ASUS surprised the maker community in 2017 with the introduction of the Rochchip RK3288 powered Tinker Board to compete as Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It was followed by Tinker Board S with built-in storage and other new features, as well as Tinker Board Edge T and Edge R SBC’s both with an AI accelerator namely Google Edge TPU and the NPU inside Rockchip RK3399Pro. The company has now launched a new model called Tinker Board 2 without AI accelerator, but featuring Rockchip RK3399, or more exactly the higher grade Rockchip OP1 used in Chromebooks, delivering 96% faster single-thread performance and a 64% boost in multi-core performance compared to the Rockchip RK3288 processor found in the original Tinker Board, while the GPU is around 28% faster with glmark2-es2 off-screen benchmark. There are two variants of the board with Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S with the latter adding onboard […]
SIOT-50 industrial IoT device Integrates ASUS Tinker Board S in rugged enclosure
Stealth is a Canadian company that specializes in rugged displays, computers, and other ruggedized electronics for the industrial, defense, and marine markets. The company published a press release for a new rugged fanless mini PC equipped with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, and older Intel 6th and 7th Generation Core i5, i7 & Xeon processors. But as I browsed their website, I also noticed a compact “industrial IoT device” with a rugged enclosure called SIOT-50 that appeared to be fitted with an off-the-shelf Arm Linux SBC. Let’s look at the SIOT-50 specifications and photos to find out which SBC that may be: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad-core Cortex-A17 processor with Arm Mali-T764 GPU, H.264/H.265 video hardware decoder System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI up to 4K @ 30hz Audio – Realtek ALC4040 audio codec, 3.5mm audio Line Out […]
ASUS Chromebit CS10 Chrome OS PC Stick Sells for $69.99 (Promo)
ASUS Chromebit CS10 was the cheapest Chrome OS hardware when it launched in 2015. Equipped with a Rockchip RK3288-C quad-core processor coupled with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB eMMC. plus one HDMI port and one USB port it was offered for $85. Five years later it’s still available, and while the list price has slightly increased to $89, Chromebit CS10 is now offered for just $69.99 on Amazon US. Here’s a reminder of ASUS Chromebit CS10 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288-C quad-core Cortex A17 processor with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. System Memory – 2 GB LPDDR3 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash, plus 100G Google Drive for 2 Year free usage (not sure if this is still an option as we’ll discuss below) Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Dual-band 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port […]
ASUS PN50 – The World’s First AMD Ryzen 4000U Mini PC
AMD Ryzen 4000-U Series family was announced in January with the 15W processors targetting ultra-thin laptops. It’s already been found in laptops and the first reviews of Acer Swift 3 were positive with the laptop being slim, fast, and offering long battery life. But I had yet to see an AMD Ryzen 4000U mini PC until today, with ASUS PN50 mini PC shipping with a choice of five processors from AMD Ryzen 3 4300U to Ryzen 7 4800U, and a design identical to the company’s PN60 mini PC powered by Intel Kaby Lake Refresh processors. ASUS PN50 specifications: SoC (one or the other) AMD Ryzen 7 4800U 8C/16T processor up to 1.8 / 4.2 GHz with 8-core Radeon Graphics; 12MB L2/L3 cache AMD Ryzen 7 4700U 8C/8T processor up to 2.0 / 4.1 GHz with 7-core Radeon Graphics; 12MB L2/L3 cache AMD Ryzen 5 4600U 6C/12T processor up to 2.1 […]
YARC Case Can House a Raspberry Pi Board with one HAT Expansion Board and Up to 3 Hard Drives (Crowdfunding)
There are plenty of enclosures for Raspberry Pi board and other compact x86 or Arm Linux SBCs, but many projects require expansion boards and it’s not always possible to use an off-the-shelf case. That’s with that in mind that Stefano Zorzi and other enthusiasts have created YARC (Yes, Another Raspberry Case), a hexagonal case that supports the most popular single board computers, even when an add-on board – such as a Raspberry Pi HAT – is attached to the board. There’s enough space for up to three 2.5″ hard drives. Those are the boards officially supported (tested?) with the case: Raspberry Pi B +, 2B, 3B, 3B +, 4B, A +, 3A + Hardkernel ODROID C1, C2 AAEON Up Board Asus Tinker board and Tinker board S Radxa Rock Pi 4 Orange Pi PC, Pi PC2, Pi PC Plus Basically any board with compatible mounting holes can be installed in […]
ASUS Tinker Edge T SBC Launched for $168 and Up
ASUS unveiled Tinker Edge T & CR1S-CM-A SBCs based on Google Coral Edge TPU system-on-module featuring both NXP i.MX 8M processor and Google Edge TPU co-processor for AI acceleration in May 2019, but at the time none of the boards were available. But earlier this month, ASUS officially announced the board, and it can now be purchased on various sites including Provantage (~$168.35) and Physical Computing (21,600 JPY ~ $200). It is also listed on Connection for about $198 but currently out of stock. Edge TPU module SoC – NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core, GC7000 Lite 3D GPU ML accelerator – Google Edge TPU coprocessor delivering up to 4 TOPS System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC Flash memory Wireless Connectivity – Wi-Fi 2×2 MIMO (802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4/5GHz) Bluetooth 4.2 Baseboard Storage – MicroSD card slot Networking – Gigabit […]
ASUS ROG Phone II with Snapdragon 855+ | High Performance Gaming Phone
ASUS officially announced the launch of their new gaming phone, the ROG Phone II. The device will become the world’s first gaming phone to be powered by the new Snapdragon 855 Plus Mobile Platform. ASUS first gaming phone, the ROG Phone, launched in 2018, and it was quite popular. This ROG Phone II is an improved upon version of the first one. A unique feature of the new device is the Kryo 485 CPU in the Snapdragon 855 Plus. The CPU will run at up to 2.96GHz — a 4.2% improvement compared to the 2.84Ghz of the Snapdragon 855, while the Adreno 640 GPU is clocked 15% faster than in the current Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform. Specifications of ASUS ROG II phone Here are the highlights of the features and specifications. Display 120Hz FHD+ AMOLED display 240Hz touch sampling rate, 49ms touch latency (compared to 87ms on the Samsung Galaxy […]
ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX Board to Feature Rockchip RK3399Pro SoC
Just a few days ago, we wrote about ASUS Tinker Edge T board and other products from ASUS featuring Google Coral Edge TPU which were showcased at Computex 2019. It turns out the company is working on another Tinker with a processor featuring an neural network accelerator. Meet ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX SBC powered by Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core processor equipped with a 3.0 TOPS NPU. One of the reasons it did not get noticed is that ASUS may not have had a sample for display at the event, but instead only described the board in a brochure. [Update: ASUS Tinker Edge R was also showcased at Computex 2019] ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC preliminary specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL […]