Rockchip RK3328 Quad Core 64-bit ARM SoC is Designed for 4K HDR Android 7.1 & Linux TV Boxes

Beside RV1108 visual platform for applications, Rockchip also unveiled another processor at CES 2017 with RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor for 4K TV Box with H.265, H.264 and VP9 codecs support, HDR, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet and more.

rk3328-tv-boxRockchip RK3328 STB SoC specifications:

  • Processor – Quad core Cortex A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz
  • GPU – ARM Mali-450MP2
  • Memory I/F – DDR3/DDR3L/DDR4 with “large memory” support (4GB?)
  • Video Output – HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.x/1.4 up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10/HLG support, CVBS output
  • Video Processor
    • 4K UHD H.264, 10-bit H.265 and VP9 video decoder
    • 1080p H.265/H.264 video encoder
  • Audio – Embedded audio DAC
  • Peripherals
    • embedded USB 3.0 interface
    • Dual Ethernet interface: RGMII (reduced gigabit media-independent interface) + Fast Ethernet PHY
    • 8 channel I2S interface supporting PDM/TDM
    • TS and smart card interface, with support for CSA 2.0
  • Security – TrustZone, Secure Video Path, Secure Boot, OTP

The new processor with support Android 7.1 and Linux, as well as OP-TEE secure OS and DRM support for Widewine L1 and Microsoft PlayReady. The TS interface will allow for tuner (DVB, ATSC…) support.

The processor is quite similar to Amlogic S905X. However the GPU is a bit weaker, which is not really that important for video applications, but not so good for games, and RK3328 also offer some extra interfaces with USB 3.0, dual Ethernet including one Gigabit Ethernet MAC, and tuner support.

The company did not provide any information about pricing or availability in their press release, and has yet to add RK3328 product page to their website.

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21 Replies to “Rockchip RK3328 Quad Core 64-bit ARM SoC is Designed for 4K HDR Android 7.1 & Linux TV Boxes”

  1. @CNX

    Have you noticed Remix OS are crowd funding for two boxes one using this chip the other a higher chip, Remix IO+.

  2. theguyuk :
    @CNX
    Have you noticed Remix OS are crowd funding for two boxes one using this chip the other a higher chip, Remix IO+.

    I am wrong ! It is the RK3368 and RK3399 Remix are using.

  3. Its ok to have a entry level product compared to the 3399…but why the hell still with mali 4XX. They could have at least picked something that is NOT from 2011/2012…like a mali 820 MP2 or MP4 or something along that way…

    And here I tought that only Amlogic is using that old crap…guess not.

  4. @Mr Maso
    I suspect most of these devices are seen as Film and TV delivery products still. Remix are trying to cross it with PC desktop. While Ouya, gamestick, Razor and Mad Catz M.O.J.O never really took off big.

    Xbox, Play Station dominate the top game console slots, so except for the under powered Amlogic s805 Emtec gembox the public are not yet sold on home entertainment come games system yet.

    Pity really a £89.99 Android 5.1 or up Mad Catz M.O.J.O with good media playing support could work.

  5. theguyuk :
    @Mr Maso
    I suspect most of these devices are seen as Film and TV delivery products still. Remix are trying to cross it with PC desktop. While Ouya, gamestick, Razor and Mad Catz M.O.J.O never really took off big.
    Xbox, Play Station dominate the top game console slots, so except for the under powered Amlogic s805 Emtec gembox the public are not yet sold on home entertainment come games system yet.
    Pity really a £89.99 Android 5.1 or up Mad Catz M.O.J.O with good media playing support could work.

    Its not just gaming. Feature-Wise the old Mali’s suck compared to new products. Even in the hardware decoding part. And don’t get me started on the lower power (and heatprint) consuption with the newer products.

    So I can’t really understand this step as a low end actual GPU costs about the same.

  6. @tkaiser
    The link does not work for me. 403 permission denied.
    But if it is a picture of ROCK64 alongside Raspberry Pi 3, then I’ve already seen it.
    The board will be released this month, so we just have to be patient.

  7. @cnxsoft
    It was another one but you’re right: let’s be patient since without released documentation for the product pictures are worthless anyway 🙂

  8. So this rockchip rk3328 is essentially an amlogic s905x but with a gimped version of the mali 450 (2 mali cores on the rk3328 instead of the 4 cores on the s905x) and with usb 3.0

    why the hell did they gimp the gpu? stupid move. could have really had a winner here if it had the same gpu AND usb 3.0

  9. @Dr.Evil
    RK3328 unlike S905x is also Gigabit Ethernet capable and BTW the fastest SoC for single disk NAS use cases we’ve currently around. And some people report you can use it as a mediaplayer too thanks to Rockchips’s video engine (maybe called VPU) 😉

    BTW: For what do you need the GPU exactly?

  10. I commented on this elsewhere:

    If you want a device to use as a *4K* media player, Amlogic S905 is a currently better choice than RK3328. In optimal use, both will display video on a hardware overlay with no involvement from Mali. The differentiation is that, today, S905 will use AFBC (ARM Frame Buffer Compression) natively in the H265 codec and display controller allowing 4K HDR @ 60fps. The RK33xx media codecs (mpp library), today, do not appear to support AFBC. The display controller supports it, but there is no support in Linux to make use of it (patches are showing up). The result is that 4K UHD performance will be directly proportional to the speed of RAM used on the RK3328 board.

    For Android use, the additional Mali core in S905 will mean it is more responsive and performant. Mali-450 is not a unified shader processor. The additional core (MP2 vs MP3) is a pixel processing (PP) core. This means that for every 3 pixels the S905 outputs, RK3328 outputs 2 pixels (33% performance difference). For Linux, this performance difference will only show up on applications that use Mali (which Kodi does).

    Neither chip has a general advantage over the other. The choice depends on how you intend to use it and can be summed up as: If you want to run a NAS, RK3328 is better. If you want to run graphical applications, S905 is better. If you run console applications that are not memory bound (2GB vs 4GB) or IO bound (USB2 vs 3), the performance should be consistent.

    The above is my personal opinion. Others are certainly free to offer differing opinions.

  11. @crashoverride
    very interesting, i never realized amlogic s905 h265 decoder & display controller supported frame buffer compression.
    do you know if it’s really ARM FBC technology or if amlogic devs “abusively” used ‘AFBC_’ prefix in their drivers code ?

  12. @nobe
    It “looks” like AFBC (headers, etc) but since AFBC is a “black box” (the first rule of AFBC is you don’t talk about AFBC!) only Amlogic/ARM know for certain. I doubt its worth anyone’s time/money to design and implement a clone.

  13. Hey I have a android box V99 STAR
    rk 3368 with android 5.1.1 wish to upgrade to up to 6.0 need help with firmware.

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