Benchmarking the Pi 500+ — Virtualization Review

In-Depth

Benchmarking the Pi 500+

In a previous article, I looked at the Raspberry Pi 500+, a keyboard-integrated computer based on the Pi 5. I found it to be an improvement over the $100 Raspberry Pi 500. It achieves this by equipping the 500+ with 16GB of RAM, a built-in 256GB NVMe SSD, and a mechanical RGB keyboard, albeit at a higher price point ($200).

The 500+ is built around a powerful BCM2712 processor, the same one found in the Raspberry Pi 500 and Pi 5. You can see my previous article for a comparison of its specifications with these systems. The 500+ felt as snappy as a low-end laptop, offering faster boot times and smoother 4K streaming than the 500. I wanted to see whether this system would not only be a great desktop but also be powerful enough to allow me to experiment with AI and run virtual machines.

In this article, I compare the performance of the Pi 500+, Pi 5, Pi 500, and Pi 400.

Comparing the Generations
Before diving into the benchmark results, I compare the systems discussed in this article.

Pi 400 vs. Pi 500+ The jump from the Pi 400 to the Pi 500+ is generational. The Pi 400’s quad-core CPU constrains it; the Pi 500+ CPU has enough power to make it feel like a mainstream low-cost PC. Boot times, multitasking performance, and browser…