**Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus and Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus Comparison: Benchmarks and Performance Analysis**
As the latest iteration in the Raspberry Pi series, the Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus has been generating a lot of buzz among enthusiasts and developers. One question that was on everyone's mind when it was announced was whether it would be an upgrade over its predecessor, the Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus. In this article, we will delve into the world of benchmarks and performance analysis to see how the two boards stack up against each other.
**Benchmarking the Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus**
To begin our benchmarking tests, I decided to start with a simple Wi-Fi speed download test. I set up my home network using 5 GHz Wi-Fi and downloaded a large file from a online repository. The results were impressive, with both boards achieving speeds of around 200 Mbps upload and download. It's worth noting that the three A Plus was scoring lower in its first two runs but managed to catch up on its third attempt. I ran this test multiple times to ensure consistency and reliability.
Next up was a CPU benchmarking test using the assists bench, sisbench, multi-thread with 4,000 yields, and five locks. The results showed that both boards were running at nearly identical speeds, with the Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus slightly edging out its competitor in one of the tests. However, when I ran a longer test to see if either board would thermal throttle, the results remained unchanged.
Another benchmarking tool I used was the multi-threaded max prime up to 20,000. This test is particularly useful for evaluating the performance of a board's CPU and memory. Again, both boards showed impressive performance, with the Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus only slightly lagging behind its predecessor in this test.
**SD Card Speed Test**
One area where the Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus might have an edge over its competitor is in SD card speed. The three A Plus uses a different chip to access the SD card slot, which could potentially lead to faster speeds. To test this hypothesis, I popped out the SD card from one of the boards and inserted it into the other, using the same operating system and power supply. Surprisingly, the results were remarkably similar, with both boards achieving speeds around 50 Mbps.
**OpenGL Performance**
Next up was a test of OpenGL performance, specifically texture mapping. I ran two demos on each board to see how they performed in this regard. The results showed that while there was some variation in the FPS (frames per second) readings between runs, the overall trend was consistent: both boards were running at nearly identical speeds.
I also experimented with the experimental OpenGL driver for each board, using a little gears demo from GX lab. As expected, the results were very similar to those of the previous test, with no discernible difference in performance between the two boards.
**Conclusion and Recommendations**
After running an extensive range of tests, it's clear that both the Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus and Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus are extremely capable boards with impressive performance. While there may be some minor variations in certain benchmarks, the results were overall very consistent.
If you're looking for a headless setup or a board to run a Linux desktop like Raspbian, I would highly recommend the Raspberry Pi 3 B Plus. You'll get more RAM and the ability to open up multiple tabs in Chrome without worrying about running out of memory. Additionally, if you're planning on using your board for retro gaming, the three A Plus is still an excellent choice.
However, if you're looking for a smaller form factor or want to save some money, the Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus is definitely worth considering. It's perfect for tiny projects like wireless signage, robotics, and handheld retro gaming devices. As always, it comes down to what project you want to run on one of these boards and how much you're willing to spend.
