Raspberry Pi Supply Chain Issues Beginning To Ease Up

[coder]

I wish my NAS would have ECC RAM. I don't think RPI4 has ECC RAM, does it?

I wish the SoC would at least have an option, so they could make embedded products that did. You can lookup the datasheet for the SoC, but I'm fairly certain it lacks any support for ECC DRAM.

What you'd need is something like this: https://www.solid-run.com/blog/artic...mb-lx2-server/

That also has a fair bit more compute power, with 2-4x as many A72 cores running at 2.2 GHz.

However, if you go down that road, you'll likely reach a point where you decide it's a lot easier just to build an x86 fileserver. AMD supports ECC on their Ryzen processor (except for their APUs). Intel supports it on some of their Alder Lake and Raptor Lake models, if you also have a motherboard using the W680 chipset. Or, you can buy previous-generation motherboards from someone like ASRock Rack:

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/products.asp#Server

Here's a list of Intel CPUs with ECC:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us...ECCMemory=True

It's a long list, but my advice is to filter based on socket. The 3 most recent Intel desktop sockets were (in reverse order):

• FCLGA1700 - Alder Lake & Raptor Lake
• FCLGA1200 - Comet Lake & Rocket Lake
• FCLGA1151 - Skylake to Coffee Lake R; check motherboard docs to see which they support!

Intel made a small mess with LGA 1151. Most boards either support Skylake + Kaby Lake OR Coffee Lake + Coffee Lake R. Almost no boards support all 4 generations.

[coder]

I thought Apple moved the memory close to the CPU was so they could have a really big fat pipe between the GPU, CPU, and RAM;

Not in the baseline M1 and M2. Those just use regular LPDDR memory, with a regular datapath of 128 bits. Correspondingly, the bandwidth is the same you get in a Ryzen 5000 or 6000 series laptop with 2 DIMMs and the same speed memory, depending on which generation you're comparing against.

that lets them squeeze more than you'd expect from the processing components.

They get space savings, maybe save a bit of power, and maybe shave off a few nanoseconds of latency. That's about it.

You have to go up the model range, before they widen it out.

In a Raspberry Pi, I'd imagine

It's a nice idea, but I think the Pi is simply too low-end for it to make much difference, and too low-margin for it to be a viable option. It could happen, someday. I think we're just not there, yet. Not for such a low-end SoC.

Also, your hopes and dreams are somewhat misplaced, as the Pi was never trying to be the fastest or most cutting-edge. I think we'll probably see Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek be the first to follow Apple's lead. Then, maybe the next tier will adopt it, such as Rockchip and Amlogic. After that, by the point it's almost a standard practice, that's probably when the Pi might get it.

[coder]

Maybe not as a headless server, but many use RPi as a desktop system. Phones already ship with 12-18 GB of RAM. Sub $1000 laptops come with 16GB.

But RAM costs money and the Pi is trying hard to keep costs under control. So, they will only offer it with as much as many people need.

I think they might even add something like ZRAM to the default config, before they go up to 16 GB.

Look at this board: https://www.servethehome.com/the-gow...-intel-nvidia/

This quote jumped out at me: "this unit uses 10-11W at idle without ports plugged in." That's well more than the Pi uses, at peak load! They go on to say "Depending on the ports, cables, and SFP+ modules used, we were able to get this unit up into the 25-30W range."

This is only barely more expensive than RPi 4, yet contains both triple 2,5 Gb and dual 10 Gb ports

Not even close. And I don't know where you even got that idea, since I didn't find a price listed anywhere in the article. First, the system contains a Jasper Lake SBC that itself is already going to be much more powerful and more expensive than a Pi 4. Then, they added a NVIDIA-Mellanox ConnectX-3 dual 10GbE OCP NIC 2.0 PCIe card! You can price those out separately, and they aren't cheap. So, we're obviously in a completely different ballpark than a Raspberry Pi of any sort.

So, here's what I found:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/32568...andl_shipto=US

(Note: you must select the G3 option. I couldn't find a direct link to it.)

$455. That's over 6x as expensive as an 8 GB Pi, 8.3x as expensive as the 4 GB model, and 10.1x as expensive as the 2 GB model! I know street prices of Pi's are extremely inflated, but Eben Upton is promising us they're going to return to (slightly adjusted) MSRP, by next year.

Well, there are already plans, I'd expect those to ship in 12 months:

Irrelevant, as PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives are going to cost multiple times the Pi, and even a successor to the Pi 4 will probably struggle to max out a PCIe 3.0 SSD.

