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New Multi-Core Raspberry Pi 2 Released

Arthur
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Arthur

Arthur

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RS have the new model in stock if you want to buy one. It costs £22.85.

 

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/8326274

 

Source: The Register

 

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is likely to provoke a global geekgasm today with the surprise release of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B: a turbocharged version of the B+ boasting a new Broadcom BCM2836 900MHz quad-core system-on-chip with 1GB of RAM – all of which will drive performance "at least 6x" that of the B+.

 

Speaking to The Register last week, foundation head honcho Eben Upton said: "I think it's a usable PC now. It was always the case that you could use a Raspberry Pi 1 as a PC but you had to say 'this is a great PC in so far as it cost me 35 bucks'. We've removed the caveat that you had to be a bit forgiving with it. Now it's just good."

 

Outwardly, there's little to distinguish the Pi 2 from the Pi 1 Model B+, as it's now designated.

 

At its heart, though, is the BCM2836 SoC, which according to Upton has been in development for a couple of years. It's "very, very similar" to its predecessor – the BCM2835 – but with four cores and "a little tweak to allow us to address the gig of RAM," he explained.

 

The BCM2835, as used in previous Pis, is a Broadcom GPU – the VideoCore IV – with a single 700MHz 32-bit ARM1176JZF-S application core glued in to run software. The system-on-chip is shipped with 256MB or 512MB of RAM stacked on top.

 

The new BCM2836, on the other hand, contains four 32-bit ARMv7 Cortex-A7 cores with 1GB of RAM.

 

The Pi 2 goes on sale today from the usual outlets. Upton promised 100,000 units available straight away, with Sony's plant in Pencoed, South Wales, churning out more at the rate of "thousands a day".

 

He said: "If it's as popular as I think it will be, I'm sure there be a little queue, but it won't be the 2012 experience where the queue was six months long."

 

http://a.pomf.se/bxmnzg.jpg

Edited by Arthur
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abillybob

abillybob

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Finally a Pi that can run our image heavy digital signage!

What digital signage do you use? I only ask because trying to get Rise Vision on a Raspberry Pi was a nightmare!

mats

mats

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Win 10 - I'll believe that when I see it. I know RT runs on Arm but the one in the RP2 isn't very current. Also, it's only got a gig of ram and would need a massive SD card or a usb(2) drive to store the os - not ideal I suspect. That's all assuming the gpu works ok with W10.

 

Is somebody at MS panicking?

halbaradkenafin

halbaradkenafin

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Also, Microsoft have confirmed that Windows 10 will run on the new Pi (and it'll be free via the developer for IoT program): Windows 10 Coming to Raspberry Pi 2

 

That's pretty awesome of them.

 

I might have to pick one of these up for a project I had in mind, it probably doesn't need the extra processing power compared to the B or A I already have but always useful to have it anyway.

LosOjos

LosOjos

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Win 10 - I'll believe that when I see it. I know RT runs on Arm but the one in the RP2 isn't very current. Also, it's only got a gig of ram and would need a massive SD card or a usb(2) drive to store the os - not ideal I suspect. That's all assuming the gpu works ok with W10.

 

Is somebody at MS panicking?

 

I'm assuming it's going to be a stripped down version of Win10, not a full desktop OS, and it's not some hack somebody has put together, Microsoft are developing it. Stop being so cynical :p

matt40k

matt40k

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Is somebody at MS panicking?

 

They are moving to a "service" provider model, ie they'll make their money on monthly subscriptions - like Office 365. Look at Power BI, they've released a ipad app before a Windows app, why, cause they want to you fork out for subscription rather re-buying the device as it's more money from selling a service then a device. It makes sense to get in on the Raspberry Pi, after all they are training the next gen of developers etc, this is something Microsoft understands really well. It's why education gets heavily discounted licensing. It's why they bought Minecraft.

The other side of the coin is the internet of things, if you come up with the next sensor that's using a raspberry pi, which is using MS as the os, what cloud based service would you use for your backend? Could it be the one bundled in, Azure.

 

It's a very clever move. They've basically taken the micro .net to the next level.

SimpleSi

SimpleSi

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the 2B model will help out with all the non-educational stuff

 

At my level, ScratchGPIO can max out a single core as its running Scratch and a 3 threaded python background prog at same time

 

So I 2B users should see quite a benefit but means I might have to freeze current version to run OK on 256MB machines (A+ - old Bs) and then move on with the new 2B

 

One thing I need to try out (I'm currently trying to update my master SD card to run on my new 2B) is how Snap runs on the new hardware as it wasn't really usuable on older models

 

If it does cruise OK then we will have all the advantages of a Super Scratch on a Pi - my fingers are crossed

 

JFI people have reported 36 times speedups with mutilthreaded programs (on a good day with wind behind them)

Simon

SimpleSi

SimpleSi

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Just tried on my 2B and it seems much quicker to load and run Scratch and I think it will have the oompf to run BYOB and even Snap!

 

need to do some proper comparitve tests/benchmarks but those extra cores seem to be coming in very useful (or maybe its the RAM)

 

Simon

Arthur

Arthur

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Just tried on my 2B and it seems much quicker to load and run Scratch and I think it will have the oomph to run BYOB and even Snap!

Have you tried overclocking your 2B so that it's even faster?

 

http://makezine.com/2015/02/02/eben-upton-raspberry-pi-2

 

While the new board ships with the cores clocked at 900MHz we've been told that it'll run comfortably overclocked to higher speeds. So comfortably in fact that it was originally intended to ship the boards clocked to 800MHz and this was only changed in the last few days leading up to launch — no doubt there will be some people that’ll want to push the boundaries even further, to higher speeds.

 

“We were being conservative on the frequency in case we encountered issues in production. In practice, we've found we’re fine at 900MHz, with significant overclocking headroom over that. ” — Eben Upton, CEO at Raspberry Pi
SimpleSi

SimpleSi

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You had to be lucky on old model to have reliable overclocking. It's alright for geeks but NBG for a teacher to have to deal with SD card corruption. Some people got their old B to run at 1200MHz - I found 800Mhz was the only speed to work across all 6 of my Pi. It'll be interesting to see what the LCM it's with the 2B
Arthur

Arthur

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It's alright for geeks. It'll be interesting to see what the LCM it's with the 2B

I don't think I would bother overclocking any at school, unless it made a noticable difference with the new 2B and didn't cause issues. :)

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