Raspberry Pi 5 16GB - Short review
The new raspberry pi 5 16GB is out: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/16gb-raspberry-pi-5-on-sale-now-at-120/
Priced at $120 or £114 if you're in the UK its maybe a little outside of the low end hardware category that the Pi fits in although for twice the price of a 4GB model you're getting twice the memory you're also getting the same CPU performance so is this worth it?
Yes and no, I purchased the device as I need to do some CI/CD work for memory insensitive applications on aarm64 CPUs and it will serve its purpose well for that but how does it work as an addition to a homelab?
Most applications will run on the 4GB or 8GB model however if you want to run Virtualization the 16GB model actually comes in useful.
I am running Proxmox-port which gives me the ability to run KVM VMs and LXC containers - in my use case this is preferred as I can quickly swap OS for application testing without having to reinstall the device - but its just as simple as swapping an SD card I hear you say? This brings me onto the hardware additions:
This Pi 5 is running the official Active cooler: https://thepihut.com/products/active-cooler-for-raspberry-pi-5
A 128GB Patriot P320 128GB NVME SSD: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Patriot-P320-128GB-Internal-SSD/dp/B0D4RD18YV?th=1
using a GeeekPi N05 M.2 NVME hat: https://www.amazon.co.uk/GeeekPi-N04-Raspberry-Peripheral-Included/dp/B0CTLX5MW5
The NVME is running on a Single PCI-3 3.0 lane and is vastly quicker than an SD card and theoretically a whole load more reliable.
This brings the total cost to around £150 and I still don't have a case. For this price there are defiantly better X86 alternatives for homelab use. NUCs, Thinclients and even 2nd hand PCs although the power consumption here is in theory a total of 10w under load so what it lacks in performance it makes up for in power consumption.
Benchmarks:
I used YABS for these, skipping the Iperf tests.
Pi 5 - No Virtualization
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Yet-Another-Bench-Script
v2025-01-01
https://github.com/masonr/yet-another-bench-script
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Sun 12 Jan 16:07:13 GMT 2025
ARM compatibility is considered experimental
Basic System Information:
Uptime : 0 days, 0 hours, 1 minutes
Processor : Cortex-A76
CPU cores : 4 @ 2600.0000 MHz
AES-NI : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled
RAM : 15.8 GiB
Swap : 512.0 MiB
Disk : 116.8 GiB
Distro : Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Kernel : 6.6.62+rpt-rpi-2712
VM Type : NONE
IPv4/IPv6 : ✔ Online / ❌ Offline
IPv4 Network Information:
ISP : TalkTalk
ASN : AS9105 TalkTalk Communications Limited
Host : TalkTalk Communications Limited
Location : Scholes, England (ENG)
Country : United Kingdom
fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50) (Partition /dev/nvme0n1p2):
| Block Size | 4k (IOPS) | 64k (IOPS) |
|---|---|---|
| Read | 226.74 MB/s (56.6k) | 159.54 MB/s (2.4k) |
| Write | 226.59 MB/s (56.6k) | 164.28 MB/s (2.5k) |
| Total | 453.33 MB/s (113.3k) | 323.83 MB/s (5.0k) |
| Block Size | 512k (IOPS) | 1m (IOPS) |
| ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- |
| Read | 252.02 MB/s (492) | 325.20 MB/s (317) |
| Write | 273.57 MB/s (534) | 362.83 MB/s (354) |
| Total | 525.60 MB/s (1.0k) | 688.04 MB/s (671) |
Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
Test | Value
|
Single Core | 898
Multi Core | 2161
Full Test | https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/9896605
Pi 5 - Ubuntu Server 22.04 VM
Basic System Information:
Uptime : 0 days, 0 hours, 1 minutes
Processor : Cortex-A76
CPU cores : 2 @ ??? MHz
AES-NI : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled
RAM : 3.8 GiB
Swap : 2.8 GiB
Disk : 17.1 GiB
Distro : Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
Kernel : 5.15.0-130-generic
VM Type : KVM
IPv4/IPv6 : ✔ Online / ❌ Offline
