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  • Author Author: Gough Lui
  • Date Created: 9 Aug 2015 2:14 AM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 10 May 2021 7:13 PM
  • Views 37102 views
  • Likes 17 likes
  • Comments 38 comments
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Identifying Your Model of Raspberry Pi

Also read a more current version of this information that includes all models through Raspberry Pi 3 Model B - How To Identify Which Model Of The Raspberry Pi You Have.

 

"Thanks for the below archive article too Lui!" [element14]

 

Users looking to further their journey into the Raspberry Pi world increasingly need to be aware of the different models of Raspberry Pi that are floating around. Despite the "uniform" Raspberry Pi branding, several models and iterations of Raspberry Pi have been released, each with differences that will affect the accessories you can use with the board, the performance and features of the board itself, and the operating systems which you can run on the board. It is important to be acquainted with the Raspberry Pi you have (or one you are going to buy) to ensure it's the one that best suits your project's needs.

 

Basic Differences

 

The Raspberry Pi family can be broken down into the "original" Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi "plus", and the Raspberry Pi 2. Each of these designations also come in two flavours - Model A and Model B (with the exception of the Raspberry Pi 2 at present). The following table summarizes some of the differences between the different Raspberry Pi boards. I have not included the Raspberry Pi Compute Module in this comparison, as it's designed for embedded integration. If you have one, you probably already know all about it, as it looks entirely different from a regular Raspberry Pi, and is in the shape of an SODIMM stick, and is not very hobbyist friendly.

 

FeatureRaspberry PiRaspberry Pi 2
Model AModel BModel A+Model B+Model B
CPUSingle-core 700Mhz BCM2835Quad-core 900Mhz BCM2836
RAM256512*2565121024
LANNoYesNoYesYes
GPIO Port2640
USB Ports12144
USB Hot-PlugNoYes
StorageSDmicroSD
CVBS VideoRCA Connector4-pole 3.5mm Jack
3.3v PowerLinear RegulatorSwitching Converter

 

The "original" Raspberry Pi boards are built around s single-core 700Mhz BCM2835 ARMv6 CPU. Two models were available, with the Model B being most popular, featuring two USB ports, and a LAN port, whereas the Model A has only one USB port and no LAN port. Initial shipments of the Raspberry Pi Model B had several USB power problems due to polyfuse current limiters, only 256Mb RAM and a v1.0 PCB with slightly different GPIO connector pin-out and no P5 and P6 connector (which made it incompatible with the Wolfson Audio Card). Some changes were made, initially addressing the USB problems by removing the polyfuses. It was later announced that Raspberry Pi Model B would be upgraded to 512Mb at the same price, and that Model A boards would ship with 256Mb RAM instead of the 128Mb it was originally planned for. As a result, the majority of Model B's will be 512Mb versions with version 2.0 PCB. However, the "original" Raspberry Pi had a 26-pin GPIO connector, which some users thought was insufficient, used linear regulators for the 3.3v power causing higher temperatures and inefficient power usage, had a full size friction-fit SD slot which caused contact issues and suffered from rebooting if USB peripherals were plugged in while the board was active.

 

The Raspberry Pi "plus" series of boards addresses these issues, by changing the design of the "original" Raspberry Pi. Recognizing the GPIO problem, the header was expanded to 40-pins, with the first 26 pins arranged electrically identically as the "original" Raspberry Pi for compatibility reasons. Four USB ports were provided on the B+ board, instead of just two (which makes it possible to use keyboard, mouse, wireless and another peripheral without a hub) and USB power distribution was improved by using a soft-start circuit to prevent rebooting when peripherals were hot-plugged. The power consumption and heat generation were reduced, by changing the linear regulator with a switching regulator, and the power supply circuitry also featured a power rail supervisor IC, allowing the red power LED to turn off when the 5v rail fell below ~4.83v, removing the need for TP1 and TP2 "voltage checks" with a multimeter.

