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News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

jeffgeerling.com

41–50 of 208 posts

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very small point, but pulling from a feather form factor BOM to compare. $0.12 for microUSB female connector (rated 1A) $0.26 for a USB-C female (rated 3A). Needs 2 x resistors ( I think the power capabilities are the biggest item. If you want to pull higher current from a laptop for development or supply from a wall, you have to switch to USB-C. I don't think either of these prices are that aggressive - pretty sur…

I wonder if it would be worthwhile for them to produce both. Well, it will be hard to compare because the design cost doesn’t show up in the BOM, haha. But it seems like it would be useful nowadays, since some laptop have mostly USB-C connectors, and USB-C to USB-C is pretty common. I’ve never seen a C to Micro. Do they even exist?

> I’ve never seen a C to Micro. Do they even exist?

They do, in spades: https://www.amazon.com/3FT-Micro-Data-Charge-Cable/dp/B0DDWH...

I look forward to the day when they're no longer necessary.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#42
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it

Performance per Watt still outranks any other (quasi-)mainline linux device

Performance per watt is nice but I’d be more inclined to talk about “problems being solved per dollar.”

If you don’t specifically have a project where you need the GPIO pins built in, I struggle to understand the use case proposition of a raspberry pi compared to a typical x86 mini PC or even just grabbing a think client desktop like a ThinkCentre.

Almost everything that is unique to a Pi compared to an x86 mini PC seems like it makes more sense with an ESP device.

When the Raspberry Pi was $35 and it ran a desktop OS and the cheapest alternative that did that was 5x the price that use case made sense.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#43

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

Raspberry Pi isn't in direct competition with N150's.

Their niche is the industrial/embedded space. For that market, power consumption doesn't matter. What matters is that each model is guaranteed to be available till a specific date.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Raspberry Pi is not a good general purpose computer, but some of these criticisms are starting to feel like a pile-on with partially incorrect information. > the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. If you're trying to get maximum performance out of it all the time, you w…

> FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. What's the point of doing so though? If you're doing this, you're obviously using the wrong device. If all you need is to run some python scripts in a Linux environment, you should use a Pi 3 or Pi 0w2. Agree with your other points.

Having the burst performance is helpful.

Most light workloads are very bursty. When you type a command or click on something you want latency to be low. Having the overhead to get it done quickly at the full clockspeed is good if you are latency sensitive.

Throttling has become a bad word. Some feel compelled to avoid it at all costs, doing things like buying big coolers and running synthetic benchmarks to avoid it. Unless you're doing sustained workloads where you need all of the performance, allowing a little throttling is fine.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#46

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

A Raspberry Pi with sleep and hibernation is like asking Valve to make Half Life 3. They just can't. It doesn't compute.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#47

The 8GB Pi 5, at $170 [1], is encroaching on Jetson Orin Nano Super's $240 price point [2]. But the Jetson has a faster CPU (newer a78ae cores rather than a76) and, obviously, a whole-ass GPU. [1] https://www.microcenter.com/product/673711/raspberry-pi-5 [2] https://www.microcenter.com/product/691058/nvidia-jetson-ori...

The 16GB Pi 5 makes the Orin Nano look afforadable.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Raspberry Pi is not a good general purpose computer, but some of these criticisms are starting to feel like a pile-on with partially incorrect information. > the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. If you're trying to get maximum performance out of it all the time, you w…

> FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. What's the point of doing so though? If you're doing this, you're obviously using the wrong device. If all you need is to run some python scripts in a Linux environment, you should use a Pi 3 or Pi 0w2. Agree with your other points.

Even for extended workloads, a Pi 5 without a heatsink is still a hell of a lot faster than a Pi 4. And as sibling says, most users appreciate bursty speed while not doing prelonged compute (see also fanless laptops).

(Disclaimer, I work for raspberry pi ltd, not views of employer etc.)

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#49
post #43

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

Raspberry Pi isn't in direct competition with N150's. Their niche is the industrial/embedded space. For that market, power consumption doesn't matter. What matters is that each model is guaranteed to be available till a specific date.

> Raspberry Pi isn't in direct competition with N150's.

They may not have intended to be in direct competition, but in the current crisis conditions they are priced about the same as equivalent RAM/storage N150s, have even worse supply issues than the N150s, and have worse performance/watt than the N150s.

Its mighty hard to recommend them for new projects at the moment (nor any of the Pi clones, which are also rocketing in cost and dwindling in availability)

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#50
post #36

Pi's refusal to drop a USB-C on Pico due to cost increases is a terrible call IMO. I seriously cannot fathom being someone doing development who wouldn't pay $0.50 extra to purge the last micro USB from their desktop.

For what it's worth there are third-party rp2350 boards with USB-C connectors if that's important to you. Heck, WaveShare has one with two USB-C connectors: https://www.waveshare.com/rp2350-usb-c.htm

I am aware, thanks.

I do think that you're missing my point, which is that we're significantly past the point in this wretched timeline where they should offer a USB-C version of the reference board for this MCU.

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