Benchmarking The $25 Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ Performance

Before getting to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ benchmarks against a few other ARM SBCs, I did first run some thermal tests using no heatsink and then again after applying a basic passive aluminum heatsink.

The thermal performance of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ with the Broadcom BCM2837B0 is better than we have seen on some past Raspberry Pi boards. When running out-of-the-box without any heatsink, I didn't encounter any thermal throttling during that brief testing. When applying the basic Raspberry Pi heatsink, the operating temperature of the SoC dropped three to four degrees (Celsius).

In the end, using the heatsink led to an average core temperature under load of about 57 degrees compared to the stock configuration without a heatsink at 60 degrees. The peak temperatures were also lower by four degrees. For the performance benchmarks to be shown, all of the boards were cooled with passive heatsinks.