newbie questions

Cheap to run as well as to buy initially, a Pi consumes a lot less electricity than even a modern 'desktop' machine. However as the Pi gets bigger and PCs get smaller and more economicial the difference is diminishing. Unless you need the processing power of a Pi 4 then some of the lesser versions maybe somewhat cheaper in the long term.

I'm still running a Pi 2B as my home LAN's DHCP/DNS server, it's quite adequate for the job.

Slightly diminished, but still substantially better.

I don't think the difference between a Pi4B and a 3B or 3B+ is going to be noticable, unless you are using a peddle powered dynamo.

---druck

"Chris Green" wrote

| Cheap to run as well as to buy initially, a Pi consumes a lot less | electricity than even a modern 'desktop' machine. However as the Pi | gets bigger and PCs get smaller and more economicial the difference is | diminishing. Unless you need the processing power of a Pi 4 then some | of the lesser versions maybe somewhat cheaper in the long term. |

My impression is that Pi4 made a big jump in functionality. Loading the latest Firefox, streaming movies or videos to a TV... unless you've done that easily with a Pi3 it might be best not to recommend it. Electricity usage is hardly a top concern when there might be issues with CPU power, RAM, etc.

For example, the ability to install Widevine to the Pi's ARM Chromium seems to be Pi4-only. That may not matter to you, but for me it was the main reason I bought the Pi. And the OP, similarly, wants the Piu for video streaming.

(At this moment I'm unable to load that page, but I expect it's a temporary server glitch.)

My desktop, which isn't *that* modern consumes 18 watts "at the power socket" when doing normal sort of work. The 4 consumes around 600mA at 5 volts, that's 3 watts but probably a bit more "at the socket" because there will be some loss in the power supply. So the Pi 4 consumes about a quarter of what my (not *very* modern) desktop consumes. Give it another generation of each and they'll be nearer.

Well, according to this:-

the 4 consumes something like twice the power of a 2B or 3B. OK, it's

it is more and *might* be significant if one is using one away from mains power.

Absolutely, but for some things a 3 or 2 is perfectly adequate, for a home LAN DHCP/DNS server my 2B is *more* than adequate.