Raspberry Pi 3B+ Launches With Faster CPU, Dual-Band 802.11ac, Faster Ethernet

[chithanh]

I look forward to the RPi4, hopefully with VC5 and a decent amount of RAM

Likely no RPi4 before 2020.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/strategy/28278/eben-upton-why-its-a-long-road-to-the-raspberry-pi-4

probably also the media accelerator, but work fine with mainline otherwise.

Media accelerator support in mainline is hoped to be achieved through the Allwinner VPU Kickstarter project. But nothing mainline for now, and only MPEG2 for older chips in out-of-tree sunxi-cedrus.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bootlin/allwinner-vpu-support-in-the-official-linux-kernel

With 4 days left, newer SoC like H3/H5/etc. support is funded, and the stretch goal of H.265 decode seems within reach, but H.264 encode not.

Well, I don't want a $35 RPi. I want a $60 one with good specs.

RPi inventor Eben Upton has clarified in an interview how they had plans to make a premium RPi but thankfully came to their senses after (then Google CEO) Eric Schmidt convinced them that this was a bad idea.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/making-pi-zero/

If you want a $60 device, you won't get it from the RPi foundation.

[t.s.]

People in here are missing the point, I think. RPI wants to go as low cost as possible. If you're searching for a 64bit ARM computer, rpi-style, there's always Odroid. Their C2 has a far superior video system, and their XU4 has USB 3.0. Both get GbE saturated, and are way faster. Around 50-60$, though, so you pay for what you get :-)

I was going to make this point too - the reason the Raspberry Pi 3B+ still sucks is that it's $35. That's probably an ideal price position, just low enough that people buy them just out of curiosity and for pet projects. They sell many millions of them.

Just because low cost? Nope! Here's bunch of board that cheaper or have almost same price with RPI, but often more superior than RPI. I think it is you that missing the point. People choose RPI because the community, backward compatibility, and peace of mind. Not the price.

• https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=7147
• http://www.orangepi.org

And their video drivers are proprietary.

They have their opensource video driver IIRC

[rubdos]

And their video drivers are proprietary.

There's work on the way to free them up for the C2. Is this also the case for the XU4?

[phoenix_rizzen]

Well, I don't want a $35 RPi. I want a $60 one with good specs.

IOW, you want the ODROID-C2. Same physical size as the RPi 3, same port layout, same mounting holes, but a faster SoC (2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53), faster GPU, twice the RAM, proper gigabit NIC, support for onboard eMMC storage, a UHS-I MicroSD slot, and all for only $46 US.

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/produ...=G145457216438

If you want to add SATA or USB3 to the mix, there's the ODROID-HC2 with an octo-core Exynos SoC (although only the 32-bit version) for $54 US, or ODROID-XU4 for $59 US. These two aren't the same form-factor as the RPi, though.

[FireBurn]

Are there any SOCs that have USB3 & h265 10bit decoding?

[caligula]

Are there any SOCs that have USB3 & h265 10bit decoding?

How about https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/01...nched-for-109/

[caligula]

People in here are missing the point, I think. RPI wants to go as low cost as possible.

RPi isn't low cost. Orange Pi is low cost. Orange Pi charges 0 USD for R&D. Only the BOM for low end models.

[starshipeleven]

Just because low cost? Nope! Here's bunch of board that cheaper or have almost same price with RPI, but often more superior than RPI. I think it is you that missing the point. People choose RPI because the community, backward compatibility, and peace of mind. Not the price.

• https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=7147
• http://www.orangepi.org

To be fair, OrangePi didn't get much praise, and the Pine boards are harder to find at decent prices than Raspi.

[caligula]

Still 700 Mbps short of a Gigabit, but I guess it's an improvement.

Note that 300 Mbps is half-duplex. Real Gigabit ethernet is full-duplex. USB 2.0 has a theoretical throughput of 480 Mbps. It's 240 Mbps per direction when there's bi-directional traffic. However the USB frames and other cruft uses some bandwidth which brings it down to around 300 Mbps so 150+150 Mbps vs 1000+1000 Mbps real gigabit.

[starshipeleven]

How about https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/01...nched-for-109/

Looks awfully like a mobile device devboard, I suspect they got some "inspiration" from the devboard of their chosen SoC.