Raspberry Pi 5 Gets A Sweet Upgrade To 16GB Of Memory To Feed LLMs
Or it did, until today—the makers of the Raspberry Pi have just announced a 16GB model of both the Raspberry Pi 5 and also the Raspberry Pi 500 desktop PC kit. The manufacturers themselves specifically note the use of large language models as well as computational fluid dynamics as two specific reasons that folks might want to purchase a double-density Pi.
If you're only tangentially aware of these things and wondering why someone would pay $120 for a tiny SBC, you may not be aware that the Raspberry Pi 5 is surprisingly capable. You get a machine that supports dual 4K HDR HDMI displays, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and a remarkable amount of expansion considering the size. All this is driven by a Broadcom BCM2712 SoC that features four Arm Cortex-A76 64-bit CPUs running at 2.4 GHz stock, although many people overclock them using add-on coolers.
Indeed, aside from the memory change, all of the other specifications of the Raspberry Pi 5 are completely untouched, but if you're keen on doing AI work, physical simulations, video editing, or other crazy things on a 25W system with four modest Cortex-A76 cores, you'll definitely want the 16GB version. For a mostly-complete "personal computing" experience, it's hard to complain about the price: $120 for the RasPi 5 16GB, while pricing on the Pi 500 kit will be up to the sellers. Of course, you'll want to pony up another $30-40 for accessories like a case and power adapter. You can order the new RasPi 5 16GB from the official site.
