Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+: A closer look at the newest board

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is the new flagship Raspberry Pi, boosting both raw performance and better Wi-Fi speeds.

The new board shares many of the same specs as its predecessor, but brings the processor speed up to 1.4GHz -- a 16.7% increase.

Beyond the processor, the connectivity also gets a welcome boost, with support added for dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi -- effectively almost tripling the Wi-Fi throughput of the base Pi 3.

The increase in specs won't change the price of the board, however, with the overall cost remaining $35, the same as the lower-specced Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.

It's not only the Wi-Fi that gets an overhaul, the board also sports Gigabit Ethernet over a USB 2.0 bridge, bumping up the maximum throughput to about 300Mbps, and adding Bluetooth 4.2/BLE.

The biggest visible feature that distinguishes the Pi 3 B+ is the new heatspreader on the CPU and the Raspberry-branded can over the Wi-Fi antenna.

As the name suggests, the Pi 3 B+ shares many features with the original Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, launched back in February 2016.

The B+'s four USB 2.0 ports can be seen on the right of the board, just above the upgraded Ethernet port.

In the middle is the Broadcom-branded heatspreader, which covers the quad-core, 64-bit Arm Cortex A53 system-on-a-chip, and in the top left of the board, covered by the Raspberry-branded can is the new dual-band Wi-Fi antenna.

Towards the top edge of the board is the 40-pin header, which allows the Pi 3 B+ to interact with other electronic hardware.

Like the Pi 3 Model B before it, the B+ sports a micro-USB socket for power, seen on the left, a full-sized HDMI port in the center, and the stereo audio and composite video output on the right.

The new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is part of a family of Pi boards, such as the tiny $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W seen here on the right.

Underneath the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, at the edge of the board, you can see the Micro-SD card reader.

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is available from today, to find where to buy the board, visit this page on the Raspberry Pi Foundation website and you'll be directed to the right stores.