You don't seem to "get" what the Pi is about. It never was about building someone's wet dream of an ARM-based mini-PC. It's cost-optimized, above all else, and that's not going to change. They're not going to add costly features that aren't critical to the majority of its users.

[jaxa]

But RAM costs money and the Pi is trying hard to keep costs under control. So, they will only offer it with as much as many people need.

I think they might even add something like ZRAM to the default config, before they go up to 16 GB.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-4-a-possible-features

When asked about a potential Raspberry Pi 5, Upton said that his organization isn't working on one right now and is instead prioritizing making improvements to the Raspberry Pi 4 by doing things like updating software. He noted that, when it comes time for a Raspberry Pi 5, it would likely have updated specs such as a faster processor, the ability to have more than 8GB of RAM, quicker USB connectivity, more powerful Wi-Fi and 2.5 Gb Ethernet.

This leads me to believe that they could ship a Pi5 model with 12 or 16 GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6(E) support and 2.5 GbE on all models. 2.5 GbE should be relatively cheap, and it works with existing Cat 5e cables. For that reason, I'm more interested in seeing ubiquitous 2.5 GbE than 10 GbE.

They can charge up to $100 or whatever it will end up being, increasing the price to match the increase in bill of materials from adding the more expensive RAM package to it, which is what they did with Pi4 8 GB, give or take a few dollars. Given a choice between 4 GB for $55 and 16 GB for $115, I'd go for 16 GB. If the scalper prices are any indication, some people are already willing to pay over $100 for much cheaper Pi4 models, even if they'd rather not.

If I remember correctly, the 2x USB3 ports on Pi4 share a single PCIe 2.0 lane for up to 4 Gbps total transfers, less than the 5 Gbps supported by a single USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. So if more/faster lanes are available, they can improve on that. Pretty straightforward. They could also replace the USB2 ports with USB3, which can be convenient even if they all end up sharing the same lane(s).

As always, be careful to not read too much into these interviews. They keep everything vague up until launch.

[mangeek]

This leads me to believe that they could ship a Pi5 model with 12 or 16 GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6(E) support and 2.5 GbE on all models.

I work in tech, and my wife works with a lot of multimedia, and our flagship $2,000 systems we use for heavy lifting have 16GB RAM and 1GbE Ethernet (via dongles or docks). The brand new desktops and laptops my company issues to general administrative staff have 8GB. I run a few Pis as household servers (two run file/domain/network/vpn services and use about 400MB of 1GB, and the Minecraft server uses 5 of its 8GB). The Pi isn't supposed to be a powerhouse desktop replacement, it's supposed to be a $50-$80 device you can give to your kid to learn Python on, or run a web server to find out the temperature of your fish tank.

I'm not gonna balk at a Pi that _can_ have 16GB, it might even make sense to re-stratify on 4/8/16 GB in the next revision, maybe have 4 USB-C ports or whatever, but let's please not try to make the Pi a $200 product, because that's what 16GB, an A76, and 2.5GbE are gonna end up doing to it. What you're asking for is a product for a different segment than the Pi is targeted at. Frankly, I'd _love_ a real high-horsepower 'desktop replacement' ARM board, and I'd be happy to buy one from the Pi people, but it would be a different product, probably a Mini-ITX with a PCIe riser option or something.

[jaxa]

I work in tech, and my wife works with a lot of multimedia, and our flagship $2,000 systems we use for heavy lifting have 16GB RAM and 1GbE Ethernet (via dongles or docks). The brand new desktops and laptops my company issues to general administrative staff have 8GB. I run a few Pis as household servers (two run file/domain/network/vpn services and use about 400MB of 1GB, and the Minecraft server uses 5 of its 8GB). The Pi isn't supposed to be a powerhouse desktop replacement, it's supposed to be a $50-$80 device you can give to your kid to learn Python on, or run a web server to find out the temperature of your fish tank.

I'm not gonna balk at a Pi that _can_ have 16GB, it might even make sense to re-stratify on 4/8/16 GB in the next revision, maybe have 4 USB-C ports or whatever, but let's please not try to make the Pi a $200 product, because that's what 16GB, an A76, and 2.5GbE are gonna end up doing to it. What you're asking for is a product for a different segment than the Pi is targeted at. Frankly, I'd _love_ a real high-horsepower 'desktop replacement' ARM board, and I'd be happy to buy one from the Pi people, but it would be a different product, probably a Mini-ITX with a PCIe riser option or something.

They don't have a lot of choices for the next core they will use. A73 has been ruled out for being an anemic increase from the A72 with some regressions. I think it will be 4x A75, for the minimum all-around improvement from A72. I think they can make that on 28nm too.

