Some facinating benchmarks, and why you should buy a Pi3+ over a Pi3

On a sunny day (Fri, 07 Sep 2018 09:07:25 GMT) it happened Jan Panteltje wrote in :

I mean Pi3B+ over Pi3B

I remember watched one video from the YouTube channel ExplaningComputers about the thermal benchmark on the RPi 3B+, quite impressive indeed.

On a sunny day (Fri, 7 Sep 2018 12:42:14 -0000 (UTC)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@none.com (abc) wrote in :

That is nice, but he wants raspi 4 !

Or you can just stick a small copper heatsink on the 3B, surely?

On a sunny day (Fri, 7 Sep 2018 15:58:56 +0100) it happened Rob Morley wrote in :

Foe thermal, perhaps, but the ethernet is also much faster if I interpret the benchmarks right,

Hello Jan,

JP> but the ethernet is also much faster if I interpret the benchmarks right,

Yes it realy is. At the Pi 3B+ there is now GigaBit EtherNet, but due to the USB2 host it is limited to about 300 Mbps, although much faster than the normal 100 MBit RJ45 EtherNet interfaces at the older Pi's. So faster network is realy an advantage.

Another advantage is that the WiFi at the Pi 3B+ is now dualband, i.e. both 2.4 and G GHz for 802.11 a,b,g,n,ac standards. b,g,n are used at 2.4 GHz. a,n,ac are used at 5 GHz.

This machine is remarkably faster than you old Pi 1B one ;-).

By the way, the 3rd thursday evening sept.20 we have BigBen computer Club in Drachten.Frl.nl again. For location details see the website of the club. I'll take all my Pi's with me, so you can see the differences if you want.

Greetings from Henri.

Why is this appearing surprising? The 3b+ has a Gb NIC wheras all the other Pi's have 100Mb NICs. It's limited by the speed of the USB2 interface but still three times fast. (theoretical max. is 420Mb/sec, practcal benchmarks run to about 300-320Mb/sec)

The ARM also runs faster due to improved thermal shenanigans, so really, hardly a surprise..

(And I doubt you can actually by the original 3B anymore anyway)

-Gordon

Well yeah, they (he) published that when the 3B+ was introduced:

BTW, I agree with you: it should be 3+ B, not 3B+. It's an advancement on 1-2-3, not quite 4 so 3+, and the form factor is not A but "regular old" B. But then again they have the Zero as another form factor which also doesn't fit ... I do think they painted themselves in a corner with the model naming.

Because most of the active posters here don't seem to even own a Raspberry Pi :/

Yup. Thats me :-) Always fancied one but cant find anything it can do that I need done :-)

--
Of what good are dead warriors? ? Warriors are those who desire battle  
more than peace. Those who seek battle despite peace. Those who thump  
their spears on the ground and talk of honor. Those who leap high the  
battle dance and dream of glory ? The good of dead warriors, Mother, is  
that they are dead. 
Sheri S Tepper: The Awakeners.

On a sunny day (Sat, 8 Sep 2018 13:35:47 +0200) it happened "A. Dumas" wrote in :

I have 3 (actually 4) Pis, 2 running 24/7. What surprised me most was the bad, very very bad thermal design of the Pi3B Glad I did not buy that. What I do not like either is the 2.5A supply current of the 3B+, my old(dest) Pi I have measured 350 mA... Also I do not like a new model every year ..

OTOH the pi3B+ (or whatever you like to call it) is beginning to look like a good desktop PC replacement.

What I also do not understand is 'NOOB' or whatever, I just want a decent debian image. Tried some 'noob' on an old Pi and it did not even boot. The raspi guys have work to do, and should do more testing before releasing hard and software. My opinion.

I have a Pi2 (but could just as well be a Pi1) as a radio with self-built web interface, via hdmi to my receiver (so no extra DAC needed because the analogue out is pants). One ZeroW for desktop music (IQaudIO DAC to external PC speakers which conveniently have a second input) plus added headphone amp. Oh, I checked their website and it seems they no longer have the headphone amp add-on for the Zero.. One ZeroW as a webcam. Have a PIR sensor somewhere but never got 'round to integrating it with the webcam, also after some disillusionment about the camera auto settings not coping with dusk/night. One 3+ booting from spinning USB disk as home web server and code/file backup. Tried Nextcloud on it as alternative for Google Drive etc. but the Android app was so crap that I gave up. One Zero as a sensor data logger (temp/press/humid). One Pi3 as a dev machine to test if code/web-crap I write runs on that config and slow hardware. It also grabs met office temp charts every ten minutes and builds an 18 sec daily video, mails me a link.

PS, and if they MUST release a new version every year, PLS guys call it Pi-18 Pi-19 Pi-20 Pi-21

So people know they buy a recent one.

PS one Pi does this 24/7: wget

Uptime: root@raspberrypi:~/compile/pantel/xgpspc# uptime 14:26:38 up 115 days, 5:44, 9 users, load average: 1.10, 1.40, 1.47 http://217.120.43.67/panteltje/xgpspc/index.html

The other one runs the webserver 24/7 at http://217.120.43.67/index1.html root@raspberrypi:~/compile/pantel/ip_to_country# uptime 14:26:59 up 5 days, 22:35, 10 users, load average: 0.89, 0.92, 0.94

The third one runs my big clock, only during daytime: http://217.120.43.67/panteltje/raspberry_pi_FDS132_matrix_display_driver/index.html And the 4rth one is stored, think I killed GPIO, gets very hot.

Pi 1 and sometimes Pi 2 also use RTL-SDR USB radio sticks, for airplane (dump1090) and shipping traffic, or spectrum analyser http://217.120.43.67/panteltje/xpsa/index.html

Stuff is reliable.

You can, but it wont make much difference in a enclosed case where there is no airflow. You either need one of the low profile cases which expose the heat sink, or one with a small fan.

---druck

Or you can heatsink directly _to_ the case. I'm not aware of any commercial cases that do it (it wouldn't be the cheapest option since you would be looking at machined and probably diecast components) but it is a prctical option if a custom form factor is needed for whatever reason.

--
Andrew Smallshaw 
andrews@sdf.org

The problem is that the real insulation barrier is the chip to case air gap.

--
"Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and  
higher education positively fortifies it." 

    - Stephen Vizinczey

I guess that's what he meant, though: heatsink = case, no gap.

Exactly, you would probably be looking at a die cast case to get the reach "down" to the CPU and that area at least would ideally have a machined finish for a nice flat contact patch. Thermal transfer compound works best when it is almost not needed - i.e. it is only to eliminate any remaining air gap between parts that already fit very closely.

But as I said, a custom die casting and precision grinding won't come cheap, at least not in smallish volumes, which is presumably why no-one has done it for a the Pi at least as far as I am aware.

machine.

Of course, if you were doing this yourself you'd probably mill it from solid but that would be even costlier on a production basis.

--
Andrew Smallshaw 
andrews@sdf.org