Raspberry Pi Pico VS ESP32 S2 speed comparison benchmark using CircuitPython

The Raspberry Pico board features two 32-bit Arm Cortex M0+ cores operating at 133Mhz. It also offers 264KBs of RAM memory and 2MB of Flash memory and it costs at the time of this recording around $7.

The Lilygo ESP32 S2 Board on the other hand features a single-core 32-bit LX7 microcontroller operating at 240MHz. It also offers 320KBs of RAM memory and 4MBs of Flash memory. Its price today is around $8.

So, based on the specifications, we can conclude that the ESP32 S2 is faster than the Raspberry Pi Pico in single-core workloads. How much faster is the question? We can’t know without running a benchmark, because the boards employ processors with different architectures. Based on the operating frequencies of each board, we can estimate that the ESP32 S2 single core performance will be roughly 80% faster than the Raspberry Pi Pico’s single core performance. Is this correct?

I wanted to find out, so I created a simple but computationally intensive test that could run on both boards. Both boards will execute the same CircuitPython application, which will display a splash screen for two seconds before starting to calculate the Pi for 1500 iterations of a Pi approximation algorithm. Both boards will show the results on a 1.8″ Color TFT display. Which board will complete the task the fastest? Let’s find out. I am going to power up the board at the same time using this power bank.

As you can see, the ESP32 S2 board performed the computation in approximately 3.13 seconds, whereas the Raspberry Pi Pico required 6.48 seconds. The bootup time of the Raspberry Pi Pico is slightly shorter, but this time is not counted in the benchmark; only the Pi’s calculation is counted. In single core applications, the ESP32 S2 board outperforms the Raspberry Pico board. It is approximately 107 percent faster. Percentages can be deceiving about how quick something is, so let’s run the benchmark again, but this time I’ll remove the bootup timing difference for better comparisons. The ESP32 S2 is twice as fast as the Raspberry Pi Pico, and the difference is noticeable and important.

Let’s now measure the power consumption of each board while running the benchmark. The Raspberry Pi Pico and the display needs around 45mA of current while running the script, while the ESP32 S2 and the display needs around 77mA of current. The display needs around 20mAs so we have around 25mAs of current for the Raspberry Pi Pico and 57mAs of current for the ESP32 S2. So, the ESP32 S2 needs 128% more current to run the script but for 107% less time. In total, the Raspberry Pi Pico needed 10% less power to perform this task which in my opinion is not significant.

If you’re interested in the script, I’ll include a link to it in the video description so you may do your own testing. If you need more information on connecting this display to both boards, I’ll link to the thorough videos I made about it here.

To summarize, the ESP32 S2 outperforms the Raspberry Pi Pico in single core processing workloads. It costs roughly the same, is $1 more expensive, has more RAM, Flash memory, and, of course, WiFi, which the Raspberry Pi Pico lacks.

The Raspberry Pi Pico, on the other hand, has two processing cores, but I believe that in more than 90% of our projects, the use of a second core is unnecessary. The Raspberry Pi Pico has a significant edge in terms of popularity and excellent documentation, which makes development considerably easier.

So, which board should you use? Whatever board best matches your requirements. If you need computing power, the ESP32 S2 is the fastest board available for less than $10. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this comparison in the comments section below. Thank you for tuning in; I’ll see you next time.