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by joefarish 988 days ago
I think they answer your question in the PSU section “Raspberry Pi 5 consumes significantly less power, and runs significantly cooler, than Raspberry Pi 4 when running an identical workload.”
3 comments

That's not documentation of any reasonable level though.

An MPU designer expects to see something like "200mA draw from the 1.2V power-domain when running at 400 MHz" or "10mA draw from the 1.2V power-domain when in first level of sleep". (Maybe not this small since Rasp. Pi is a more powerful chip, but... you know... actual specifics).

Not on the linked page.

"Will my Raspberry Pi 4 power supply work with Raspberry Pi 5?

"Raspberry Pi 5 is a higher-performance computer than Raspberry Pi 4, and you may have problems using an under-powered supply. We recommend a high-quality 5W 5A USB-C power supply, such as the new Raspberry Pi 27W USB-C Power Supply."

The question asks about power requirements, but the answer is about performance?

The first time I read that I thought the 5 needs more power than the 4, not less.

> we recommend a 5w PSU like our new 27W PSU

Ermmm, what?

It's clearly a typo, and should be 5V.

But then you get 5V 5A ... 27W that is clearly incorrect too. So my guess is nobody is proofreading the technical specifications, and everybody that cares was kept away from that page.

5V * 5A = 25W, no PSU is 100% effective so 27W is reasonable requirement
You don't specify a PSU by its energy consumption. You specify it by output.

Also, that 92% efficiency, is believable, but a bit high for a 5V 5A PSU (this is a difficult combination). I would expect any such unity to be marketed as high-efficiency.

I expect it is 27W to support 9V 3V, not because of tolerances per se. (Source https://www.sparkfun.com/products/23583)
It’s a typo: They mean 5A I think.
I think the question is actually: "can I safely (like it's not going to melt or catch fire) use the RPI5 under any load without active cooling) ?".
Sure, you can.

If you frequently work it really hard, it'll have larger temperature swings and may fail earlier, but it'll still probably last quite awhile. The failure is not likely to be catching on fire.