Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of the 2GB Raspberry Pi 5, built on a cost-optimised D0 stepping of the BCM2712 application processor, and priced at just $50.
The new D0 stepping strips away all that unneeded functionality, leaving only the bits we need. From the perspective of a Raspberry Pi user, it is functionally identical to its predecessor: the same fast quad-core processor; the same multimedia capabilities; and the same PCI Express bus that has proven to be one of the most exciting features of the Raspberry Pi 5 platform. However, it is cheaper to make, and so is available to us at somewhat lower cost. And this, combined with the savings from halving the memory capacity, has allowed us to take $10 out of the cost of the finished product.
So, while our most demanding users — who want to drive dual 4Kp60 displays, or open a hundred browser tabs, or compile complex software from source — will probably stick with the existing higher memory-capacity variants of Raspberry Pi 5, many of you will find that this new, lower-cost variant works perfectly well for your use cases.
I’m curious on how others are using the RPi 5 since (from what I understand) it doesn’t have a graphics card or something like that, leading to lower compatibility with some things like PiKVM.
I would assume it’s still perfectly fine for Home Assistant and the like.
Can't talk about the 5, but I use an older RPi 3 for my 3D printer (running Klipper) and an RPi 4 for Kodi on my dumb TV.
I'm sure the RPi 5 has a graphics unit as well, with HDMI outputs? Never heard that that one was for headless applications only.
Sorry, it seems I misremembered, it seems the 5 does not have GPU video encoders:
https://github.com/pikvm/pikvm
Ah, so it's lacking hardware acceleration features that I never thought about for my use cases. Alright.