Raspberry Pi 4 Thread - general discussion

[i486]

Only SATA port is missing.

[glynallinson]

@jamesh
I think the majority of us are really really happy with what all you guys and gals at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have done.
Don't let the few whiners ruin everyone's accomplishments.

[bensimmo]

Only SATA port is missing.

for good reasons, no room, little use to most people, you can use USB3 anyway to do the job.

[hojnikb]

Get a fast A2 sd card, no need for an SSD, unless you're planning on doing some serious I/O

Don't waste money on an A2 card. Unless the device is A2 certified it will be slower than an A1 card. I and several others have already learned that lesson the hard way.

You might be on to something. A2 apparently needs host support to achieve rated IOPS. Nevertheless, EVO/EVO+ cards from samsung usually exceed a1 spec and are close to a2 without needing any fancy support.

[jamesh]

Only SATA port is missing.

No it isn't. Missing would imply it should be there. It shouldn't. No need for it. USB3 is fine, and there isn't space on the board for the connector anyway. If you want SATA use a USB3->SATA adapter.

[LTolledo]

@jamesh
I think the majority of us are really really happy with what all you guys and gals at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have done.
Don't let the few whiners ruin everyone's accomplishments.

yeah....you cant please some....
but made most of us happy!

the RPi4B beats most of my expectations and am happy with that.
if RPi4B doesnt fit your expectations, there are other SBCs to choose from... good luck with that.

its "take it or leave it!"
...and..... as I have mentioned before in other posts, ....if you want something done (or want something undone) let your big stash of pure gold do the talking!....

[DarkPlatinum]

Seems Rapid Electronics have a few (50 at this moment 14:30 on Tuesday) ) of their Pi4 Starter kits in stock.
4Gb http://email.rapidonline.com/c/11u93FrGUDYbV6aTEQB9ZXx
2Gb http://email.rapidonline.com/c/11u91zz5CLyWBZq1P0vRXfb
PeterO

That's a pretty good deal.

[laurent]

I'm thinking on a question right now : as its name self indicates, a HAT add-on is attached on top. But with the CPU reaching 80°C, may is there a potential problem regarding some HAT ?
Will it be more safe for HAT designers to add a cutout window square above the CPU in order to let a eventual heatsink or just a better air flow ?

[alphanumeric]

Does anyone know is there will be a 4B+ version?

Yes, almost certainly. The Pi Foundation won't comment on it though. You won't know its real until its actually released to the public. Thats SOP for the Foundation. I'm more interested in a 4A for my headless setups. Replacements for my 3A+'s. Not going to ask as they won't say anyway. You'll just have to wait and see what comes down the pipeline like everybody else.

Really? I've not heard of one.

But REALLY, we release a blindingly good product, and all people can do is ask when SOMETHING ELSE is being released? Grr. Can't you give it a week, so we can enjoy the fruits of the last two years labour, before we start on something else?

My apologies, I didn't mean to upset anybody. I am very pleased with this new release. I'm just waiting to get my hands on a 4 gig version. Anything after that is just icing on the cake.
You have to admit though, based on past releases there is usually a + version. Talking about it now here probably was in bad taste. Sincerest apologies for bringing it up. Keep up the exceptional work.

[jamesh]

Deleted a few posts where I was less than complimentary about some comments. My opinion is unchanged, but no need to air it in public.

[LTolledo]

I'm thinking on a question right now : as its name self indicates, a HAT add-on is attached on top. But with the CPU reaching 80°C, may is there a potential problem regarding some HAT ?
Will it be more safe for HAT designers to add a cutout window square above the CPU in order to let a eventual heatsink or just a better air flow ?

one can always use a header with longer pins to provide more "headroom" between the RPi and the HAT, and the matching standoffs.

that's what I did with my RPi3B+ in armor case, with a X400 v3 DAC-amp on top....

but yes, your idea seemed fair, I wonder if the HAT makers will ride on that idea.....

[ejolson]

Have my hands on a pi4 now - yay !

So onto some quick power draw tests

Idling on raspbian desktop:
562 mA

4 cores in use *
1005 mA

Shutdown with sudo shutdown -h
20 mA

*Quick way to busy the 4 cores:

Code: Select all

cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &

That 20 mA shutdown is far better than previous 100mA on pi3 (without a hack https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 9#p1286828)

Would you mind running my pichart program on the new Pi 4 and reporting results either here or in that thread? The source code is written in C with OpenMP and available here:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 3&t=227177

[jamesh]

Have my hands on a pi4 now - yay !

So onto some quick power draw tests

Idling on raspbian desktop:
562 mA

4 cores in use *
1005 mA

Shutdown with sudo shutdown -h
20 mA

*Quick way to busy the 4 cores:

Code: Select all

cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &
cat /dev/zero >/dev/null &

That 20 mA shutdown is far better than previous 100mA on pi3 (without a hack https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 9#p1286828)

Would you mind running my pichart program on the new Pi 4 and reporting results either here or in that thread? The source code is written in C with OpenMP and available here:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 3&t=227177

I did that a while back, but not sure where I put the images! The Pi4 was quite impressive...I'll see if I can find the results.

EDIT: found them, won't upload here so will push to Google Drive and post a link.

