The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released the latest iteration in its line of budget single-board microcomputers, now featuring its fastest ever processor and built-in Wi-Fi.

The latest Raspberry Pi 3 is kitted out with a 1.2GHz Broadcom ARM processor, with the foundation claiming it is 50 per cent faster than its predecessor. The power consumption has also been lowered by 1 Watt.

The biggest news, however, is that the Raspberry Pi 3 now includes built-in Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi, eliminating the need to use a USB dongle or LAN connection.

Up until now, the foundation had said the inclusion of onboard Wi-Fi was "unlikely".

This was apparently due to the fact that "the SoC does not support native Wi-Fi, and adding an additional built in Wi-Fi chip would greatly increase the cost of the Raspberry Pi".

This problem has evidently been circumvented, as not only does the Pi 3 have Wi-Fi baked in, but it remains the same price as the previous Raspberry Pi 2, at just $35, or 27 in the UK.

"We are unveiling the third-generation Raspberry Pi four years to the day after the launch of the original Raspberry Pi board on February 29, 2012," said Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi.