Raspberry Pi Drag Race: Pi 1 to Pi 5 – Performance Comparison

Summary

Today we’re going to be taking a look at what almost 13 years of development has done for the Raspberry Pi. I have one of each generation of Pi from the original Pi that was launched in 2012 through to the Pi 5 which was released just over a year ago. We’ll take a look at what has changed between each generation and how their performance and power consumption has improved by running some tests on them. Here’s my video of the testing process and results, read on for the write-up; VIDEO Purchase Links For Components Used In These Tests Equipment Used Some of the above parts are affiliate links. By purchasing products through the above links, you’ll be supporting this channel, at no additional cost to you. Hardware Changes Through Each Generation Raspberry Pi 1 This is the original Raspberry Pi, which was launched in February 2012. This Pi has a Broadcom BCM2835 SOC which features a single ARM1176JZF-S core running at 700MHz along with a VideoCore IV GPU. It has 512 MB of DDR RAM. In terms of connectivity, it only has 100Mb networking and 2 x USB 2.0 ports. Video output is 1080P through a full-size HDMI port or analogue video out through a composite video connector and audio output is provided through a 3.5mm audio jack. It doesn’t have any WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity but it does have some of the features that we still have on more recent models like DSI and CSI ports, a full size SD card reader for the operating system and GPIO pins, although only 26 of them at this stage. Power is supplied through a micro USB port and it is rated for 5V and 700mA. It was priced at $35 – which at the time was incredibly cheap for what was essentially a palm-sized computer. Raspberry Pi 2 The Raspberry Pi 2 was launched 3 years later, in February 2015 and this Pi looked quite different to the original and similar to the Pi’s we know today. The Pi 2 has a significantly better processor than the original. The Broadcom BCM2836 SOC has 4 Cortex-A7 cores running at 900 MHz and it retaine...