The New 4-core Raspberry Pi

skrodahl

The new Raspberry Pi Model 2 from Raspberry Foundation will have a 900MHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/02/raspberry_pi_model_2/

The article, although I can't find any other sources to back it up, says that the new model goes on sale "today" with the usual price of $35.

ACX

Seems officially confirmed:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/

And that RS already has it in stock:
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/8326274/

Some notes from HiFiBerry blog:
https://www.hifiberry.com/2015/02/the-raspberry-pi-2-is-here/

The scary part of the official announcement on the Rpi's website is this:

This retains all the features of BCM2835, but replaces the single 700MHz ARM11 with a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 complex: everything else remains the same, so there is no painful transition or reduction in stability.

So will it still have the USB/Ethernet issues that mined all the previous versions?

MarkP

One of the good features of the Pi is low power consumption. I'd be interested to know how the Pi 2 compares in that respect.

rawdevice

Farnell has the new Pi Model 2 available: http://cpc.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspberrypi-2-modb-1gb/sbc-raspberry-pi-2-model-b-1gb/dp/SC13793

skrodahl

The Q&A at Makezine discusses the Ethernet/USB question:

One of the reasons that this rumor was running around was that the BCM11130 has both Ethernet and USB onboard. The Pi has faced some criticism for running Ethernet traffic over the USB bus using the LAN9154. You’ve noted before that you don’t think this is a problem, can you talk about that?

Well, you have a 100Mbit interface downstream of a 480Mbit interface, so I’ve never been sure why some people are concerned by this choice. The nice thing about BCM11130 is that it has Gigabit Ethernet, but we didn’t see this as a strong enough requirement to justify a compatibility break.

ACX

"The Pi has faced some criticism..."
Damn, I can't understand how such a issue could be tolerated and left untouched. The forums are full of people complaining of the poor USB implementation, which makes the Rpi almost unusable for a full spectrum of applications (among which USB audio).

dwijtsma

I just ordered one 2 minutes ago. Guess I'll have it within 3 days. When I have the model 2B I let you now if it works with Rune audio. From what I read it should work, but I'm no Linux guru.

jonas18z

Would this have power for room correction FIR-filter?

skrodahl

ACX wrote"The Pi has faced some criticism..."
Damn, I can't understand how such a issue could be tolerated and left untouched. The forums are full of people complaining of the poor USB implementation, which makes the Rpi almost unusable for a full spectrum of applications (among which USB audio).

He says the bus is 480Mbit. That makes me think that the acknowledged truth about RPi I/O might be depending on some other bottleneck. Perhaps in combination with processing power. Guess we'll find the answer to that one soon.

*** Edit ***
I forgot to link to the article: http://makezine.com/2015/02/02/eben-upton-raspberry-pi-2/

Here's a video from Makezine as well: http://makezine.com/2015/02/02/raspberry-pi-2-first-look/

The RaspberryPi.org website is under a heavy load at the moment. AdaFruit.com has been down the whole day, and still is. When it comes up, you can see what they're writing: https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-2-model-b?view=all

More links:

Hack-a-Day: http://hackaday.com/2015/02/02/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-2/
Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/the-new-raspberry-pi-a-turbocharged-quad-core-real-pc-1683199114
Ars: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2-arrives-with-quad-core-cpu-1gb-ram-same-35-price/
BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31088908
BGR: http://bgr.com/2015/02/02/raspberry-pi-2-model-b-specs-and-price/
TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/02/raspberry-pi-2/
Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/02/raspberry-pi-2/

dwijtsma

Since the RP 2 has a different processor, don't you need different kernel files to make it work?
Room correction would be nice indeed :roll:
An even faster GUI is also nice off course.

tinue

dwijtsma wroteSince the RP 2 has a different processor, don't you need different kernel files to make it work?
Room correction would be nice indeed :roll:
An even faster GUI is also nice off course.

I think new firmware is required, but not a new kernel. Raspbian (2015-01-31) still runs on Model B+ and on the new model 2 B.

