What is the difference between Model B+ v1.2 and Model 2B v1.1

Question

I have read a few threads and a wiki page, but I am still getting confused.

Until now I have used RPi Model B+ v1.2 and since it has 40 GPIOs, 4x USB and stuff, I supposed it is the RPi 2. Today I have received RPi 2 Model B v1.1 for my new project. It also has 40 GPIOs, 4x USB, but has a different CPU (or whatever that is, it says Broadcom instead of Samsung) AND it has a smaller Raspberry drawn on it. They both claim to be copyrighted in 2014.

So... which is newer (supposedly better)? Main differences?

Answer 1

The B+ had a single core Broadcom BCM2835 Arm 6, with 512MB of RAM. the Raspberry Pi 2 (is newer) has a quad core BCM2836 Arm 7, with 1GB of RAM. As a result of the quad core CPU the Raspberry Pi 2 has a higher current draw.

Adafruit put together a nice comparison of the two, that includes a section detailing how to tell them apart.

Answer 2

The Pi2 has four cores, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b/

The B+ (like all the other Pis apart from the Pi2) has a single core, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-1-model-b/

Answer 3

If more is better the Pi2 clearly wins. Double size of RAM (1 GB vs. 512 MB) could make the difference for demanding applications.

The Pi2's quad-core CPU @ 900 MHz vs. single-core CPU @ 700 MHz, obviously provides more computational power. The blog @ RPi.org claims an performance increase up to 6x (expect that value highly dependent on the application).

All that comes at a certain price and that would be an increased power consumption (see here and here for some figures).