Table of contents

RoadTest: Try out the Raspberry Pi Model 3 B Plus!

Author: MARK2011

Creation date: 10 May 2018

Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools

Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True

What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: previous model Pi 3 model B

What were the biggest problems encountered?: no problem at all

Detailed Review:

Amazing Raspberry in yet another, brand new - MODEL 3B+.

I hope, that the following test will depict some enhanced features of the new raspberry

Basic parameters

As the Raspberry Pi microcomputer is well known, besides the new model is also well documented and wide described, nevertheless, I feel obligation to attach detailed description and parameters below.

New model is presented on the raspberry official site as

1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core processor, dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz  wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2/BLE, faster Ethernet, and Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT)

• Processor:  Broadcom BCM2837B0, Cortex-A53 (ARMv8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.4GHz
• Memory:  1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
• Connectivity
  • 2.4GHz and 5GHz IEEE 802.11.b/g/n/ac wireless LAN,
  • Bluetooth 4.2, BLE
  • Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps)
  • 4 USB 2.0 ports
• Extended 40-pin GPIO header
• Full-size HDMI
• CSI camera port for connecting a Raspberry Pi camera
• DSI display port for connecting a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display
• 4-pole stereo output and composite video port
• Multimedia: H.264, MPEG-4 decode (1080p30); H.264 encode (1080p30); OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0 graphics
• Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data
• 5V/2.5A DC power input
• Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support (requires separate PoE HAT)

The first thought that comes to mind is the question of differences with the previous model.

At first glance I noticed two metal coated chips

Broadcom  BCM2837 instead of plastic package appear in the metal now.

Another metal object with full -size raspberry icon embossed on it is screening shield covered wireless device: IEEE 802.11.b/g/n/ac wireless LAN 2.4GHz & 5GHz integrated with Bluetooth 4.2, BLE

The ceramic chip antenna is replaced by resonant PCB one now.

The big change is replacement of LAN9514 with LAN7515 contained 10/100/1000 Ethernet and USB 2.0 hub.

There must be impart the new module is Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) - ready.

Looking at documentation and features list we have following significant improvements :

ARM Cortex-A53 1.4 GHz. means increase of the frequency by 200MHz

All above easy to find in papers and  manuals, but now let’s check it out!

Let me introduce the new Raspberry:

or to be precise its small but smart as well as faster and faster brain:

Thermal issue

As declared in my application I conducted some comparison tests with previous RPi model.

The first most interesting question was check of the energy dissipation issues and working temperature.

With precise Flir thermovision equipment that task was quite simple but instructive

first - take look at Raspberry 3B model:

warming up few seconds after start.

3 seconds later:

and after half an hour of normal work

focused not perfect but larger picture

here the measurement of the temperature of the USB module:

and supply conditioning area:

now hot photos of our new Raspberry:

unpowered RPi3B+ below:

and just after the start

module:

temperature groth 1 sec later:

10 min:

20 min

supply unit:

Now let me summarize above pictures in short words.

First I must inform, that measurements were taken with open cover. (the bottom base remained)

At average work conditions there are no significant difference in heat transfer in the board and temperature levels. Nevertheless model+ looks few degrees warmer.

(is that the reason for this sign?)

You can see the problem with catch the real temperature of metal covers of chips. Shiny surfaces are nightmare for thermography.

On the other hand, such cover ensure better radiation as well as heat transfer (dissipation) at all

RPI3B & RPi3B+ Benchmarks

The stage of benchmarks I started from simplest test command:

cpuinfo

Above results are the same for both RPI3B & RPi3B+

the only differwnce is the serial, of course and,

The revision id:

Pi 3 B      :  a22082

Pi 3 B+    : a020d3

But look: simple command “/cpuinfo_max_freq” shows significant difference in cpu speed:

RPi3B+        1400000

RPi3B          1200000

Running cpuinfo_cur_freq I got 600000 with new RPi3+

But for old one  600000 or 1200000 alternately appeared.

