Replacing RPi 2B -> 3B+ : Worth it?

iTolga

Hi guys,

I‘m running my bartop on a RPi 2B and thinking of replacing it with a RPi 3B+. Is it worth to do that?

The advantages I found:

Integrated WiFi - Would replace the WiFi USB dongle on my RPi2B
1400 MHz instead 800 MHz (performance boost)
More power consumption (My actual RPi 2B sometimes shows the lightning bolt with my used 2.5A power supply). Probably it would trigger it more often :(

What‘s your opinion? Should I go on with the hardware upgrade oder wait for a RPi 4?

Best regards,
Tolga

dankcushions

it depends if there are any games that you can't run at full speed now that you'd like to be able to.

BobHarris

What do you have hooked up to your Pi? I have a Pi 3 with often 4 usb slots in use (mouse, keyboard, controller, usb flash drive) and I've never seen the lightning bolt. Make sure you use a high quality adapter & micro usb cable, like the official Pi adapter.

KN4THX

@itolga It'll easily be 8-12 months before the Pi 4 gets released. The Pi 3B+ also has better Bluetooth performance and better heat dissipation allowing it to run at the 1.4ghz cooler than previously when overclocked on a Pi 3. For the price it is a good upgrade, but as others said, it is only worth it if you have performance issues with emulators or other applications.

Personally, for -$35 bucks, and the fact that I have to own every model, I always upgrade.

iTolga

@bobharris To be honest, just one keyboard and the joystick controller. I specially bought a PSU wit 5V / 3A output and the Pi constantly showed me the lightning bolt. I tried different cables and found one that almost fixed the lightning bolt, so it came up more less than with the other PSU. So I replaced the PSU with another one, which has 4x USB 5A / 2,4A instead and the lightning bolt came up more less. Maybe it's a cable issue and I really don't want to buy a fake thick USB cable which has thin wires inside.
Do you have a tip for me which brand I could take?

@dankcushions There are some games which don't run but it's an emulator issue I think. Metal Slug for example is slow when playing it.

@TheDataCereal Yes, you're right, mate. I have some performance issues with my 2B, for example when scrolling through the spinner (Attract Mode with RoboSpin theme). I also think I should try it with an upgrade.

If I take the 3B+, can I just plug and play the microSD card and go on with RetroPie? Or does it need some installation and/or config stuff because of the hardware change?

Thanks and best regards,
Tolga

BobHarris

@itolga No your current Jessie image won't work with the 3b+ (needs Stretch). It's recommended to start out with a fresh image. But some have succesfully converted their image from Jessie to Stretch.
(Or buy a 3B instead..that one will accept your image just fine and the upgrade will fix the performance issues you're having now. The + is only marginally better..you have to play for example N64 games to notice a small difference.)

My recommendation would be to get the official Pi 2.5 A adapter.

By the way, some Metal slug games have slowdown by default. Some people like it that way (authenticity and all)...I don't, so in the ingame Retroarch menu I overclocked the emulated cpu to 150% and the slowdown is gone. (Especially the Shocktroopers games benefit from that.)

iTolga

@bobharris My image is "Stretch" already and I ordered this PSU now: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01E75SB2C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The user reviews of this product are great. I'm excited :)
Thanks for the overclocking tip. I'll try that.