 

The friction fit SD card slot was replaced with a quality "push-click" microSD slot, meaning full-size cards used in the "original" model needed to be copied over to microSD cards for use in the "plus". The ports were rearranged so as to reduce their protrusion from the board, and proper mounting holes and rounded corners were provided. The audio circuitry has a dedicated power regulator. It does keep the same CPU and are hence generally software compatible between each other, however, due to the change in the USB power distribution with soft-start control, builds with non-updated GPIO drivers migrated to the "plus" models would have problems with USB devices not receiving power. One casualty of the changes was the removal of the dedicated RCA connector for CVBS (composite) video, instead, migrating to a four pole jack with the audio.

 

Despite the hardware-backwards-compatible GPIO pin allocation, many expansion boards designed for the "original" Raspberry Pi will not directly fit over the header due to mechanical interference from the USB ports which have moved inwards (e.g. the original PiFace Control and Display and PiFace Digital). New versions of these expansion boards are generally preferred, although a stacking-header or extension cable could allow for connections to be made. As the board design had also changed, cases made for the "plus" are incompatible with the "original" and vice versa.

 

The Raspberry Pi "plus" series was the first time that a Model A-board had appeared sporting a different form factor. The Model A+ is physically shorter and more compact, with the PCB extending to the mounting hole on the USB side of the 40-pin GPIO connector.

 

The Raspberry Pi 2 carries on the new layout, GPIO, USB design and power distribution introduced with the "plus" models and upgrades the main SoC to a more beefy quad-core 900Mhz ARMv7 BCM2836. This increases the consumption over the Model B+, to a level similar to the original B, but in return, offers performance about six times faster. The Raspberry Pi 2 is software compatible with older builds of software (e.g. Raspbian) only if the kernel is upgraded to a version released after February 2015. The Raspberry Pi 2 seems to be "camera shy", as an exposed power regulator on the board is disrupted by xenon camera flashes. As it carries the same layout as the "plus", generally peripherals which work with the "plus" will work with the Raspberry Pi 2 at a hardware level, although the software may need updating.

 

If you are interested in the latest operating systems, such as Windows 10 for IoT or Ubuntu Mate, these require the Raspberry Pi 2 as they are compiled with the ARMv7 instruction set available on the BCM2836. This makes it the preferred model for most hobbyists today.

 

The availability of the Model B+ and "original" Model B is very restricted. Accessories for the older "original" Raspberry Pi are starting to become less common, as new inventory comes in. Soon, you might not have to worry too much about compatibility if you have a "plus" or "Raspberry Pi 2" model, as they share footprints and connectors and manufacturers are shifting their focus to the newer boards.

 

List of Expansion Boards by Compatibility

 

Following is a list of element14 stocked expansion boards and compatibility with Raspberry Pi boards compiled with best efforts, judging from specifications and personal experience. I will not be held responsible in case of errors, please do your own confirmatory research before purchasing.

 

Original Raspberry Pi

  • Embest Embedded Pi
  • Piface Control and Display
  • Chipkit Pi
  • Gertduino
  • Gertboard
  • Wolfson Audio Card (only for Rev 2.0 PCB)
  • Freescale Xtrinsic Sense
  • PiFace Shim RTC
  • Microstack Base Board
  • Adafruit LCD Keypad Kit
  • NXP Explore NFC

 

Raspberry Pi "plus" and Raspberry Pi 2

  • Embest Embedded Pi (*maybe* as it uses a ribbon cable)
  • Freescale Xtrinsic Sense (fits over first 26 pins, but has sufficient clearance)
  • PiFace Shim RTC
  • PiFace Digital 2
  • PiFace Motor Control Extra
  • PiFace Relay+
  • PiFace Relay Extra
  • Microstack Base Board
  • Cirrus Logic Audio Card
  • NXP Explore NFC (fits over first 26 pins, due to pass-through header, has sufficient clearance)

 

Quick Visual Identification

 

While there is a few variety of Raspberry Pi boards available, most users are likely to own a Model B of some description, as these are the recommended boards for beginners as they are most featureful without being too expensive. If you have the box, then that can definitely give you a hint as to which model you have. If you have the plain white box to the left, then you've got an "original" Raspberry Pi Model B. If you have the one in the middle, you have a Raspberry Pi Model B+. If you have the one on the right with a big "2" on it, then you have the latest Raspberry Pi 2 Model B.

