Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 now official with up to 16 GB of RAM and other performance upgrades
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is having a busy end to the year. To recap, the company presented the Touch Display 2 at the start of November before quickly moving on to the Raspberry Pi SSD Kit and USB 3 Hub. Following that, it introduced the Pico 2 W, which debuted earlier this week.
However, evidence appeared in the intervening period that the Foundation had developed a successor to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (curr. $39 on Amazon). Not only is the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) now official, but the Foundation has also confirmed that the board will be available with 16 GB of LPDDR4X RAM too.
For reference, the Raspberry Pi CM5 starts with 2 GB of RAM while retaining its predecessor's 55 x 40 x 4.7 mm form factor with M2.5 mounting holes. The board can be configured with 4 GB or 8 GB of RAM as well though, which can all be configured with 0 GB (CM5 Lite), 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB of eMMC flash storage. Moreover, the Raspberry Pi CM5 can be configured with an optional Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 5 module.
On top of that, the Foundation has installed a Broadcom BCM2712 chipset, along with a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface, Gigabit Ethernet and a pair of HDMI 2.0 ports that support 4K/60 Hz video. Furthermore, the Raspberry Pi CM5 features USB 3.0 interfaces and 30 GPIO pins for connecting various peripherals; please see the Foundation's news post for more information in this regard.
In short, the Raspberry Pi CM5 starts at $45 in the US. Meanwhile, the new board is joined by accessories like an I/O board, an I/O case, an antenna kit and a cooling solution. Unfortunately, the Foundation will not offer a Raspberry Pi CM5 with 16 GB of RAM until sometime next year.
