“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . .” From the Raspberrypi.org Blog blog comes news of a new board with greater processing speed and integrated hardware.
“In celebration of our fourth birthday, we thought it would be fun to release something new. Accordingly, Raspberry Pi 3 is now on sale for $35 (the same price as the existing Raspberry Pi 2), featuring:
- A 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU (~10x the performance of Raspberry Pi 1)
- Integrated 802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1
- Complete compatibility with Raspberry Pi 1 and 2
“The 900MHz 32-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU complex has been replaced by a custom-hardened 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53. 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.
“Raspberry Pi 3 is available to buy today from our partners element14 and RS Components, and other resellers. You’ll need a recent NOOBS or Raspbian image from our downloads page. 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.”
At $35 these computers are a steal, and now with Bluetooth and Wireless built in, they are even more affordable. I have a Raspberry Pi 2 already, but I have a feeling one of these will end up in my shack before too long!
Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.
And I just bought my first Pi, a Pi 2, a week and a half ago!
“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . .”, indeed.
This is a great feature set, at a great price. The inclusion of WiFi saves the average Raspberry Pi buyer between $7-15 for a mini wifi adapter and keeps the USB ports open for other devices.
I am keeping a sharp eye on my local Microcenter to pick one up right away, as once the initial supply is exhausted it can be a while before stores are restocked.
I currently have a Pi 2 in a case attached to my TV for dinking around with, along with my other favorite mini Windows PC, the $100 Infocus Kangaroo PC svailable at newegg.com – Windows 10, quad-core Atom CPU, 2 gig RAM, and 32 Gig storage… And a 4 hour battery & charger, along with built-in wifi.
I see the wireless devices on the board quite critically:
* If you wish to use them you cannot put the Raspi in an RF tight enclosure.
* The developers had no chance for any real RFI measures and the antennas are really tiny. So do not expect any reasonable wireless range.
In this field I have quite some experience: My home automation system uses the (European) 868 MHz ISM band. The central station also uses a SoC similar to the Raspi.
To get my system working I had to use an external antenna with 30 cm of antenna cable and a current balun. This design of mine is all over the respective Web sites.
https://learn.adafruit.com/freq-show-raspberry-pi-rtl-sdr-scanner/overview
Here you go sir.
Ron
Thanks, Ron, for posting the link! Starting with the Raspberry Pi 2 the processing power was more than sufficient to run SDR software, and now it should be even better!
Now that is really interesting, A pocket sized spectrum analyzer.
Is there enough processing power to replace a PC in a SDR?