The new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is the fastest Raspberry Pi available, both in terms of raw performance and Wi-Fi speeds.
The new board is a souped up version of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, sharing many of the same specs but overclocking the processor to 1.4GHz — a 16.7% increase.
On top of the boost to the processor, the new board also adds faster connectivity, adding support for dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi — effectively almost tripling the Wi-Fi throughput of the base Pi 3 — and increases the speed of the board’s Ethernet.
SEE: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: An insider’s guide (free PDF)
Despite the upgrade, the new board will sell for $35, the same price as the lower-specced Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
On top of the Wi-Fi upgrade, the wired connectivity also has a speed bump, courtesy of the board’s new Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 bridge, which ups the maximum throughput to about 300Mbps.
SEE: The best alternatives to the Raspberry Pi (free PDF)
As you can see here, the Pi 3 B+ on the left has an almost identical layout to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, but with a few subtle differences, such as the new heatspreader on the CPU and the Raspberry-branded can over the Wi-Fi antenna.
SEE: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: An insider’s guide (free PDF)
The original Pi 3, launched back in February 2016, and will remain on sale alongside the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.
Aside from the upgrades, the Pi 3 B+ has the many of the same specs as the Pi 3.
On the righthand side of the board is the Ethernet and four USB 2.0 ports, in the center with the Broadcom branding is the heatspreader, which covers the quad-core, 64-bit Arm Cortex A53 system-on-a-chip, clocked at 1.4GHz. Sitting just above to the left is the Raspberry-branded can covering the new dual-band Wi-Fi antenna.
At the top of the board is the 40-pin header, which can be used to allow the Pi 3 B+ to interact with other electronic hardware.
SEE: The best alternatives to the Raspberry Pi (free PDF)
Here you can see the underside of the board, with the Micro-SD card reader at the rear.
SEE: The best alternatives to the Raspberry Pi (free PDF)
A stamp on top of the board shows this Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was made last year.
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is available from today and will remain in production until at least January 2023.
Nick Heath is a computer science student and was formerly a journalist at TechRepublic and ZDNet.
