Didn't think the Raspberry Pi could get any better? You're in for a big surprise! The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is out and it's amazing! With an upgraded ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor, Dual Core VideoCore IV Multimedia coprocessor, and a full Gigabyte of RAM, this pocket computer has moved from being a 'toy' to a real desktop PC!

The first upgrade was a move from the BCM2835 (single core ARMv6) to BCM2836 (quad-core ARMv7). It's latest big upgrade is from the BCM2836 to BCM2837 (ARM Cortex-A53). The upgrade in processor types means you will see ~2x performance increase just on processor-upgrade only. For software that can take advantage of multiple-core processors, you can expect 4x performance on average and for really multi-thread-friendly code, up to 7.5x increase in speed!

That's not even taking into account the 1 Gig of RAM, which will greatly improve games and web-browser performance!

Best of all, the Pi 2 keeps the same shape, connectors and mounting holes as the Raspberry Pi B+. That means that all of your HATs and other plug-in daughterboards will work just fine. 99% of cases and accessories will be fully compatible with both versions

Please note: The processor has completely changed on the new RaspberryPi 2 v1.2, instead of an ARM v6 core chip (arm6l) or ARM v7, the BCM2836 has been upgraded to a BCM2837 (ARM Cortex-A53) core. However, your existing Raspberry Pi SD card images may not work because the firmware and kernel must be recompiled/adapted for the new processor. If you have a Raspberry Pi 2, and you are trying to upgrade your existing SD card, you will need to upgrade your installation. To do that, log into your Pi 1 and at a console or terminal type in sudo apt-get upgrade to perform the upgrade procedure. You'll need your Pi to be on the Internet to do this. Once upgraded, the card will work on both Pi 1 and Pi 2 computers. If you have any pre-compiled binaries that you are downloading, those may need updating too, in order to take advantage of the speed increase. Anything where you have access to source code can be recompiled and ought to work just fine.

Please check out our writeup for more details about the Pi 2, including performance tests/benchmarks!