IPv4 Network Information:
ISP : TalkTalk
ASN : AS9105 TalkTalk Communications Limited
Host : TalkTalk Communications Limited
Location : Scholes, England (ENG)
Country : United Kingdom
fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50) (Partition /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv):
| Block Size | 4k (IOPS) | 64k (IOPS) |
|---|---|---|
| Read | 122.36 MB/s (30.5k) | 174.35 MB/s (2.7k) |
| Write | 122.28 MB/s (30.5k) | 179.53 MB/s (2.8k) |
| Total | 244.65 MB/s (61.1k) | 353.88 MB/s (5.5k) |
| Block Size | 512k (IOPS) | 1m (IOPS) |
| ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- |
| Read | 210.01 MB/s (410) | 225.07 MB/s (219) |
| Write | 227.98 MB/s (445) | 251.11 MB/s (245) |
| Total | 438.00 MB/s (855) | 476.19 MB/s (464) |
Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
Test | Value
|
Single Core | 734
Multi Core | 1088
Full Test | https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/9885204
Virtual Machines
I am running 3 VMs currently, all installed from official ISOs
Debian 12
Ubuntu Server 22.04
Windows 11 ARM
Yes Windows 11 will run on a Pi4 in KVM:
The Linux performance is really good, better than a lot of budget KVM VPS'. I believe this could easily run 5 or 6 small linux VMs with absolutely no issue. CPU performance isn't amazing but its adequate for most needs.
Overall its a good addition to the homelab if you need to test on ARM64 or if you have strict power limitations. This will be added to my proxmox cluster and used for any testing I need to do on ARM64 environments. If you don't need ARM based CPUs I'd probably give this a miss.
Comments
For this purpose, do you think having the Raspberry Pi onsite, purchased outright is a better value than using ARM compute in the oracle cloud?
Absolutely, it can run absolutely maxed out in CPU and disk IO 24/7 and if more performance is needed we can just add another for a one off capex expense.
Doesn’t make sense for all use cases but in this case it’s a good option.
Always thinking to build a Raspberry with a DAB module, but the outcome is another part.
LLM's where?
Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC | Bobr
ITS WEDNESDAY MY DUDES
Rumor has it rk3588-based sbcs have technically working LLMs. I don't know if Broadcom is cheesy enough to put low-capability TPUs/NPUs into their chips.
Can’t imagine it would be great for anything AI or LLM related but I could be wrong.
As @rockinmusicgv mentioned rk3588 is probably a better option, even just down to the additional cores and performance.
Wanted to thank you for the review, recently had an uptick in a few dev friends wanting to move from oracle ARM to self hosted, but most of the options on the net are rather hobbled either by cost, cpu type, or provider terms. Looks like using proxmox-port I'd be able to mess with ARM without spending a few thousand later on an big ARM server.
I didn't realize you could do virtualization on a pi. Cool. The annoying thing about the 5 to me is that they didn't put an nvme socket into the 500. There are traces on the PCB for it but no slot. People have even managed to modify the board so it's not like there was some big obstacle. It sounded like a money grab by rpi corp, and now maybe we can see a step ahead: there will be a higher cost rpi 500 with 16gb and it will have the slot.
I currently have a 400 and rather like it, so I'd have been interested in a 500 with a slot. I don't feel like I need 16gb on this class of machine. I guess it can't hurt, but it's reaching up into the price level of a small form factor PC. Let's hope they at least have the decency to put the slot into the 16gb 500, as the current one seems to be selling rather slowly. I'd certainly get a 5 in preference to a 500 due to this issue.
Anyway, thanks for the review!
imo pi is really overpriced, for me i'll go with Radxa's rock 5 series
It's a bit too expensive, it's just arm...
Feeling a bit tired, let's call it a day.