 


 

Looking at the PCB itself, here is an image that shows the three different Model B's at the time of writing.


 

The "original" Raspberry Pi Model B has square edges on the PCB. If you have a Raspberry Pi with square edges, and two USB ports, it's an "original" Model B. If it has square edges and only one USB port, it's an "original" Model A.

 

The Raspberry Pi Model B+ and the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B both look visually similar, leading to many users to be confused. However, telling them apart is quite easy, as the model is silkscreened in white text underneath the GPIO connector, like this:


 

Another way to tell, is that the Raspberry is smaller on the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, and the chip has the Broadcom marking on it, as they have stopped using package-on-package technology (and thus, the RAM is mounted on the other side of the board).

 

If you have a Raspberry Pi with rounded corners, is smaller than the above boards, and has a single USB port, then it is a Raspberry Pi Model A+. At this time, no Raspberry Pi 2 Model A exists.

 

Identifying Your Board Once Booted

 

Maybe you've got a Raspberry Pi in service, and you just can't remember what model it was and you really don't want to have to pull it out to look at its PCB. If you already have your Raspberry Pi running, you can find out the model of your Raspberry Pi by going to the terminal and issuing cat /proc/cpuinfo and looking up the last four digits in the table here. This will tell you which board, board revision, RAM and manufacturer all in one fell swoop. A summary of the table, grouped by model, is as follows:

  • Raspberry Pi Model A: 0007, 0008, 0009
  • Raspberry Pi Model B (Rev 1.0, 256Mb): 0002, 0003
  • Raspberry Pi Model B (Rev 2.0, 256Mb): 0004, 0005, 0006
  • Raspberry Pi Model B (Rev 2.0, 512Mb): 000d, 000e, 000f
  • Raspberry Pi Model A+: 0012
  • Raspberry Pi Model B+: 0010, 0013
  • Raspberry Pi 2 Model B: 1041

 

Conclusion

 

Working out what Raspberry Pi board you have doesn't have to be hard work - all it takes is a quick glance at the board itself and the markings and shape of the board, or issuing a command, and you can better understand what expansion options are suitable and what operating systems you can run.

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Top Comments

  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 4 years ago in reply to wufooed +2

    > Now on to figure out what OS I can put on my Raspberry Pi model B, lol.

     

    Easiest would be to go with the flow and install Raspbian: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

     

    I found it has all…

  • peteroakes
    peteroakes over 6 years ago +1

    Nice Job

     

    Very clear and concise, I like it and think it will be very usefull

     

    Peter

  • balearicdynamics
    balearicdynamics over 6 years ago +1

    I think this is what users should find when thinking what model to buy and what performances they need. It seems you have covered all the basic needs for a complete scenario.

     

    Enrico

  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 2 years ago in reply to izzy1665

    That appears to be a Raspberry Pi Model B 256MB (possibly), maybe a slightly later edition as it has the Hynix package-on-package memory (as I believe they used to be single-sourced from Samsung initially).

     

    If you really want an unambiguous answer, you can boot up a modern version of Raspbian and check cat /proc/cpuinfo to see what ID it returns.

     

    - Gough

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  • izzy1665
    izzy1665 over 2 years ago

    I was digging through some stuff and came across a Pi I purchased & tinkered with a little bit way back when they first came out but I'm not really sure which model I have (A or B or ?). Other than the 1 set of USBs. it doesn't have the same identifiers on the board that are shown above. I'm thinking its a Raspberry Pi Model B 512 MB RAM based on one I saw on Amazon, it looked closest to what I have based on components on the board.

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  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    You're not really going to get *that* much voicemail are you!?! Is this some sort of mass-calling operation? jkzjkz.

     

    But on a more serious note, if you have a decent amperage PSU that gives out enough voltage, do a polyfuse bypass with jumper wire or directly power through GPIO, you can host an SSD inside a SATA to USB 3.0 cradle to give a bit more reliable storage. Of course, USB 2.0 bus will "choke" but ... better than nothing. Or a moderate-price USB key could do the trick but some aren't great on high rate small-block I/O.