EDIT2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s5NYa ... _Z8P0acCvV

You need the Pi4 filenames ones, the rest are tests on the Pi3B+ with various kernel options selected to see what how they affected performance to cross reference with the Pi4.

[spock]

what i didn't expect at all are the two hdmi outputs. that's so awesome!

and i didn't expect a more expensive 4gb model. i thought they would wait until 4gb is cheap enough to meet the old price point. it's nicer to have the options though.

the rest is pretty much what i expected and i have a lot of respect for them managing to make it backwards compatible.

[laurent]

I'm thinking on a question right now : as its name self indicates, a HAT add-on is attached on top. But with the CPU reaching 80°C, may is there a potential problem regarding some HAT ?
Will it be more safe for HAT designers to add a cutout window square above the CPU in order to let a eventual heatsink or just a better air flow ?

one can always use a header with longer pins to provide more "headroom" between the RPi and the HAT, and the matching standoffs.

that's what I did with my RPi3B+ in armor case, with a X400 v3 DAC-amp on top....

but yes, your idea seemed fair, I wonder if the HAT makers will ride on that idea.....

Nice tip the additional header
Is there a kind of female to male header available somewhere, to easily add such room ?

[ces]

Forgot to say thank you for this really really great new Pi4. For me the biggest advantage is the USB Hostcontroller.
Pi3b+ is just fast enough with USB2.0 for desktop if ssd boot option would not be disturbed by Otg.

There is no better support and os. Raspberry Pi was never outdated on release. No need to purchase in china, wait weeks for delivery and at least double costs because of taxes and so on. Yes there are and have been a lot of Rockchip boards but with no support and no really useable os for download on very slow baidu.com. Last year i had to pay for a 65$ Board from china at least 120$.

For the Pi 4, a fully-featured host controller drives the downstream USB ports. Downstream USB is provided by a Via Labs VL805 chip - that supports two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports. This is connected to the BCM2711 SoC using a PCIe link, which is extremely fast. Therefore, the Pi 4 does not have the speed constraints of previous models, which means very fast datarates, especially when using the USB 3.0 ports.

It also means that almost all of the known issues with USB on previous models are no longer present.

[vithusel]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i recieved today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

[hojnikb]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i recieved today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

sounds like a typo.

[laurent]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i recieved today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

News are published so fast nowadays
https://hackaday.com/2019/06/25/is-4gb- ... erry-pi-4/
They even dared to quote Sir Gates :

640k should be enough for anyone

[vithusel]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i recieved today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

News are published so fast nowadays
https://hackaday.com/2019/06/25/is-4gb- ... erry-pi-4/
They even dared to quote Sir Gates :

640k should be enough for anyone

Seems like it may be future proofing but the + 8GB is suspicious. Perhaps a model with built in storage in the future?

[dickon]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i recieved today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

Probably not yet. https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 3#p1484073 is an instructive post.

Frankly, I'm not sure why you'd ever need more than 4GB in a product of this nature, but it's good to be future proof. As the OS is still 32b, there's limited benefit to anything more. I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

It's a hell of an impressive piece of work. Clearly the chip has been completely redesigned, with the VC4 block staying more or less the same, but new blocks for H.265, PCIe, USB, the six UART and I2C buses, and the upgraded ARM cores. Not to mention the upgrades to HDMI, and a process shrink to 28nm (which AIUI more or less entails a complete redesign of everything). And delivered, in quantity, a little over 12 months from the previous revision, and in complete secrecy.

(Edit: Oh, and in virtually the same formfactor, despite all the changes.)

[Andyroo]

...
Frankly, I'm not sure why you'd ever need more than 4GB in a product of this nature, but it's good to be future proof.
...

A small NAS box running a USB connected 8GB drive under ZFS would eat that

But for now I'm really chuffed with the work the folk have done for these new (and old) machines.

[jbudd]

Deleted a few posts where I was less than complimentary about some comments. My opinion is unchanged, but no need to air it in public.

Thanks to everyone involved with creating another Pi.

No doubt you have been fairly busy in recent weeks jamesh, not to mention your patience dealing with the questions and comments in the forum since Pi4 hit the news.

Is it time to slope off home, kick the dog, open a bottle of ale and watch the World Cup?

A new Pi is exciting - it's a world beating computer that manages to work for absolute beginners, the experienced tinkerer and industrial uses. It's British too. Asking for XYZ to be added (or removed) might just be expressing a feeling of involvement with the product?

I keep trying to replace my antique XP PC with a Linux machine, hopefully the Pi4 will finally do the trick.
I'll find out when I can get hold of a USB C cable.

The enhancement I crave is to print the model number in a larger font on the board. My eyesight isn't what it was!

[jahboater]

@jamesh
I think the majority of us are really really happy with what all you guys and gals at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have done.
Don't let the few whiners ruin everyone's accomplishments.

+1

Fabulous achievement, especially considering the price.

My 4GB model arrived today but I wasn't in to sign for it. Grrrrrr ...

[jamesh]

So, not sure if this is a mistake or not.

But looking at the manual for the Pi 4 i received today, it shows a 8GB ram variant???

Is this TRUE??

Yup, typo. We haven't released an 8GB version! It's 1,2, or 4. We've found that 1 is best for headless, 2 for desktop (even lots of Chromium tabs) and 4 is best for dev work with big compiles.