this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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The price didn't go down, he's factoring in current ram prices. $250 for an rpi 5 is wild.
Probably because $250 is wildy misleading. This is an all inclusive kit which includes case, heat sinks, fan, micro-hdmi cables, power supply and you have to go for the 16gb rpi 5 to reach $230. All the things I want to do with a Pi I would really only need 4gb of RAM max, which the kit is $140.
The 16gb rpi 5 on its own with no extras is $145 and the 4gb on its own with no extras is $70.
Sure that's still a lot more than the original goal of $35 computing but you can still get a basic kit for the rpi Zero 2 W for $40. They also still sell rpi 3, 3A+, 3B+, and 4 kits for reasonable prices. I don't necessarily need the full power of an rpi 5 either.
EDIT: Dug up some historical info. Raspberry Pi 4 released in 2019 and was $75 for the 8gb model board on it's own. Right now just a board for a Pi 4 model B 8gb is $85. The 16gb Raspberry Pi 5 originally released at $120 and is now $145. I think people are really overblowing these price increases.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/01/raspberry_pi_5_1gb/
Considering the massive leap in RAM prices, these don't seem like obscene increases to me. People are getting their fucking panties in a twist because they want the model with more RAM and seem to have forgotten that the Pi 3 maxed out at 4gb of RAM and the Pi 4 maxed out at 8gb of RAM. The Pi 5 is the first model to sport 16gb and it was $120 on release and has risen $25 due to RAM price increases, which is far less than consumer price for RAM has spiked. If anything the RPi company is doing a damn fine job of keeping prices down despite the RAM shortage. Considering that an 8gb stick of DDR4 is $60 and a 16gb stick of DDR4 is $125 yet you're pissing your pants over a $10 increase in 8gb models and a $25 increase in the 16gb models which is fucking stupid.
Anyway, fucking cry more, god damned babies. It's not like the Raspberry Pi company is the group at fault for the fucking high prices of RAM, get over it!
The price of a mini pc includes the price of the case, power supply, heat sinks, fans and such. The hdmi is the only thing suspect but if the case doesn't expose the hdmi port that will be in the minipc as well. when you compare just the board of a pi to a full pc that is unfair.
I didn't compare the board to the full price of a mini PC, I was giving the information for context.
Further the raw power of a Pi 5 with 16gb of RAM is genuinely equivalent to a lot of thin client desktops with a lot more extensibility. I think you're getting what you pay for, honestly.
I'm not going to say they shouldn't be a little cheaper, but the Pi 5 is kind of a powerhouse compared to older Pis and you have to push for the 16gb of RAM version to make it actually expensive.
Once again the 4gb kit is $140 and with a lightweight Linux distro that's honestly more than enough for basic desktop life of web browsing and email.
4 GB is not enough for web browsing