The Raspberry Pi 4 now has an 8GB variant and a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS

Last year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Raspberry Pi 4, offering memory capacities which ranged from 1GB to 4GB, and a lot has changed since then. 

For starters, the Raspberry Pi 4’s 2GB version now costs $35, representing a major price decrease from its original $45 price tag, replacing the unit’s 1GB model as the baseline Raspberry Pi 4. In addition to that, firmware fixes and other software changes have lowered the unit’s idle and load power consumption, allowing the unit to maintain its peak clock speeds for longer, delivering enhanced performance levels in high-end applications. 

Now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is proud to announce the Raspberry pi 4’s new 8GB variant, a new model which deliver 2x as much RAM as their previous high-end variant. This new model also features a revised board design which can handle the additional current requirements of high capacity LPDDR4 DRAM. This new unit is available starting today for $75.

This new model is only possible thanks to Micron’s release of 8GB LPDDR4 packages which meet the requirements of the Raspberry Pi 4. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has also noted that a 16GB versions possible with the right DRAM chips, thanks to the Raspberry Pi’s BCM2711 chip supporting up to 16GB of addressable LPDDR4 SDRAM. 

Heavy Raspberry Pi users will be delighted to see this new Raspberry Pi 4 variant hit the market, especially those who use Raspberry Pi units to run server workloads. Users of Raspberry Pi units as desktop PCs will also be glad to know that they can now run more browser tabs at once and work on larger files. 

Rasbian becomes Raspberry Pi OS – A 64-bit version is coming!

With an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 hitting the market, interest in a 64-bit version of Rasbian, the Raspberry Pi’s official OS, will skyrocket. By default, the standard 32-bit version of this OS allows single processes to utilise up to 3GB of memory, a factor which could limit some users of 8GB Raspberry Pi units.

To address this shortcoming, a 64-bit version of Rasbian is required, and with that will come several changes to the OS. For starters, the Raspberry Pi Foundation will change the OS’ name from Rasbian to Raspberry Pi OS, something which will ensure that end-users know that the Raspberry Pi OS is the official operating system of the Raspberry Pi. 

Right now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation recommends that all Raspberry Pi users use the 32-bit version of their Raspberry Pi OS or utilise 64-bit OS’ such as Ubuntu and Gentoo. A 64-bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS is in beta, and currently has several notable shortcomings. 

Images of the Raspberry Pi OS are available to download here. This page will be updated with 64-bit downloads when that version of the OS exits beta.