Test Comparisons on Raspberry Pi 4 on 1 GB, 2 GB and 4 GB models

[Beorn_Bear]

I currently use a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. I am interested about purchasing a Raspberry Pi 4. I am interested in knowing if any updates on software and/or hardware revision will improve the Raspberry Pi 4 performance.

I am curious to know if there are any performance comparisons between the different GB versions of the Raspberry Pi 4. Is there a significant performance difference on Chromium and Youtube video for the 4 GB model vs the 2 GB Model?! Does the video performance change significantly, if it is wifi vs ethernet cable?!

[W. H. Heydt]

The only difference among the 3 version of the Pi4B is the amount of DRAM. As compared to a Pi3B+, any of them is going to be 2-3 times faster. The Pi3B+ runs wired Ethernet through a USB 2 hub. The Pi4B has a separate 1Gb/s Ethernet port. All 4 of the Pi3B+ USB ports are USB 2. On the Pi4B, there are 2 USB 2 ports and 2 USB 3 ports. All the Pi4B USB ports connect to the SOC over a single PCIe lane (4Gb/s). The Pi3B+ power connector is micro-USB-B. On the Pi4B, it's USB-C. In addition, the legacy USB 2 connection in the SoC is connected to the USB-C power port, and can be used as a USB 2 OTG port.

The general "received wisdom" is that the Pi4B1 is suitable for headless uses, the Pi4B2 for general desktop uses, and the Pi4B4 is good for heavy coding and development work.

All of this data is in pretty much any technical description of the Pi4B.

[drgeoff]

The general "received wisdom"

"perceived wisdom" is the usual wording.

[W. H. Heydt]

The general "received wisdom"

"perceived wisdom" is the usual wording.

Perhaps in your dialect, but not in mine. Aren't linguistic differences fun?

[Heater]

drgeoff,

No, "received wisdom" is the usual expression:

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/th ... ved+wisdom

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/exampl ... ved-wisdom

"perceived wisdom" - 58,300 Google hits.

"received wisdom" - 785,000 Google hits.

They both seem like a contradiction in terms to me. If you are basing your wisdom on what other people say, that is not very wise now is it?

[FPSychotic]

Dont get crazy with bench etc. Just buy the 4Gb version if it will be your only RPi4 for everything, soon or late you will need the 4gb of ram. If you going to have more of one and they will have specific task, in that case you can choose other version to save some bucks.

[bjtheone]

For a general use case more is always better. If you have an expectation to use it for more than a year or two, more is always better. Even if you really really plan on doing one very specific and defined thing with it, more is almost always better. Recall the quote about 640K being more than enough (which Gates may or may not have said, he now claims he did not) and how well that turned out. The other aspect to consider, unless you have a truly nailed down specific use case, you will likely do more and more as things occur to you.

Given the cost differential between 1Gb and 4Gb, buy the 4 Gb model. It is not going to do anything worse, other than use a tiny bit more power and it will be much more future proof. This equation obviously changes for large scale deployments but for the home user the differential we are talking about is roughly the price of a large pizza. The differential as a percentage drops even further if you are actually buying all the bits of gear you need to deploy a full desktop (monitor, power supply, cables, mouse, keyboard). Buy the 4 Gb model.

[ejolson]

This equation obviously changes for large scale deployments but for the home user the differential we are talking about is roughly the price of a large pizza.

I definitely agree about that the 4GB model is the one outside of large deployments for personnel use. I bought what was in stock at Micro Center, which turned out to be a 2GB model. It also works