Raspberry Pi 2 - Model B

Everyone knows and loves Raspberry Pi, but what if it could be faster, say 6x faster than the original Pi? The Raspberry Pi 2 is here to provide you with the same Pi as before but now with double the ram and a much faster processor. The credit-card sized computer is capable of many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and playing high-definition video and games. It can run several flavors of Linux (and even Windows 10 free-of-charge) and is being used to teach kids all over the world how to program.

The secret sauce that makes this computer so small and powerful is the ARMv8-A (64/32-bit) Quad Core Processor. The GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode and is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24 GFLOPs of general purpose compute. What’s that all mean? It means that if you plug the Raspberry Pi 2 into your HDTV, you could watch BluRay quality video, using H.264 at 40MBits/s.

The biggest change that has been enacted with the Raspberry Pi 2 is an upgrade to the main processor and an increase of ram from 512MB to 1GB. The RPi2 still utilizes a microSD card to hold your system volume meaning most Linux distributions for the Pi 2 will happily live on a 4GB microSD card but larger cards are supported.

The Raspberry Pi 2’s four built-in USB ports provide enough connectivity for a mouse, keyboard, or anything else that you feel the RPi needs, but if you want to add even more you can still use a USB hub. Keep in mind, it is recommended that you use a powered hub so as not to overtax the on-board voltage regulator. Powering the Raspberry Pi 2 is easy, just plug any USB power supply into the micro-USB port. There’s no power button so the Pi will begin to boot as soon as power is applied, to turn it off simply remove power. The four built-in USB ports can even output up to 1.2A enabling you to connect more power hungry USB devices (This does require a 2Amp micro USB Power Supply).

On top of all that, the low-level peripherals on the Pi make it great for hardware hacking. The 0.1" spaced 40-pin GPIO header on the Pi gives you access to 27 GPIO, UART, I2C, SPI as well as 3.3 and 5V sources. Each pin on the GPIO header is identical to its predecessor the Model B .

Note: Due to the processor change from an ARMv6 core chip to an ARMv8 core any existing Raspberry Pi SD card images may need to be recompiled due to a kernal and firmware change. It is better to create a new card or update your existing one rather than loosing valuable data.

Dimensions: 85mm x 56mm x 17mm

Features:

• ARMv8-A (64/32-bit) Broadcom BCM2837
• Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU
• 1 GB RAM
• 4 x USB2.0 Ports with up to 1.2A output
• Expanded 40-pin GPIO Header
• Video/Audio Out via 4-pole 3.5mm connector, HDMI, or Raw LCD (DSI)
• Storage: microSD
• 10/100 Ethernet (RJ45)
• Low-Level Peripherals:
  • 40 x GPIO
  • UART
  • I2C bus
  • SPI bus with two chip selects
  • 3.3V
  • 5V
  • Ground
• Power Requirements: 5V @ 600 mA via MicroUSB or GPIO Header
• Supports Windows 10, Debian GNU/Linux, Fedora, Arch Linux, RISC OS and More!

Documents:

• Datasheet
• Quickstart Guide
• Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2
• Creating a Boot Card
• Raspberry Pi Foundation
• WiFi Tutorial
• Pi Raspbian and DOOM Tutorial