
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