Raspberry Pi 512MB review
It's a second-gen Raspberry Pi with 512MB of memory.
Price: $41.80 | From: au.element14.com | Rating: 9 out of 10. Editor's Choice!
The original Pi had two main issues: its relatively low 700MHz clock speed and its smallish 256MB cache of RAM. Since its release, factory-backed overclocking to 1GHz has become a reality and the RAM issue has now been addressed with this new second-gen Raspberry Pi with 512MB of memory.
This UK-manufactured board also includes a couple of welcome mounting holes for easier installation. We tested this out with our 3D printed case and it slotted in perfectly. The 512MB RAM does make a difference, particularly booting into the LXDE desktop. By the time you go from the original stock 700MHz/256MB Raspberry Pi with the Debian Squeeze OS to an overclocked 1GHz/512MB version with floating point Debian Wheezy, you’re getting a bench tested performance boost of approximately 39% — not a bad effort.
However, booting from a command prompt to the desktop is improved by 178% on the first go and 60% thereafter. It’s still down by about 15% on the speed you can get out of an MK802 mini stick, and it lacks a GPU, but with H.264 video acceleration, it’s still impressive.