Raspberry Pi details speed boost for Raspberry Pi Pico boards via new update

Raspberry Pi has quietly rolled out a major speed boost to its RP2040 microcontroller, which powers single-board computers (SBCs) like the Pico W (curr. $15.99 on Amazon). Now surpassed by the RP2350 in Raspberry Pi's product line, the RP2040 debuted in early 2021 with Cortex-M0+ cores at a comparatively low price point. Officially, these cores ran at up to 133 MHz, or 125 MHz at 1.10 V.

Now though, v2.1.1 of the Pico SDK introduces a 200 MHz option, which represents a 50% overclock over stock speeds. It is worth noting that this improvement is not without its trade-offs. For example, Raspberry Pi warns that there could be some backwards compatibility issues with certain programs. The new 200 MHz mode also draws more voltage, with at least 1.15 V mentioned in v2.1.1 release notes.

As a result, v2.1.1 does not enable this new CPU mode by default. However, activating it only requires setting SYS_CLK_MHZ=200 using preprocessor define. Raspberry Pi has hinted that an equivalent boost could eventually be in order for the RP2350, which is currently restricted to 150 MHz. Please see the Pico SDK GitHub page for more details.