As I understand it, the 5A@5.1V is only really needed if you are going to have high power USB devices (or possibly a higher power HAT) attached. I don't know 100% for the Pi5, but I think GPIO is either the same or roughly the same as the Pi4 as far as electrical power goes. Pi4 GPIO is maximum 16mA@3.3V per pin, and there's a fairly low combined total (50mA across all GPIO pins combined, if memory serves). GPIO is intended for logic levels, not power, but can deliver a tiny little bit of power for careful use.
Typical power requirements in the official hardware docs says the bare Pi5 only needs 800mA. You'd probably just about be ok with a 1A@5.1V supply for just the board and GPIO, although I don't know that anyone would recommend such a low power supply when you can easily get a 2.1A or 3A basic USB supply quite cheaply. For example, I have a pair of Pi4s with no USB usage happily running off the 2.1A USB supply built into an IKEA power strip, despite the 3A recommendation for the Pi4.
You should be fine with a 3A supply for basic no-USB use of the Pi5. On the other hand, the official power supply isn't particularly expensive and it's difficult to have too many USB-C power supplies. The official Pi4 USB-C 15W power supply would also work fine for basic no-USB use.
Typical power requirements in the official hardware docs says the bare Pi5 only needs 800mA. You'd probably just about be ok with a 1A@5.1V supply for just the board and GPIO, although I don't know that anyone would recommend such a low power supply when you can easily get a 2.1A or 3A basic USB supply quite cheaply. For example, I have a pair of Pi4s with no USB usage happily running off the 2.1A USB supply built into an IKEA power strip, despite the 3A recommendation for the Pi4.
You should be fine with a 3A supply for basic no-USB use of the Pi5. On the other hand, the official power supply isn't particularly expensive and it's difficult to have too many USB-C power supplies. The official Pi4 USB-C 15W power supply would also work fine for basic no-USB use.
Statistics: Posted by Murph9000 — Mon Sep 02, 2024 8:22 pm