**Amazon Links**
For those interested in purchasing either board, I've included Amazon links in the description below. Be sure to check out the comments section if there's anything specific you'd like to see running on the new Raspberry Pi 3 A Plus. Thanks for watching!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's going on guys the CTA Prime back here again today I wanted to test out the performance of the all-new Raspberry Pi 3 8 plus versus the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ so I went ahead and ran some benchmarks on each of these boards I am using raspbian I have not overclocked whatsoever there is no extra cooling on these boards these are completely stock straight out of the box so if you're not familiar with the new Pi 3 a plus it's pretty much a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ just slim down and shortened a little bit as you can see we only have a single USB 2.0 port here no Ethernet and another sacrifice they made was only adding 512 megabytes of RAM instead of one gigabyte the CPU is exactly the same we still have the Broadcom BCM 28 37 b0 it's a cortex a53 64-bit quad-core at 1.4 gigahertz they left us with that 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi and bluetooth 4.0 I actually like using this little thing it's a lot smaller than the original Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and it's gonna be great for slimmer projects but I've had a lot of people ask me have they sacrificed performance in any way well technically off the bat we only have 512 megabytes of RAM so that will hinder some applications running or multiple applications at the same time but overall CPU performance should remain the same it actually took me a long time to get all these tests compile I have made some charts up now I'm running the exact same SD card in each of these with the same operating system I just swapped it out after I was done between each CPU test I gave it a two minute cooldown period the PI's in the same exact place and I'm using the same exact 2.5 amp 5 volt power supply I ran each one of these tests three times each and I just took the highest out of those benchmarks and placed it into the chart first up I ran a simple Wi-Fi speed download test now I'm on my home network using 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi on each of these PI's my home network max speed is 400 megabits down there will be a little margin of error here but they're pretty much exactly the same speed upload speed pretty much the same thing like I mentioned I ran each one of these tests three times and the three B+ actually was scoring a lot lower until that third time around where I had 23 so these are basically right there with each other moving on to some cpu benchmarks this assists bench calculating 5000 prime numbers sis bench again multi-thread with 4,000 yields and five locks multi-threaded max prime up to 20,000 I wanted to run a little longer one just to see if one of them thermal throttle a little earlier and it looks like they're exactly the same speed here so CPU performance will be the same on the Raspberry Pi 3 B plus and the Raspberry Pi 3 a plus ram speed was something I was a little worried about when I first picked up the 3a plus they are using a different chip because it's 512 megs they're really close but every time I ran this test and I actually ran it five times just to be sure the pi3 B+ did come ahead by just a little bit each time I figured I'd go ahead and test the SD card speed now all I did was take the SD card out of one of them and pop it in the other so it's the exact same one and it's actually only an HC class for 32 gigabyte P&Y cards so if you're using a faster card you will get better speeds than this while I was here I figured I'd look at OpenGL performance this is texture mapping now these are demos they're not really benchmarks but it'll give you an idea it's a little hard to compare because the FPS bounces around so much you might see the three B+ go a little higher but then you'll see the three A+ go higher than the B I also tested both boards with the experimental OpenGL driver enable this is just a little gears demo from GX lab I knew right off the bat that both of these boards were gonna pretty much benchmark and perform exactly the same they have the same CPU the same video core GPU only difference is the amount of RAM here and form factor we lost a few ports on the A+ but it's great for small projects so that's pretty much it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I wanted to get this out of the way because there was a little confusion when the three A+ was announced and released people thought it might be an upgrade over the three B+ and as you can see in raw performance they are pretty much exactly the same so if you're getting a pie just to run a Linux desktop like raspbian I would definitely recommend the three B+ you'll be able to open up more tabs in Chrome you can have a video playing while you're doing some text editing without having to worry about the RAM if you're going for a headless setup that does not require Ethernet the three A+ is a great option this is gonna be really good for little tiny projects maybe even some handheld retro gaming stuff robotics some wireless signage there are literally thousands of things that you can do with this new Raspberry Pi 3 a plus that she could have done with the B+ but now we have a smaller form factor out of the box and it's a bit cheaper as for retropie i've done a lot of testing and I really haven't noticed a big difference between the two but then again I don't run a track mode I don't have a bunch of fancy themes installed and things like that so it works really well on the three A+ but in the end it really comes down to what project you want to run on one of these PI's and how much you want to spend if you're looking into getting either one of these raspberry PI's I'm gonna