     

    Of course, this is not meant to be something for "serious" applications, but I have no problems hosting 8-lines at home on one and having four in a conference and four in a second conference seems to work fine enough. I used to use FreePBX in a VMware VM on my main desktop, but decided I'd rather save the energy ... at the cost of a little loss of performance. But hey, it's definitely educational as it's better to have a reason to try things than to just forget they exist at all (e.g. just go with some external VoIP provider or hosted PBX).

     

    - Gough

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to Gough Lui

    Thanks for the advice now how to hook up a SATA drive for voice mail and my AutoAttendant. LOL

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  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    Use a USB 2.0 to Ethernet adapter - e.g. based on SMSC LAN7500. I had a Pi running as a low rate firewall in an educational institution doing it this way. ItsI not the best but better than nothing - onboard Ethernet on the PI comes out of an SMSC USB to Ethernet + Hub chip already.

     

    - Gough

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to Gough Lui

    Ok, But pray tell how do you get a second ethernet connection?

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  • Gough Lui
    Gough Lui over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    The Raspberry Pi is still quite useful and versatile - I have no problems with running Asterisk (Raspbx) on my original Model B+ and it does well for the low volume calling that is my house (even doing media transcode to Speex). I agree, the I/O is a little limiting, but since the Ethernet is hosted off the USB 2.0 anyway, you can always tack on another SMSC LAN7500 or similar USB-based Ethernet cards for a second independent interface or prefix the existing one with a "cheap" smart-switch and go the VLAN route. It's not going to be quite as low-latency or reliable as say a dedicated PC, but for only a few watts, it's quite an acceptable compromise.

     

    Regardless, the Pi was never intended to be a standalone PC, a powerful home server nor an appliance. Its roots are as a low-cost educational computer and I think in that regard, it has a multitude of community support compared to its competitors. The fact that it also could do some of the other things is what makes it even more interesting than it would otherwise have been, making it highly useful for hobbyists who want something that could be relatively low-power but run a full Linux distro with some GPIO capabilities mixed with more conventional USB/Ethernet and even WiFi/Bluetooth in the most recent models.

     

    As a result, at home, I now run an Asus Tinkerboard for more difficult CPU-bound and network I/O-bound tasks, a Raspberry Pi Model B+ for Raspbx, another Raspberry Pi as a Wi-Fi/Ethernet NAT-router for my backup WAN. For 433Mhz bridging to control my lights/appliances, I use an Arduino Yun. For remote monitoring of weather/mailbox, I have ESP8266-based Wi-Fi devices. At my other house, another old Raspberry Pi runs as an SSH server for tunneling through for remote support (as the Router itself doesn't run any aftermarket firmware and the inbuilt functions are insufficient), and an Arduino Duemilanove and Ethernet Shield serves my 433Mhz bridging with a very simple "HTTP-compatible" interface.

     

    Sometimes there are better tools for the job, depending on what your needs and resources are - but I'm plenty happy to run a mix of things and the Raspberry Pi definitely has its place within this mix.

     

    - Gough

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago

    Thanks, Gough Lui I don't really do much with the Pi as the bang/buck isn't there. Yes Its fast and can run a Linux distro, but in my opinion, it has the worst of all the IO and almost no ecosystem. for instance, I tried to put Astrix on it but I only can have one ethernet connection, both in and out where I wanted two one for the connection and the second to the phones. I would be nice to have a SATA connector for my voice mail as well. On the other extreme, You have the 8-bit world, Like the Ardunios and Ti Launchpads both with great ecosystems. 

    There are other platforms out there such a the Beagle Bone, TI Launchpads some with ethernet built-in, as well as others too many to mention.

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  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 4 years ago in reply to wufooed

    > Now on to figure out what OS I can put on my Raspberry Pi model B, lol.

     

    Easiest would be to go with the flow and install Raspbian: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

     

    I found it has all kinds of tools and examples to make for an easy start.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

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  • wufooed
    wufooed over 4 years ago

    Wow, very well done. I came here clueless and now... I know what I have. Thank you very much.

     

    Now on to figure out what OS I can put on my Raspberry Pi model B, lol.

     

    Thanks again

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