Raspberry Pi
When Raspberry Pi introduced a new 2GB version of the Raspberry Pi 5 board earlier this month, CEO Eben Upton said the board would feature a slightly updated version of the board's Broadcom BCM2712C1 SoC. By removing chip features that the Pi 5 didn't use, the chip's new D0 stepping would use less silicon, thus reducing its cost.
Raspberry Pi enthusiast and YouTuber Jeff Geerling has tested the 2GB Pi 5 firsthand. As Upton said, the new board is functionally identical to the older 4GB and 8GB boards, and offers the same performance (assuming the workload you're running doesn't benefit from additional RAM). The new silicon chip is also about 33 percent smaller than the old one, which Geerling verified by removing the SoC's heat spreader to expose the silicon underneath and measuring by hand.
Geerling also demonstrated that the 2GB Pi 5 offers some unexpected benefits that Upton didn't mention in his announcement – that the 2GB Pi 5 runs a bit cooler and uses a bit less power than the 4GB and 8GB versions. The 2GB Pi consumed just 2.4W when idle and 8.9W during a CPU stress test, compared to 3.3W and 9.8W for the 4GB version. The 2GB Pi's SoC measured 30°C when idle and 59°C under load, compared to 32°C and 63°C for the 2GB version. These are all small but significant differences considering that nothing has changed except the SoC.
The company has not yet revealed which exact features have been removed from the chip for the 2GB version of the Pi, but Geerling suspects that these are mostly functions that will be handled by the custom RP1 I/O chip – RP1 handles the Ethernet and USB controllers, display interfaces, and GPIO, among other things.
We also don't know if D0 stepping will ultimately be used on the 4GB and 8GB versions of the Pi 5 board. Raspberry Pi would likely benefit from standardizing on a single, cheaper chip rather than shipping different steppings on different boards – we've asked the company if it has any plans on this and will update if we get a response.