One more 1 command comparison: Benchmarking using “openssl speed”

calculate the time it takes to encrypt or decrypt one block of data.

Differences are shown in the table below:

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed:

Now time for more sophisticated comparisons. How are the improvements in the practical use?

I looked for my old but still convenient computation speed tests based on prime numbers seeking algorithm. The few lines code (C++ in origin, converted to python)

The attempt to find primes in the range to 300000 gave as follow:

The result for RPi3B  is 30,5s

Where for RPi3B+ 

is 25,5s

I did repeat these tests, for sure, results everytime were similar.

Another worth to do test from the point of view of practical comparison is “pystone”. 

The benchmark is available on Github as the python code.

RPi3B+ scored around 16500 “pst”/s  when 50000 or 500000 loops

Additionally I decided to check the CPU temperature during the test:

Now compare it with old RPi3B

And for 50000 passes:

Pystone(1.1.1) time for 50000 passes = 3.54852

This machine benchmarks at 14090.4 pystones/second

Pystone(1.1.1) time for 500000 passes = 35.5569

This machine benchmarks at 14062 pystones/second

Pystone(1.1.1) time for 500000 passes = 35.885

This machine benchmarks at 13933.4 pystones/second

The RPi3B result is not much abowe 14000 “pst”/s

Temperature was lower a little:

At the last i decided to use quite popular AikonCWD benchmark.

https://github.com/aikoncwd/rpi-benchmark

Raspberry Pi Benchmark Test

Author: AikonCWD

Version: 3.0

Other features

Check of main features extended in the new model

we have two USB 2.0 HUBs onboard now!

General compatibility

In the scope to proof the compatibility of the new model, I repeated selected experiments and tests concerned RPi I conducted before.

DS18B20+ One Wire Digital Temperature Sensor and the Raspberry

MEAS PI WEATHER SHIELD

Thanks to the previous Element14 R-T my simple weather station and its data logging system is ready for new experiments.

Raspberry Pi 2/3 Weather Sensor Shield - the set of transdusers necessary to make simple weather/ environment measures.

https://github.com/TEConnectivity/piweathershield-python

The MEAS Pi weather hat consist of:

HTU21D digital relative humidity sensor;

MS5637 digital barometric pressure sensor;

TSYS01 digital  temperature system sensor;

TSD305-1C55 digital thermopile sensor.

It utilizes Raspberry Pi compatible expansion ports configurable for I2C communication.

Modules detection in the new RPi 3B+ works perfect!

My simple python code works without need of any adaptation

Matlab compatibility

I wondered if the new Raspberry is fully compatible with i.e. Matlab / Simulink modules?

after some troubles I think new M-L version related...

I can operate and interface with RPi using matlab/ simulink.

The simplest cooperation results are shown below:

The model  B+ was identified properly!

Remote operation on GPIO is available from Matlab code level.

Communication 

The comprehensive roadtest covers assessment of the reliability and immunity of the board as well as compatibility to its modules.

I have checked the communication interfaces. Honestly I’m not ready to introduce sophisticated radio-propagation and emission loses test but I tried my best to check it.

Connecting to 5G Wi-Fi on 3B+

I have tested it using:

iw reg get

For  RPi B+

The 5GHz Wifi is marked

Signal info comparison below

With two walls border, around 15m distance:

Some retries but lommunication still works

Here comparison with 2,4GHz behaviour:

10 meters+wall:

Conclusions

There are lot of advantages in the new RPi model.

I'm sure the new idea of "heating management" and metal covers help to work in comfortable conditions regardless of the cpu and general load and environmental surroundings.

The most interesting features improvement are dual band WiFi

as well as modernisation of USB module combined with faster Ethernet.

Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) - also very promising ideea but require the extra module.

Nevertheless I must confirm, in practical use the chages are not particularly visible.

I would like to emphasize that in my opinion this is due to the fact that previous models have very good parameters and functions.