Well, actually with 150$ you could buy a used business SFF/tiny PC with an 8th/9th gen i5 CPU and I don’t think that it will consume that much more than a rpi.
At peak the sff PCs are going to be at least triple the ~30W of the pi 5.
Edit: You’ll get way more out of the sff though, which is what I was saying. Tiny/mini/micro is my entire self hosted environment (as well as lab and work setup for the most part).
At peak the sff PCs are going to be at least triple the ~30W of the pi 5.
Are you sure? I think that for the same tasks, the i5 (at least 9th gen) is more power efficient than the rpi 5.
I was a pi guy, I had them all over the places, but like you, I’m now using SFF/tiny used PCs (when I don’t need GPIO).
At least as far as my setup, yeah. Ive got 5th-10th gens, under high loads I’ll see a spike to 80+ watts, the highest is 170W but those have nvidia quadros in them.
Edit: For gpio now I’ll just use an esp32 or something instead.
My only pi usage these days is work stuff, and orangepi is supported there. In terms of arm, also Jetson, but that’s kind of outside the discussion here.
oh man, I tried an orangepi and I cannot express how sketchy that thing was, top to bottom. It had a lot of power but that is the one good side it had (it was a lot more expensive than a rpi too). That shitty flashing utility alone make it worth picking something different.
I had so much trouble trying different OSes on it. I think actually none of them felt stable and I tried like 5 (multiple versions of each) I think.
I really gave the orange pi the ol’ college try. Now that I think about it, there was a single OS that sorta worked well on it. But unfortunately it was a weird fork of ubuntu supported by a single dude and I didn’t want the future of my device by on one guy’s shoulders.
Guess it depends on how much hardware you already got lying around. I could scrounge up an SD card, an old phone charger, a fan, keyboard and mouse from my supply and I’ve got a 3D printer.
I’m all for recycling though. I’m just not sure if a $100 i5 system could handle all that bloat on the web.
If you have that lying around, you can still beat a pi 5 by only buying an i5 motherboard instead of an entire pc. As to handling the bloat, it’s faster.
Anything made in the past 10-15 years still works great, I have a couple of really old thin clients that I bought for around $20 and dumped my pis when the prices were way up. One runs octoprint and the other one runs Lubuntu out in the garage so I can look up vehicle specs and other things while I’m out there. I have a fifth Gen Intel laptop that still works great. I have a desktop with a Ryzen 3000 series that works just fine both bought used for under $100. Raspberry pi is good for certain tasks, but using it for a desktop makes little sense. Even now I’m working this message on an Android phone that was around $100 with no issues.
CPU power hasn’t changed much, they’ve added more features over the years, but power hasn’t changed a lot, only Windows has gotten more bloated so you need more ram to run it.
Yep. First of all, the person who said an RPI5 can show YouTube HD just fine is lying. It’s still stuttery and drops frames (better than the RPI4b, but still not great). Second, you’ll end up dropping well north of $100 for the RPI5, active cooler, case, memory card (not even mentioning an m2 hat), power supply, and cable / adapter to feed standard HDMI.
You can find some really solid used laptops and towers in that price range, not to mention the n100 NUC. And they’ll all stream YouTube HD much better, as well as provide a much smoother desktop experience overall.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me a RPI, I run a couple myself. They’re just not great daily drivers, especially if you want to stream HD content.
I’m the person you’re accusing of lying. To your point, there are some dropped frames but that’s not a problem for me, and I figure most people wouldn’t notice 10 dropped frames out of every 1000, or whatever similar ratio it is. I have a rpi for a media PC and I’m happy with it. I play HD video in several web apps and only the shittiest of them (prime and paramount+) ever have a noticeable issue with playback.
People who complain about rpi’s being expensive kinda make me scratch my head. Like, do you not count the accessories you buy for other hardware? It seems the comparison is between the RPI and every single thing you buy for it, vs a laptop/PC itself with no accessories (which you will almost certainly be buying some amount of). I get that it sucks that these devices have gone up in price, but yeah, the accessories aren’t all that much more than any other device. You could have a very solid RPI setup for $120 all-in. And it would be more durable than some sketchy Acer laptop.
My Pi5 setup with a very fast SD card plays YouTube without dropping frames or stuttering at 1080p, that other guy is wrong. The UI is slow and a bit janky, but once YT is loaded and fullscreen, it plays perfectly. It plays 24/7 on a TV in our living room for my partner’s WFH and for our cats when they’re done.
Thank you for that validation! I actually just tested mine and saw the same results as you describe. I would drop about 30-50 frames going full screen and then only one here or there every few minutes. It is damned close to perfect.
The accessories I mentioned for the RPI5 are the bare essentials just to get the thing to power up, boot to a web browser, and connect to a monitor to try to play YouTube, which is the foundation of your original comment. Please show me where a $120 used laptop or desktop tower needs additional hardware purchases to boot and plug in an HDMI cable.
