I haven’t come across an RP2040 I couldn’t overclock to 250+ MHz. Couple that with DMA into the PIO state machines and it smashes through stuff like the weird WS281X timings, HUB75 matrix scanning and even DVI and usually has a whole spare CPU core to actually do something with whatever device you’re driving.

It feels like it sits nicely between regular MCUs and the quirky every-peripheral-is-emulated-in-a-core awesomeness of the Parallax Propeller and - though I’m probably biased by experience and necessity - I love it.