4 ms·

Pretty wild to see a drop-in replacement that's actually faster - usually that's marketing speak for "technically compatible but slower in real life." The fact

Pretty wild to see a drop-in replacement that's actually faster - usually that's marketing speak for "technically compatible but slower in real life." The fact that you can just pop this into existing CM4 hardware and get 2-3x performance is impressive. Finally, my commercial display can run Crysis! (Ok, maybe not, but that USB 3 upgrade is sweet). Though I have to laugh at the "good news everyone, it's the same price!" followed immediately by "...for the 8GB version only, everything else costs more." Classic Pi Foundation pricing gymnastics. At least we're not dealing with scalpers asking $200 for a CM4 anymore. The silkscreen specs on top is such a simple but brilliant addition. No more squinting at tiny chips trying to figure out which module is which in your parts drawer.

creesch 2y ago
> Finally, my commercial display can run Crysis! (Ok, maybe not, but that USB 3 upgrade is sweet). It actually can! .... if you also plug in a GPU. https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/amd-radeon-pro-w7700-running-on-raspberry-pi https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/amd-radeon-pro-w7700-...
benj111 2y ago
>Classic Pi Foundation pricing gymnastics To be fair, theyve dropped the 1GB model, so do you want to compare old and new lowest specs? I don't know about relative sales figures, I infer that 8GB is expected to be the default going forward.
- esskay 2y ago
  Thing is once you start looking outside of the base model it becomes a bit less of a good offering when there are others making compatible boards that are arguably better specced. The only issue of course is some whilst sharing the same formfactor and connector aren't always compatible with the same hardware. If I recall correctly the Radxa CM3's for example are fully compatible.
  - benj111 2y ago
    Rpis proposition has always been support rather than value per se. If you want cheaper, yes there are other options. If you want something where a mainline kernel will work, and has a community, Pis are a much better choice.
    - trissi1996 2y ago
      The last time i tried to get pi running with a distro that wasn't raspbian it was huge PITA, with having to use custom kernel patches and weird proprietary firmware and annoying boot process, am I misremebering or did this change ? On any x86 UEFI system I tried i never had any issues at all, but Pi's I remember as a huge PITA... Or is this just a general ARM issue ?
      - HankB99 2y ago
        > Or is this just a general ARM issue ? I understand that this is the case. IBM did the PC world a solid by not encumbering the original H/W. That provided a basis for a platform that could be copied and provide a "standard" that others could leverage, including copying and reverse engineering the BIOS that launched the OS. That provided the foundation of the PC explosion. They tried to reverse their "mistake" with the Microchannel Architecture and that saw limited success (AKA failed.) IBM was also part of a consortium that tried to develop a common platform for the Power architecture. I'm not sure if any of that survives in their current offerings but it did not take anything away from the Intel (Windows) market and except for Apple, the Power PC was nowhere to be seen. ARM processors have proliferated in the hand held (phone, tablet) market where volumes are sufficient for the manufacturers to provide their own solution to bootstrapping the OS. There are some efforts to agree on a common boot architecture (Yocto, UEFI and probably others) and I'm not familiar with them, but I hope one succeeds so we can easily load a variety of OSs on our devices. Incidentally... The GPU in the Raspberry Pi performs the initial stages of the boot process. Weird. I think that Pi 4/5 generations are moving away from that but I'm not familiar with the detains. As near as I can tell, they've preserved the S/W structure required for the GPU to perform this function.
    - 2y ago

creesch 2y ago

> Finally, my commercial display can run Crysis! (Ok, maybe not, but that USB 3 upgrade is sweet). It actually can! .... if you also plug in a GPU. https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/amd-radeon-pro-w7700-running-on-raspberry-pi https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/amd-radeon-pro-w7700-...

benj111 2y ago

>Classic Pi Foundation pricing gymnastics To be fair, theyve dropped the 1GB model, so do you want to compare old and new lowest specs? I don't know about relative sales figures, I infer that 8GB is expected to be the default going forward.

esskay 2y ago
Thing is once you start looking outside of the base model it becomes a bit less of a good offering when there are others making compatible boards that are arguably better specced. The only issue of course is some whilst sharing the same formfactor and connector aren't always compatible with the same hardware. If I recall correctly the Radxa CM3's for example are fully compatible.
- benj111 2y ago
  Rpis proposition has always been support rather than value per se. If you want cheaper, yes there are other options. If you want something where a mainline kernel will work, and has a community, Pis are a much better choice.
  - trissi1996 2y ago
    The last time i tried to get pi running with a distro that wasn't raspbian it was huge PITA, with having to use custom kernel patches and weird proprietary firmware and annoying boot process, am I misremebering or did this change ? On any x86 UEFI system I tried i never had any issues at all, but Pi's I remember as a huge PITA... Or is this just a general ARM issue ?
    - HankB99 2y ago
      > Or is this just a general ARM issue ? I understand that this is the case. IBM did the PC world a solid by not encumbering the original H/W. That provided a basis for a platform that could be copied and provide a "standard" that others could leverage, including copying and reverse engineering the BIOS that launched the OS. That provided the foundation of the PC explosion. They tried to reverse their "mistake" with the Microchannel Architecture and that saw limited success (AKA failed.) IBM was also part of a consortium that tried to develop a common platform for the Power architecture. I'm not sure if any of that survives in their current offerings but it did not take anything away from the Intel (Windows) market and except for Apple, the Power PC was nowhere to be seen. ARM processors have proliferated in the hand held (phone, tablet) market where volumes are sufficient for the manufacturers to provide their own solution to bootstrapping the OS. There are some efforts to agree on a common boot architecture (Yocto, UEFI and probably others) and I'm not familiar with them, but I hope one succeeds so we can easily load a variety of OSs on our devices. Incidentally... The GPU in the Raspberry Pi performs the initial stages of the boot process. Weird. I think that Pi 4/5 generations are moving away from that but I'm not familiar with the detains. As near as I can tell, they've preserved the S/W structure required for the GPU to perform this function.
  - 2y ago