This is AWESOME!  After playing with a RPi4 for the last couple of months, I agree with shabaz that this isn't a low-end computer any more.  Either that or I'm the only one with who is still trying to limp some old tower PC's along.

The major limiting factor would be the USB 3.0 interface. Almost all modern SSDs use PCIe slots to achieve multiple GB/s of performance. The older Pi 3B+ had a theoretical maximum of 480 mbps , while the newer 4B can hit a max of 5 Gbps. The real world figures are half that roughly.

Apparently some users have successfully managed to hack into the PCI express, although this appears to be not at all straightforward: Raspberry Pi 4 PCI Express: It actually works! USB3, SATA… GPUs? | "Domipheus Labs"

For a comparison of external storage drives, you can check: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/raspberry-pi-4-ssd-test,39811.html

In contrast, the RAM upgrade is huge. Not only does the 4B have 8 times the RAM, it's also LPDDR4, up from DDR2. That makes for a huge difference in performance.

Ultimately these are still just numbers, real world usage is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations in check.

It entirely depends on the use case. Making a comparison is not at all straightforward because the Raspberry Pi is an ARM SBC while all laptops and desktops are x86 based.

This makes benchmarking so much more difficult. Several benchmarks are only for windows, and even if they exist for Linux, the Linux Raspberry Pi uses is not the same as the Linux x86 systems use (though they are superficially similar, the software written for one may not compile on the other).

ARM based laptops are only just beginning to take off - Lenovo launched a laptop with Snapdragon 8CX. It doesn't perform anywhere near a midrange laptop yet. The reason we want ARM laptops is because the chips are so much more power efficient than their x86 counterparts.

Given that the Pi is good enough for Browsing now (which is what most users do anyway) and it can run LibreOffice, open media files etc, it can work just fine as a low end computer. How ever the GPU isn't the strongest out there, and it lacks some of the features of bigger computers in terms of PCIe slots. Still, for anyone buying a generic computer off Craigslist, the RPi should be a suitable replacement given that they don't use any OS specific software.

Just my 2 cents,

Ashutosh

Hi Ashutosh,

ashutosh_pandey  wrote:

 

This is proper low end desktop replacement territory.

I think it might not be low-end any more, I would love to know though. Just speculating, that it might be typical PC/laptop performance (I bet most consumers do not purchase cutting-edge computers.. the local PC store here has maybe 5 laptops models with current or one previous generation CPU, and maybe 30 different models with CPUs that are several generations behind).

That's very neat! I've never looked into the A72 specs, and now the Pi 4 finally has 8GB DDR4, just out of curiosity I wonder if with an SSD it outperforms the average consumer laptop (not that it replaces a laptop, but nice to get an idea of the performance difference) presuming that an average new-purchase laptop by parents for kids might still contain a several-generations old Core i3 or lower-performance processor,

I wish raspberrypi.org would look at pricing though. The USD pricing doesn't work as well in the UK (and many other countries). Maybe time raspberrypi.org considered pricing differently for different regions, like any other manufacturer does. It isn't looking after consumers best interests that they use the old excuse that it has a fixed price worldwide in USD to reduce price fluctuations due to components being purchased in USD - other businesses manage it.

They are doing a good job of keeping the series moving, while still trying to maintain its affordability.

DAB

Okay It came on February this year. Missed that! I still have the old version.

https://hackaday.com/2020/02/23/raspberry-pi-slips-out-new-pcb-version-with-usb-c-power-fix/ 

They fixed that on the 1,2 and 4 GB versions before with a hardware update. It should be safe to say that since this board is releasing way after the fix, it should not be a problem.

Did they fix the smart USB-C charging issue?

Next dual processors? It’s only getting cooler!!

Dale