New Raspberry Pi with 8 gb RAM

[fox]

Just announced, an rPi4 with 8gb RAM - price is $104 or $105 CAN. Here are links to two Canadian companies that are selling it:
Buy-a-Pi
CanaKit

I'm still thinking of buying an rPi4, but 4gb RAM would be plenty for anything I would do with it. The 4gb model is about $20 cheaper.

[buster]

"4gb model is about $20 cheaper."

Personally, I see 4 gb ram for $20 as a bargain. And it's always better to have better equipment than you need because we don't know what we'll want in 3 years. Or what the Internet will be like.

And the $20 either way wont make any difference to your life Mike.  Think of 20 dollars as 2 really good draft pints. In other words,not much money.

But the inconvenience in the future if you decide you WANT 8 gig, will be unpleasant.

[Jason]

At first, I thought, wow, that's expensive. Then I realized it's for a kit. I like that it has a USB-C port. I hate doing the flip over and over trying to get the right side up.

The greater RAM could be for doing animation or video work on it or running a lot of programs at once which is what you'd be doing with two monitors. With the faster processor in a Pi 4, you can do serious photo editing work where the more RAM you have when doing that, the better the performance.

You may even be able to do video editing work on it with 8 GB of RAM. This article says you can get by with only 8 GB if you edit video at only 1080 and close all other programs. But they used Windows 10 and a PC so I don't know if that applies. But video editing does use huge amounts of RAM and a good processor so I bet it does.

You probably don't need it as I expect you're not doing those things. TechRepublic says that the playing video at 4K caused tearing issues but 1080 worked more smoothly. I don't know if that's an issue of the processor or RAM which has to share RAM with the video chipset and the regular CPU. More RAM, therefore, makes it a better media server.

However, I think it's mostly so you can run more programs and have more tabs open, basically making it into a cheaper desktop replacement. More RAM always improves performance. Windows 10 says you can get by with 2 GB but we all know you really can't. 4 GB is better but when you jump to 8 GB you really see an increase in performance that makes the extra price worth it. If you plan on using it for a few years, the extra RAM will likely be worth it. The price isn't much more I gather.

[Jason]

I spent way too much time looking that up but that's my fault. I hope the info helps.

[Jason]

"4gb model is about $20 cheaper."

Personally, I see 4 gb ram for $20 as a bargain. And it's always better to have better equipment than you need because we don't know what we'll want in 3 years. Or what the Internet will be like.

Listen to Buster, he says what I meant to but in much fewer words. And he's smarter than he looks.

[fox]

.... And he's smarter than he looks.

I sure hope so! 

I agree that $20 here or there doesn't make any difference, but right now I have an rPi3B with 1gb RAM. I was trying to decide between 2 and 4gb when they came out with the 8gb model. I don't do any heavy duty work. My 2015 iMac has 16gb RAM; it's using only 3. So to me, 8gb is overkill unless it is needed to watch YouTube videos or movies when those I watch are not in 4K. Is that the case?

Future-proofing is a good point, but by the time I needed 8gb, there would probably be a higher-specked rPi out that I would want to buy. At any rate, this is all speculation at the moment because I'm not about to pull the trigger on a new rPi. (Now if we were going on a Geek Trip ....)

Topic for tonight's PLUG MUG?

[buster]

"I sure hope so!   "

The world is cruel to their elders!

There are hundreds of ways to cut back to save $20. In my opinion, this is not the right way. I will give you $20 if that helps you change your mind.

[fox]

I appreciate the offer, Buster; gave me a good chuckle!

[Jason]

So to me, 8gb is overkill unless it is needed to watch YouTube videos or movies when those I watch are not in 4K. Is that the case?

As long as you watch them at 30 Hz, it shouldn't be. But do you want to use it as a media server and stream 4K movies? Then if you want to watch them at 60 Hz (30 Hz doesn't look as good), you'll need 8 GB possibly. But not sure if that's the processor limitation or RAM. The foundation claims 4K at 30 Hz with the 4 GB model but the testing doesn't appear so. And TechRepublic is a good source. You'll definitely need more than 1 GB for streaming unless it's just 720 videos. So if you're going to get a new one then the $20 for 8 GB is probably worth it. Other sites say that the Pi 4 performs almost as well as a typical desktop PC with the 4 GB of RAM so it's worth the move up to the Pi 4 just for that. And more RAM means you can run more programs as the same time or more tabs in your browser. You might also want to use a more advanced DE than the one in Raspian.

[Jason]

Oh, I just read that the Pi 4 is capable of running a 64-bit OS and applications. A 64-bit desktop effectively needs twice the RAM if most of the applications on it are 64-bit. In any case, you could wait to see some performance reviews before you consider this version. But really $20 isn't much. You've probably saved that much already in coffees because we haven't had MUGs.

[ssfc72]

The Link to the 8 GB, RPi 4 shows the price is for the RPi 4 only.  You would need to buy the power supply, case, heat sinks, etc, as accessories.

At first, I thought, wow, that's expensive. Then I realized it's for a kit. I like that it has a USB-C port. I hate doing the flip over and over trying to get the right side up.

[Jason]

The Link to the 8 GB, RPi 4 shows the price is for the RPi 4 only.  You would need to buy the power supply, case, heat sinks, etc, as accessories.

The first link that Mike gave looks like that. When you put in check marks in the boxes, the prices goes up. But at the second link, it's all contained and the basic kit lists everything the first link does but at the price without any of the boxes being checked. One of those kits has the wrong price quoted.

[fox]

A new video, testing the RPi 4 8gb model, just came out (here). The point of the video was to show how much you would have to run simultaneously to exceed 4gb RAM and approach 8gb. It is substantial. This in no way negates the advice of buying the 8gb model for future-proofing, but it is clear that you run into CPU limitations well before you run into RAM limitations. It's a well-done video and worth watching if you're seriously interested in an RPi 4 and trying to decide which model to buy. Incidentally, the tests are done with the 64 bit beta Raspberry Pi OS (as opposed to the current stable Raspbian).

[ssfc72]

The Raspberry Pi 4 B with 8 G ram is now showing out of stock, on the buyapi.ca web site. :-(

[fox]

Were you ready to buy it?