Having posted about the problem of throttling of the Pi 4 under load I didn’t want to leave an impression it was a complete loss. So one last post.
I’ve am using every Pi since the 2B, including the Zero and Zero W, and when each iteration was introduced people would talk about it being a desktop computer alternative. That always seemed like wishful thinking to me as web browsing was very slow, video generally didn’t work and so on.
The Pi 4, in spite of throttling, can actually deliver what I would consider a meets-min desktop experience. I streamed 15 minutes of full-screen YouTube videos and it handled it just fine (27” monitor). Without the fan running the temperature did continually creep up but it didn’t reach the stage of throttling. With the fan running the temperature was both lower and stable. I also have a web service that pushes a large JSON file to the browser every second and the display updates in Chromium was smooth and responsive. Other aspects of the desktop experience were responsive as well.
I’ve used all my other Pis as headless Linux boxes. I could see using the Pi 4 with a UI/desktop interface and not wanting to poke my eyes out. That’s quite an accomplishment for a device starting at US$35.