Update: I was wrong, the Raspbian.org page says "...image including an ARMv7 kernel", so a new kernel is required. Anyway: Whether it's just new firmware, or a new kernel doesn't matter. The existing Runeaudio image will not work.

Orion

tinue wroteUpdate: I was wrong, the Raspbian.org page says "...image including an ARMv7 kernel", so a new kernel is required. Anyway: Whether it's just new firmware, or a new kernel doesn't matter. The existing Runeaudio image will not work.

You are right, the new Rpi board needs an ARMv7 kernel, so the current Rpi image (with ARMv6 kernel) will not work, but for sure...RuneAudio will support the new board.
We are only waiting to have one of the new boards in our hands.

Ciao.
Simone.

dwijtsma

Thanks for the info Orion,

I really hoped you guys were planning to support this version. 😃
I just ordered one before they would get out of stock everywhere.

Maybe some new features are possible in the future due to the quad core cortex A7.

audioGM

I for one am not so impressed with the new Pi, at least, for RuneAudio. I see nothing in RuneAudio that needs anywhere near quadcore or 1GB ram.

Yeah, the new PI is cool as a small, low power server (for which the ordinary PI has to work really hard). But RuneAudio is just so featherlight. I think you will not even notice the difference.

npejcic

I mostly agree with audioGM, but I notice that some of FLAC-s with 192kHz sample rate can be demanding and use more than 65% of Raspberry Pi B/B+ CPU. Sometime this can causes audio chopping. From this perspective, more powerful CPU can be useful.

But, most expected upgrade for Raspberry Pi is solution with better/faster LAN Phy, including independent bus, so USB can finally vent 🙂 This is maybe task for Raspberry Pi 3 in next years.

Anyway, for same price if we have slightly better CPU, why not 🙂

P.S. In my test with HD FLAC I use Raspberry Pi B+ and RaspyPlay4 I2S DAC

dwijtsma

The Pi 2 might not deliver miracles, but might improves some things:
- Faster connection to the GUI from a tablet. Now it takes a few seconds.
- Play bit rates of 2500kbps. (Yes, I have one album at this rate) :roll:
- room correction? Is the PI 2 fast enough to pull this off?

Aquarius

dwijtsma wroteThe Pi 2 might not deliver miracles, but might improves some things:
- Faster connection to the GUI from a tablet. Now it takes a few seconds.
- Play bit rates of 2500kbps. (Yes, I have one album at this rate) :roll:
- room correction? Is the PI 2 fast enough to pull this off?

Room correction is not very demanding, you're supposed to use a freakingly good analog to digital converter to analyse your room, chose what corrections to apply... that's supposed to be the difficult part. After that, you "just" have to apply that to live sound (some series of FFTs, I guess).

dwijtsma

Room correction has to be done in the frequency and time domain.
REW is an open source project that can do room correction on a PC. http://www.roomeqwizard.com/
Maybe REW can produce an output file which can be imported using the runeaudio GUI to correct the 'special effects' of our living/listening rooms. I heard something about BruteFIR in the past that might be able to pull this off.

In principle you need a calibrated microphone connected to a standard PC sound card and PC software to create such an output file. Adding this part to a runeaudio would make it unnecessarily complicated I think.

jnfindley

Here is a link to an article which contains some benchmarks on the Raspberry Pi and the Pi 2, so you can compare.

Raspberry Pi 2 Benchmarked
By daveh, Published Feb 04, 2015

http://www.davidhunt.ie/raspberry-pi-2-benchmarked/

As you can see, there is a nice performance increase in cpu, memory, storage random write (I assume SD card), and storage random read (I assume SD card). Considering that RuneAudio is built on top of a multi-tasking OS, I would think that all of the above improvements would be most welcome.

ACX

jnfindley wroteHere is a link to an article which contains some benchmarks on the Raspberry Pi and the Pi 2, so you can compare.

Very interesting.
I'm curious to test it personally, we already ordered a couple of boards.