Raspberry Pi goes 64-bit and quad core

Raspberry Pi, element14 and RS Components have announced Raspberry Pi 3, based around a quad core 64-bit processor.

Raspberry Pi, element14 and RS Components have announced Raspberry Pi 3, based around a quad core 64-bit processor.

“Four years ago today, we launched the first Raspberry Pi with our friends at Premier Farnell. Today we’re launching Raspberry Pi 3: it’s still $35 and it’s still the size of your credit card, but now it comes with on-board wireless LAN and Bluetooth, 50% more processing power, and a QUAD Core 64-bit processor. The new Raspberry Pi opens up even more possibilities for IoT and embedded projects; we hope you like it as much as we do,” said Raspberry Pi Trading CEO Eben Upton at an element14 event.

According to educational charity Raspberry Pi.org, the chip at the heart of Raspberry Pi 3 is a Broadcom BCM2837 – which retains the same basic architecture as the arlier BCM2835 and BCM2836, “so all those projects and tutorials which rely on the precise details of the Raspberry Pi hardware will continue to work. Combining a 33% increase in clock speed with various architectural enhancements, this provides a 50-60% increase in performance in 32-bit mode versus Raspberry Pi 2, or roughly a factor of ten over the original Raspberry Pi”.

The operating system will remain 32-bit.

“At launch, we are using the same 32-bit Raspbian userland that we use on other Raspberry Pi devices; over the next few months we will investigate whether there is value in moving to 64-bit mode,” said the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Estimated performance is ~10x faster than the original Raspberry Pi for multi-threaded processing (SysBench). The range is 2.5x (single-threaded apps) to >20x (NEON-enabled video codecs).

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

• 1.2GHz 64bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 (~10x original Raspberry Pi performance)
• 1Gbyte 400MHz SDRAM (same as Pi 2)
• BCM43438 wireless combo chip
• 802.11n wireless LAN
• Bluetooth 4.1
• VideoCore IV retained, at 400MHz
• 3D core now at 300MHz, was 250MHz
• LEDs have moved – check case compatibility
• connectors in same place as Raspberry Pi 2
• Raspberry Pi 1 and 2 compatible
• 5V microUSB power – 2.5A adapter recommended

Raspberry Pi 1 or 2 will continue to be available for industrial customers “for as long as there’s demand”, said the foundation. “We expect to introduce a BCM2837-based Compute Module 3 in the next few months.”