leave Amazon links in the description if there's anything you want to see running on the new 3a plus let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watchingwhat's going on guys the CTA Prime back here again today I wanted to test out the performance of the all-new Raspberry Pi 3 8 plus versus the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ so I went ahead and ran some benchmarks on each of these boards I am using raspbian I have not overclocked whatsoever there is no extra cooling on these boards these are completely stock straight out of the box so if you're not familiar with the new Pi 3 a plus it's pretty much a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ just slim down and shortened a little bit as you can see we only have a single USB 2.0 port here no Ethernet and another sacrifice they made was only adding 512 megabytes of RAM instead of one gigabyte the CPU is exactly the same we still have the Broadcom BCM 28 37 b0 it's a cortex a53 64-bit quad-core at 1.4 gigahertz they left us with that 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi and bluetooth 4.0 I actually like using this little thing it's a lot smaller than the original Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and it's gonna be great for slimmer projects but I've had a lot of people ask me have they sacrificed performance in any way well technically off the bat we only have 512 megabytes of RAM so that will hinder some applications running or multiple applications at the same time but overall CPU performance should remain the same it actually took me a long time to get all these tests compile I have made some charts up now I'm running the exact same SD card in each of these with the same operating system I just swapped it out after I was done between each CPU test I gave it a two minute cooldown period the PI's in the same exact place and I'm using the same exact 2.5 amp 5 volt power supply I ran each one of these tests three times each and I just took the highest out of those benchmarks and placed it into the chart first up I ran a simple Wi-Fi speed download test now I'm on my home network using 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi on each of these PI's my home network max speed is 400 megabits down there will be a little margin of error here but they're pretty much exactly the same speed upload speed pretty much the same thing like I mentioned I ran each one of these tests three times and the three B+ actually was scoring a lot lower until that third time around where I had 23 so these are basically right there with each other moving on to some cpu benchmarks this assists bench calculating 5000 prime numbers sis bench again multi-thread with 4,000 yields and five locks multi-threaded max prime up to 20,000 I wanted to run a little longer one just to see if one of them thermal throttle a little earlier and it looks like they're exactly the same speed here so CPU performance will be the same on the Raspberry Pi 3 B plus and the Raspberry Pi 3 a plus ram speed was something I was a little worried about when I first picked up the 3a plus they are using a different chip because it's 512 megs they're really close but every time I ran this test and I actually ran it five times just to be sure the pi3 B+ did come ahead by just a little bit each time I figured I'd go ahead and test the SD card speed now all I did was take the SD card out of one of them and pop it in the other so it's the exact same one and it's actually only an HC class for 32 gigabyte P&Y cards so if you're using a faster card you will get better speeds than this while I was here I figured I'd look at OpenGL performance this is texture mapping now these are demos they're not really benchmarks but it'll give you an idea it's a little hard to compare because the FPS bounces around so much you might see the three B+ go a little higher but then you'll see the three A+ go higher than the B I also tested both boards with the experimental OpenGL driver enable this is just a little gears demo from GX lab I knew right off the bat that both of these boards were gonna pretty much benchmark and perform exactly the same they have the same CPU the same video core GPU only difference is the amount of RAM here and form factor we lost a few ports on the A+ but it's great for small projects so that's pretty much it for this video guys I really appreciate you watching I wanted to get this out of the way because there was a little confusion when the three A+ was announced and released people thought it might be an upgrade over the three B+ and as you can see in raw performance they are pretty much exactly the same so if you're getting a pie just to run a Linux desktop like raspbian I would definitely recommend the three B+ you'll be able to open up more tabs in Chrome you can have a video playing while you're doing some text editing without having to worry about the RAM if you're going for a headless setup that does not require Ethernet the three A+ is a great option this is gonna be really good for little tiny projects maybe even some handheld retro gaming stuff robotics some wireless signage there are literally thousands of things that you can do with this new Raspberry Pi 3 a plus that she could have done with the B+ but now we have a smaller form factor out of the box and it's a bit cheaper as for retropie i've done a lot of testing and I really haven't noticed a big difference between the two but then again I don't run a track mode I don't have a bunch of fancy themes installed and things like that so it works really well on the three A+ but in the end it really comes down to what project you want to run on one of these PI's and how much you want to spend if you're looking into getting either one of these raspberry PI's I'm gonna leave Amazon links in the description if there's anything you want to see running on the new 3a plus let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"
