In November 2025 I did some panic purchasing. I upgraded one desktop to 160 gigs of memory, another to 64 gigs. I Upgraded my laptop to 70 gigs of memory. And I purchased 52 terabytes of storage of various types. At the time, some friends thought I was being a bit ridiculous. In retrospect, I feel like I didn’t panic enough. A walk through Microcenter this weekend showed me that the prices for the items that I got have gone up significantly. Memory prices have affected a lot of things. Generally, we just see the price of an item go up. Or, if you look closely enough, you may find the capabilities of something diminished. On occasions, I see memory prices called out as the reason a price has changed.
The Raspberry Pi has been significantly affected by memory prices. At the moment I have idle units available, but I was looking at what my options are should I want to get another unit without breaking the bank. These are the options that I found.
Orange Pi Series
The Orange Pi series of boards are also affected by the increase in memory prices. But they tend to be more affordable than the Pi. You get more memory and computational capability for what you pay, including a built in NPU for AI applications. The tradeoff is that it isn’t 100% compatible with Pi applications (with camera applications being identified as a category that sees conflicts) and the support community is not as large as the community for the Raspberry Pi.
The Orange Pi 5 Plus also has an HDMI input for video capture and processing. This could be used for a different type of camera interface. The ORange Pi SBCs typically do not have integrated WiFi. But WiFi can be added with a either a USB accessor and in some cases a B-Key M.2. The Orange Pi boards do not have built in storage for a file system. You’ll need to use either an SD card or an M.2 drive.
| Model | Wireless | RAM | Price |
| Orange Pi 5 4-Gig | No | 4 Gig | 126 USD |
| Orange Pi 5 8-Gig | No | 8 Gig | 184 USD |
| Orange Pi 5 16-gig | No | 16 Gig | 335 USD |
| Orange Pi 6 Plus 16-Gig | No | 16 Gig | 366 USD |
Libre Sweet Potato
The Libre Sweet Potato (AML-S905X-CC-V2) is available for just 60 USD. For 10 USD more you can add PoW to the unity. These units have 2 gigs of ram have an SD card slot for storage. The supported operating systems include Fedora 42, Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and CoreELEC.
Banana Pi BPi M2 Zero
This unit is comparable to the Raspberry Pi Zero W. It is able to run Raspbian, Ubuntu, Debian, and Android. It only cost 22 USD. The reason that someone might want to consider this isn’t so much the price, but because of the demand for the Pi Zero outpacing the supply. Efforts are being made to address the shortage. Until then, this board might be a substitute. At the time of this writing, it cost 22 USD.
Tinker Board 3
The Tinker Board 3S uses the Rock Chip RK3566. The Tinker Board 3 has no inbuilt storage, while the 3S has a 16 gig emcc. Both versions also have an SD card slot. They are available with 2 gigs or 4 gigs of RAM.
| Model | Storage | RAM | Price |
| Tinker Board 3 | None | 2 | 90 USD |
| Tinker Board 3 | None | 4 | 104 USD |
| Tinker Board 3S | 16-Gig | 2 | 106 USD |
| Tinker Board 3S | 16-Gig | 4 | 120 USD |
Consider the Pi 3B
The Pi 3 models also run the 64-bit versions of the Pi OS. At the time of this writing, August 2026, The Pi 3B can run Pi OS Trixie (Released June 2026) available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. You can generally get a Pi 3B on Amazon for about 55 USD or less for a 1 gig unit.
Ebay
I’ve found sellers that have Pi units at prices that are well below what some other retailers are charging for them. The units I found ranged from new, still in box to lightly used units. Most of the units I found were Pi4 models. It makes sense that these are more plentiful since they were available on the market for a longer run of years than the Pi 5.
Are your Requirements as High as You are Aiming?
You may also want to consider whether what your requirements actually are. When prices were cheaper, it was easy to just get something that may have had more memory than needed. For 70-85 USD, which is a bit more than the Pi 3B, you can move up to a Pi 4B with 1 gigs of RAM. If you want to get 2 gigs of ram instead, they can be had for about 100 USD (Pi 4B with 2 Gig RAM).
The Pi CM4 units vary a lot more since you have the option to have wireless or not, to have in built storage or not, and varied amounts of RAM. Wi-Fi has low impact on the price.
| Model | Storage | Wireless | RAM | Price |
| CM4001000 | None | No | 1 Gig | 75 USD |
| CM4101000 | None | Yes | 1 Gig | 81 USD |
| CM4101008 | 8 Gig | Yes | 1 Gig | 110 USD |
| CM4102000 | None | Yes | 2 Gig | 104 USD |
| CM4104000 | None | Yes | 4 Gig | 150 USD |
| CM4108032 | 32 Gig | Yes | 32 Gig | 284 USD |
The Pi CM 5 prices have gone up significantly. I compared a purchase I made in March to prices today. They cost almost twice the amount that I paid. I would suggest leaving the CM5 alone unless you really need it.
| Model | Storage | Wifi | RAM | Price |
| CM5102000 | None | Yes | 2 Gig | 119 USD |
| CM5002016 | 16 Gig | No | 2 Gig | 142 USD |
| CM5104016 | 16 Gig | Yes | 4 Gig | 198 USD |
| CM5108016 | 16 Gig | Yes | 8 Gig | 288 USD |
| CM5116032 | 16 Gig | Yes | 32 Gig | 455 USD |
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