I'm saying they can make something at around a $100 MSRP, and people who paid $75 for 8 GB won't balk. If a base model with 2 GB continues to cost $35 and they can include various improvements like 2.5 GbE, it's not going to jump to $200 from upgrading the RAM past 8 GB. If I'm reading the spot prices right, it would cost something like $40-80 for a 16 GB package. If that's not feasible, 12 GB is also an option. If some geopolitical black swan event ruins DRAM pricing, they will adjust pricing or discontinue/revive models as needed, as we've seen with the 1/2 GB Pi4 models.

I say that if they go above 8 GB, they should eliminate 8 GB. Make 2 GB, 4 GB, and 12 or 16 GB. 2 GB is sufficient for many applications. Force people to choose between 4 GB and a lot for desktop usage. That's just my opinion.

[t.s.]

..but let's please not try to make the Pi a $200 product, because that's what 16GB, an A76, and 2.5GbE are gonna end up doing to it.

I've ordered RK3588S OrangePi 5 with 16GB, GB LAN and HDMI 2.1 for $105 ($115 + shipping). Clearly RPi could do it too, hitting these kind of price. And it's clearly not in $200 price range. The better RK3588 version, Rock5B just $139.**

**All those price are pre-order price. But with RPi Foundation connection and influence, I think it's definitely possible hitting OPi5 actual price (~$120).

[t.s.]

I say that if they go above 8 GB, they should eliminate 8 GB. Make 2 GB, 4 GB, and 12 or 16 GB. 2 GB is sufficient for many applications. Force people to choose between 4 GB and a lot for desktop usage. That's just my opinion.

First time I read, I kind of disagree with 2-4 then 12-16GB RAM. But yes, It's reasonable. 2-4GB is enough for lightweight headless server-or-the-like use. And for desktop use, because of browsers, you'll be safer with > 8GB RAM.

[coder]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ra...sible-features

This leads me to believe that they could ship a Pi5 model with 12 or 16 GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6(E) support and 2.5 GbE on all models. 2.5 GbE should be relatively cheap, and it works with existing Cat 5e cables. For that reason, I'm more interested in seeing ubiquitous 2.5 GbE than 10 GbE.

Thanks for citing, though it's almost 1.5 years old.

The reason I'm skeptical about 16 GB is that I'm not sure what you'd even use it for, on a 4-core / 4-thread machine like that. If they're concerned about the pain of swapping to a SD card, memory compression seems like a decent solution that costs nothing.

But, I'm not opposed to there being a 16 GB model -- I just didn't expect it would happen. Unlike some of the other features that people are talking about, that can be offered without impacting the cost of the lower-end models.

Likewise, I don't see a strong use case for 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, but it's not like I'm against it. It does use more power and will doubtlessly add cost, but I definitely do want to see the Ethernet ecosystem really start to embrace speeds above 1 Gbps.

If the scalper prices are any indication, some people are already willing to pay over $100 for much cheaper Pi4 models, even if they'd rather not.

That logic got us massive GPU price inflation. The Pi should try to resist inflation as much as possible, if it's to fulfill its educational mission for more than kids who are already well-resourced.

If I remember correctly, the 2x USB3 ports on Pi4 share a single PCIe 2.0 lane for up to 4 Gbps total transfers, less than the 5 Gbps supported by a single USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. So if more/faster lanes are available, they can improve on that. Pretty straightforward.

At what point would it stop being a Pi 4? I think a new SoC model that adds PCIe lanes might cross that line.

[coder]

I run a few Pis as household servers (two run file/domain/network/vpn services and use about 400MB of 1GB,

OMG, though. I have a Pi 3 (1 GB) and recently upgraded it to 64-bit. Afterwards, I opened a web browser and viewed a single site / single tab, while installing updates or something in the background, and the darn thing was already swapping! Sure, 400 MB is enough for a light-weight headless server, but I can definitely see why the 1 GB Pi 4 got cancelled.

What you're asking for is a product for a different segment than the Pi is targeted at. Frankly, I'd _love_ a real high-horsepower 'desktop replacement' ARM board, and I'd be happy to buy one from the Pi people, but it would be a different product, probably a Mini-ITX with a PCIe riser option or something.

Agreed. The Pi is like a Swiss Army Knife. Its strength is in its versatility, but it can't be all things to all people. If you need to do anything serious, you really want a more purpose-built tool. Furthermore, the Pi's port layout really isn't ideal for a mini-desktop.