Raspberry Pi 4 Computer Model B 8GB Single Board… vs CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO - Turbine… — Head-to-Head (2026)

Our verdict

CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO - Turbine… is our pick.

The CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO wins for anyone buying an SBC in 2026. Its 2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 posts a 2,226 PassMark CPU Mark and 2,153 Geekbench 6 multi-core score, and it runs llama3.2:3b at 12 tok/s, work the Pi 4's 1.5 GHz Cortex-A72 simply cannot do at usable speed. The Pi 4 8GB only makes sense if you already own the accessories and are replacing a dead board in a working 32-bit-era deployment.

Buy the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB if you need a drop-in replacement for an existing Pi 4 deployment and already own the USB-C PSU, micro-HDMI cables, case and SD card. It also fits only if your workload is a headless service that has never been CPU-bound, such as Pi-hole, Home Assistant, a Docker host, or a RetroPie box for pre-PS1 systems. Buy the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO for a new build, for local LLM inference (12–17 tok/s on 1B–3B models), for booting from NVMe over the PCIe 2.0 x1 connector, or for a desktop-usable Linux machine. The premium buys roughly 2× the CPU, an active cooler, a 128 GB card and a PSU you'd otherwise pay for separately.

SpecPicks editorial verdict, written June 4, 2026. Prices move, so check the current price on each listing before you buy.