Raspberryrry Pi 3 Model B+

A part greater than its sums

Introduced as a multi-purpose low-cost computer for teaching, the Raspberry Pi is now the brain of choice for projects from robots and home-entertainment boxes to art installations. This revision boosts the Pi 3 Model B (see our review, Issue 473) with faster networking: Wi-fi is now 802.11ac, supporting both 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ, and Ethernet goes up to 300Mbps.

The quad-core Broadcom processor gets a small heatsink, enabling a clock speed increase from 1.2 to 1.4GHZ. This is the only physical change that might affect compatibility with existing cases, accessories or projects, but any modification needed would be slight. A four-pin connector has been added for a Power over Ethernet (POE) ‘hat’, a secondary board that supplies current to peripherals such as security cameras.

In our tests, the processor showed the expected 15-per-cent boost. Note that the integrated graphics card isn't any faster. And while H.264 video decoding is hardware-accelerated (so Full HD content always works fine), if you use H.265 decoding (also known as HVEC) the processor is on its own, and files using 10bit colour won’t play smoothly.

Networking was a mixed bag. Over Ethernet, uploading files from our Model B+ to a network drive was nearly 90 per cent faster, hitting 21 megabytes per second (Mb/sec), but downloading to the Pi was only half as fast, a 20 per cent gain. It was a similar story with Wi-fi, although uploads were nearly 110 per cent faster. The Pi’s microsd storage could be the bottleneck, but the option of an external Wi-fi aerial might have helped. Maybe next time.