(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton/PCMag)
Prices for Raspberry Pi boards are going up once again, the third hike in four months, following surges in December and February.
Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton cites rising LPDDR4 DRAM costs for the hikes. Prices of the memory sticks have gone up seven times over the last year, and the company “can’t avoid passing on a portion of these increased costs” to customers, Upton said in a blog post.
The price hikes vary from $11.25 to $150. The 16GB Pi 5 model gets a $100 hike, taking its retail price to $305. It was initially available for just $120, but a $25 hike in December took the cost up to $145. After a February increase, it landed at $205.
The hikes aren’t as aggressive for lower-RAM variants of the Pi 4 and Pi 5. The 4GB models have gone up by $25, and the 8GB models have increased by $50. The flagship Pi 500+ unit has been hit the hardest with a $150 hike.
(Credit: Raspberry Pi)Some older models, including the Raspberry Pi 1, 3, 3B+, and 3A+, aren’t affected by the latest round of hikes. “These products use older LPDDR2 DRAM, of which we currently hold substantial inventory,” Upton said.
Alongside the hikes, Raspberry Pi introduced a new 3GB variant for the Pi 4 at $83.75. Since the announcement was made on April Fools' Day, Upton clarified that “our new computer is as real as the rest of our products.
The new prices are already reflected on retailer sites. We were able to verify the 16GB Pi 5’s $305 price tag on Central Computers and PiShop. Micro Center offers it for $299.99.
Memory prices have been surging due to rising demand for AI data centers. Upton, however, believes the situation won’t last for long. “Memory prices won’t remain at their current very high level indefinitely; the circumstances in which we find ourselves are challenging, but in the future they will abate,” he said, adding that his company will reverse the price increases when the situation improves.