You’re picking the wrong fight with the wrong guy, friend. I’m a huge RPI advocate and I think they are great tools for specific use cases. I simply want to point out that if folks are considering it in the hopes that it’s a small and cheap way to watch YouTube, they’re gonna have a bad time.
Yeah what i did is i got one of those dell thin client laptops. It runs great. I just open up parsec and can remote in to my server that has an i9 and 256gb ram with a 4090 and like 100tb hdd and 4tb nvme
If there were not for youtube shitty war on adblocks I was able to watch youtube 1080p on a 30 bucks android tv thingy.
I would have to check is someone built an alternative app to keep watching it because power of the device was no issue. When running on a minimal kodi installation it just worked fine.
I mean, yeah, I realize it was the joke. I think I was just adding context some people may not know about. I didn’t know a rpi could do that task until I started researching media PC options.
I wanted to go with a pi for my HTPC but I have a Plex server and all my movies are full bitrate 4k files straight from the UHD blurays and the pi couldn’t handle that bitrate. Ended up building a small ITX PC with my old PC hardware and a new Intel A380 gpu.
I’m so thankful intel is doing their best to enter the discreet GPU market. Such banger cards for so little.
A raspberry pi 5 can play YouTube in HD just fine, so if you wanna save 4000 bucks maybe do that instead
You can also just buy a used laptop or business computer which is infinitely better and cheaper.
Cheaper than a raspberry? O.o
Pi 5 desktop kit is like $150 isn’t it?
Yeah you can beat that performance and price with some used hardware. Will cost more in power though.
Well, actually with 150$ you could buy a used business SFF/tiny PC with an 8th/9th gen i5 CPU and I don’t think that it will consume that much more than a rpi.
Only at idle.
At peak the sff PCs are going to be at least triple the ~30W of the pi 5.
Edit: You’ll get way more out of the sff though, which is what I was saying. Tiny/mini/micro is my entire self hosted environment (as well as lab and work setup for the most part).
Are you sure? I think that for the same tasks, the i5 (at least 9th gen) is more power efficient than the rpi 5. I was a pi guy, I had them all over the places, but like you, I’m now using SFF/tiny used PCs (when I don’t need GPIO).
At least as far as my setup, yeah. Ive got 5th-10th gens, under high loads I’ll see a spike to 80+ watts, the highest is 170W but those have nvidia quadros in them.
Edit: For gpio now I’ll just use an esp32 or something instead.
My only pi usage these days is work stuff, and orangepi is supported there. In terms of arm, also Jetson, but that’s kind of outside the discussion here.
Ok, but is that “high load” something that the rpi 5 is capable of handling? I don’t think so.
You could get away with nothing but the Pi, depending on what you’ve got lying around.
Sure, depends on needs of course. Just saying I can see how someone could arrive at a better price point than a pi with more performance.
Just not more per watt (except in more burst demanding scenarios).
The pi foundation lost a lot of goodwill with me though, so I stick to the alternatives (orangepi for example) if I need one.
Edit: I a whole word.
oh man, I tried an orangepi and I cannot express how sketchy that thing was, top to bottom. It had a lot of power but that is the one good side it had (it was a lot more expensive than a rpi too). That shitty flashing utility alone make it worth picking something different.
I had so much trouble trying different OSes on it. I think actually none of them felt stable and I tried like 5 (multiple versions of each) I think.
Ive got very specific needs when it comes to pi-alikes, so I can only speak to how ive used it.
I still won’t support the pi foundation though.
Can I ask why? (/gen)
I really gave the orange pi the ol’ college try. Now that I think about it, there was a single OS that sorta worked well on it. But unfortunately it was a weird fork of ubuntu supported by a single dude and I didn’t want the future of my device by on one guy’s shoulders.
What wrong did the pi foundation do again?
By the time you factor in a case, cooling, SD card, and power supply a Pi can cost about as much (~$100) as an off lease i5.
Guess it depends on how much hardware you already got lying around. I could scrounge up an SD card, an old phone charger, a fan, keyboard and mouse from my supply and I’ve got a 3D printer.
I’m all for recycling though. I’m just not sure if a $100 i5 system could handle all that bloat on the web.
Also: I really like AV1. 😅
SD card, sure.
Old phone charger? Might not be strong enough to power a Pi 4/5; this isn’t the Pi 3 days with a microUSB.
“… and I’ve got a 3D printer.“
Yeah, you’re “ahead” of most people with that one.
This i5 could probably handle it, and you’ve got $$$ left over for an SSD.
Go with the 8500 i5 instead. I have that with a 1650 for the kids.
Agreed.
Was proving that you can find a half way decent machine that’s more capable than a Pi5 at the same price point (~$100)
Oh yea! Even that 6500 with a 1050 or even a 1030 crushes a PI. I have 4 1030s laying around for such an occasion.
If you have that lying around, you can still beat a pi 5 by only buying an i5 motherboard instead of an entire pc. As to handling the bloat, it’s faster.
Have you had success with phone chargers? My RPi4 is very picky about power and is unstable on anything but the official power supply.