4GB is cheaper but i prefer 8GB. yet 8GB is priced closer to 16GB.
pass for now
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
At this price point used optiplex is way way more powerful and wastly better option for home lab. rpi failed to keep their "affordable" feature and just became certified PC for business use.
Their target consumer market has changed. I no longer want Raspberry Pi - it became way too expensive; it is not even low-end anymore.
Nowadays I look more at NanoPi.
Stop the planet! I wish to get off!
Very good product, although it has lost the sense that it had many years ago that is to say that of cost, with 40 euros you had a small computer capable of doing small server tasks, the new version does not even have codecs to do transcoding using Jellyfin or whatever.
For $120 you can get a Firebat T8 Plus mini PC...
Or a nice used Dell Optiplex Micro on ebay.
I think one of this use case's requirements is to have an ARM chipset.
I did a quick price comparison to other SBCs with 16GB of RAM and I found the PI is at or better than peers. The difference is going to be in the chipset. Broadcom probably has a better reputation in the industrial market, but the Rockchip-powered FriendlyElec and Orange Pi boards have a NPU for light AI tasks.
Firebat with 8gb ram and 256gb ssd seems to be $300 at newegg:
https://www.newegg.com/p/2SW-00AD-00001
No longer on amazon. Not gonna mess with aliexpress for something like this.
The 2gb rpi 5 is $50 which might or might not be a little bit on the high side given that pi line has historically started at $35, but either way they seem to consistently add $5 per GB of ram for the larger versions, not too bad. The thing is that the whole concept of a 16gb raspberry pi seems to have lost the vision of a small SBC. They are media centers and mini workstations no matter how much the RPI company likes to pretend they are hobbyist/maker boards. The interesting Pi boards to me these days are the Pico series.
Fwiw it looks like you can still get a 1gb pi 3 for $35 at adafruit, and there are other low cost models too.
https://www.adafruit.com/category/176
T8 plus $120.46 (before any coupons/discounts) for white version currently on Temu from Firebat official store, shipped from their US warehouse (ordered it on Dec 22, it arrived Dec 28th).
I still have a Pi Zero ($5) and a couple of original picos ($2) I got from Adafruit.
That's pretty cool, it's just the cost of them these days, feels like it goes against the initial point of them.
I feel like they missed the sweet spot, almost like they are a generation ahead which is pushing the cost up.
I have a stack of 1 litre lenovo's they cost about half the price and have twice the resources, sure they use more power but they don't use a LOT and they don't run 24x7.
I always thought it was a shame that there was never a good rack solution for the pi, that is where they have the obvious advantage, in size/density.
Just my 2c
I hope you are doing well @jamesmd 👍 long time no speak.
Ant.
I also have a Pi Zero (version without WiFi). I have it installed on a Retroflag GPI case with hundreds of games. My son enjoys it every day.
Stop the planet! I wish to get off!
I agree with everyone on the price point, they have definitely forgotten their roots on the $35 PC.
On the point of the orangepi, nanopi etc- all great devices. The issue I have is lack of OS support and the fact that they ship from overseas. Using them for “production” when I can’t get parts the same or next day doesn’t sit right with me but for most purposes they are the better devices.
Wait what, laptop memory is now consistently well under $2 per GB retail? I've been away too long. Ok, the $5/GB that RPi is charging is way too high.
https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm-ddr4-3200/p/N82E16820374024
It’s not quite that simple, the raspberry Pi has a single RAM chip. 8 and 16GB single chips are rare and expensive- you can’t compare this against desktop or laptop dimms that contain at least 4 ram chips.
It's ok, they should design the pi to use a laptop module if the cost difference is that great. Especially for the pi 400 successors where they re-do the board layout and have potentially board more space anyway. It makes these high memory pi's uncompetitive, and particularly makes the NVMe situation with the 500 that much more annoying, if my guess is right that only the 16gb 500 will support NVMe.