Microcontrollers are becoming increasingly popular with their application in various prototyping IoT solutions. Raspberry Pi 4 is one such device recently released with some significant upgrades over its previous iteration.
Nvidia Jetson Nano also provides a board that has similar features. In comparison, Nano has a better, dedicated GPU. But is there any other significant difference between the two? In this article, we compare Nvidia Jetson Nano and Raspberry Pi 4 in detail.
Raspberry Pi 4
The Raspberry Pi is a famous computer and IoT development board. It is powerful and efficient at the same time, making it one of the best tools in the market for prototyping and building IoT devices.
There are some significant upgrades to Raspberry Pi 4 as compared to Raspberry Pi 3.
- Raspberry Pi 4 sports a faster Quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5 GHz processor.
- It has various variants having 1 GB, 2 GB, or 4 GB RAM options with LPDDR4-2400 SDRAM.
- The Pi 4 has two micro HDMI ports as compared to one in Raspberry Pi 3.
- Instead of just 4x USB 2 ports as in Raspberry Pi 3, the new-gen device features 2x USB 3 ports and 2x USB 2 ports.
- Raspberry Pi board’s power connector has been changed from micro-USB to a USB-C connector in Raspberry Pi 4.
Also read: How to update your Raspberry Pi to the latest Raspbian OS
Nvidia Jetson Nano
Nvidia is well known for a few different IoT boards. The Nvidia Jetson Nano is their latest board, which is available as a developer kit. It contains all the things required to use it for prototyping IoT devices.
- Quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 MPCore processor CPU.
- Nvidia Maxwell w/ 128 Nvidia CUDA cores GPU.
- 4 GB 64-bit LPDDR4 Memory.
- HDMI and DisplayPort output.
- Four USB 3 ports for connectivity.
Also read: NodeMCU vs Arduino vs Raspberry Pi
Which one should you buy?
These are all the major comparisons between the two as it is evident from the table that both of them are nearly similar in the features.
The most significant difference is that the Jetson Nano sports a better and more capable GPU than the Raspberry Pi 4. But the Jetson Nano also commands a higher price. You can buy a Raspberry Pi 4 starting at INR 3200/US$35, whereas the Jetson Nano is sold for around INR 9000/US$99 — the price you have to pay for a more robust GPU and also the brand name.
Both Raspberry Pi 4 and the Nvidia Jetson Nano use the ARM CPU (processor). However, Pi 4 uses a newer version of the CPU — ARM Cortex-A72 — while Nvidia Jetson Nano uses a slightly older version — ARM Cortex-A57. There is a slight difference between the two; Cortex-A72 has a slightly higher clock speed and 20% less power.
So, is it worth giving that extra amount of money for a more powerful GPU? What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
| Categories | Raspberry Pi 4 | Nvidia Jetson Nano |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 64-bit @ 1.5 Ghz | Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A57 64-bit @ 1.42 Ghz |
| GPU | Broadcom VideoCore VI (32-bit) | NVIDIA Maxwell w/ 128 CUDA cores @ 921 Mhz |
| Memory | 4 GB LPDDR4 | 4 GB LPDDR4 |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet / Wifi 802.11ac | Gigabit Ethernet / M.2 Key E (for Wifi support) |
| Display | 2x micro-HDMI (up to 4Kp60) | HDMI 2.0 and eDP 1.4 |
| USB | 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 | 4x USB 3.0, USB 2.0 Micro-B |
| Camera | MIPI CSI port | MIPI CSI port |
| Storage | MicroSD | MicroSD |
Also read: How to install Android on a Raspberry Pi