I’m using the fast charging devices that are bundled with Samsnug phones and the like. But my raspberry 4 is currently not in use.
Used stuff is generally cheaper than new stuff.
Yeah, but I wouldn’t be sure used stuff below 100€/$/whatever could handle the internet too well, nowadays.
Anything made in the past 10-15 years still works great, I have a couple of really old thin clients that I bought for around $20 and dumped my pis when the prices were way up. One runs octoprint and the other one runs Lubuntu out in the garage so I can look up vehicle specs and other things while I’m out there. I have a fifth Gen Intel laptop that still works great. I have a desktop with a Ryzen 3000 series that works just fine both bought used for under $100. Raspberry pi is good for certain tasks, but using it for a desktop makes little sense. Even now I’m working this message on an Android phone that was around $100 with no issues.
CPU power hasn’t changed much, they’ve added more features over the years, but power hasn’t changed a lot, only Windows has gotten more bloated so you need more ram to run it.
Yes. Here’s a random listing on CL.
Kinda says it all.
Phenom X4? That thing probably can’t really handle YT HD streams.
Surprisingly, it can with a SSD! I just replaced mine with a Pi5 because the single tiny fan was loud hahaha
Yep. First of all, the person who said an RPI5 can show YouTube HD just fine is lying. It’s still stuttery and drops frames (better than the RPI4b, but still not great). Second, you’ll end up dropping well north of $100 for the RPI5, active cooler, case, memory card (not even mentioning an m2 hat), power supply, and cable / adapter to feed standard HDMI.
You can find some really solid used laptops and towers in that price range, not to mention the n100 NUC. And they’ll all stream YouTube HD much better, as well as provide a much smoother desktop experience overall.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me a RPI, I run a couple myself. They’re just not great daily drivers, especially if you want to stream HD content.
They run 1080p without any frame drops or stuttering. I have one playing YT 24/7 in my living room. I have a fast SD card for it, though.
I’m the person you’re accusing of lying. To your point, there are some dropped frames but that’s not a problem for me, and I figure most people wouldn’t notice 10 dropped frames out of every 1000, or whatever similar ratio it is. I have a rpi for a media PC and I’m happy with it. I play HD video in several web apps and only the shittiest of them (prime and paramount+) ever have a noticeable issue with playback.
People who complain about rpi’s being expensive kinda make me scratch my head. Like, do you not count the accessories you buy for other hardware? It seems the comparison is between the RPI and every single thing you buy for it, vs a laptop/PC itself with no accessories (which you will almost certainly be buying some amount of). I get that it sucks that these devices have gone up in price, but yeah, the accessories aren’t all that much more than any other device. You could have a very solid RPI setup for $120 all-in. And it would be more durable than some sketchy Acer laptop.
My Pi5 setup with a very fast SD card plays YouTube without dropping frames or stuttering at 1080p, that other guy is wrong. The UI is slow and a bit janky, but once YT is loaded and fullscreen, it plays perfectly. It plays 24/7 on a TV in our living room for my partner’s WFH and for our cats when they’re done.
Thank you for that validation! I actually just tested mine and saw the same results as you describe. I would drop about 30-50 frames going full screen and then only one here or there every few minutes. It is damned close to perfect.
Youtube on the RPI5 drops frames and is stuttery. If that’s fine for you, great. But I’d argue it’s not what people consider a good viewing experience. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBQosbjl9Jw&t=278s and https://youtu.be/nBtOEmUqASQ?t=797 if you’d like more info.
The accessories I mentioned for the RPI5 are the bare essentials just to get the thing to power up, boot to a web browser, and connect to a monitor to try to play YouTube, which is the foundation of your original comment. Please show me where a $120 used laptop or desktop tower needs additional hardware purchases to boot and plug in an HDMI cable.
You’re picking the wrong fight with the wrong guy, friend. I’m a huge RPI advocate and I think they are great tools for specific use cases. I simply want to point out that if folks are considering it in the hopes that it’s a small and cheap way to watch YouTube, they’re gonna have a bad time.
You’re right
Yeah what i did is i got one of those dell thin client laptops. It runs great. I just open up parsec and can remote in to my server that has an i9 and 256gb ram with a 4090 and like 100tb hdd and 4tb nvme
If there were not for youtube shitty war on adblocks I was able to watch youtube 1080p on a 30 bucks android tv thingy.
I would have to check is someone built an alternative app to keep watching it because power of the device was no issue. When running on a minimal kodi installation it just worked fine.
That was the joke.
I mean, yeah, I realize it was the joke. I think I was just adding context some people may not know about. I didn’t know a rpi could do that task until I started researching media PC options.
I wanted to go with a pi for my HTPC but I have a Plex server and all my movies are full bitrate 4k files straight from the UHD blurays and the pi couldn’t handle that bitrate. Ended up building a small ITX PC with my old PC hardware and a new Intel A380 gpu.
I’m so thankful intel is doing their best to enter the discreet GPU market. Such banger cards for so little.
Just buy used PC. Same perf, lower price.