ROCK5 Model B RK3588 single board computer is up for pre-order for $79 and up

ROCK5 Model B

Some will say “finally!” After years of waiting for Rockchip RK3588 processor, ROCKPi Trading Limited/Radxa got some samples for their ROCK5 Model B single board computer and has started to take pre-orders with discounted prices starting at $79 through distributors. But let’s check out the specifications first, with the octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 Pico-ITX SBC shipping with up to 16GB RAM, M.2 NVMe storage, 2.5GbE, optional WiFi 6E, 8K video output via HDMI or USB-C ports, 4K HDMI input, and more. Radxa ROCK5 Model B (aka ROCK 5B) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU, a 6TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB LPDDR4x Storage M.2 2280 socket for  NVMe SSD (PCIe 3.0 x4) up to 2,000 MB/s MicroSD card socket eMMC flash socket Video Output 2x […]

Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board comes with 5x SATA, 4x GbE, 2x HDMI, RS-485 interfaces

Axzez interceptor Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier board

We just wrote that Wiretrustee carrier board for Raspberry Pi CM4 with four SATA interfaces was canceled and made open-source hardware a few days ago, but the Axzez Interceptor carrier board is offering a solution that is somewhat similar with 5x SATA ports and designed for NAS, NVR, IoT, and Managed Switch applications. The Interceptor Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi CM4 notably includes two 4Kp60 capable HDMI ports, 5x SATA ports, 4x RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 4x USB 2.0 interfaces, RS-485, and is powered via an ATX-24 connector, with a Mini-ITX adapter in the works. Axzez Interceptor specifications: Compatible SoM –  Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Storage Support for 5x SATA HDD/SSD via JMicron JMB585 PCIe to SATA controller Supports software RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 or 10 HDD sleep/standby Video Output – 2x full-size HDMI 2.0 connectors (4Kp60) Networking – 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports via Realtek RTL8367RB switch; programable […]

Sipeed Lichee RV RISC-V module gets $5+ carrier board with HDMI and USB ports, optional WiFi

Sipeed Lichee RV Starter Kit

Sipeed introduced the Lichee RV Allwinner D1 Linux RISC-V board going for just $17 with 512MB RAM last month. While with a USB-C port it could be used as a standalone part, its dual M.2 connector makes it more like a module and we noted a tiny carrier board was in the works at the time. The baseboard is now available and known as the Lichee RV Dock adding HDMI and USB ports, as well as a 40-pin GPIO header for just $5, or $8 if you’d like to get Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity through a Realtek RTL8723DS module. Sipeed Lichee RV Dock specifications: Supported system-on-module (SoM) – Lichee RV module with Allwinner D1 RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz, 512MB DDR3, MicroSD card slot, and USB Type-C OTG port Storage – Optional SPI flash Display interfaces HDMI port up to 4Kp30 Optional RGB interface for up to 720p30 […]

$35 Orange Pi 3 LTS SBC comes with 2GB RAM, 8GB flash, AW859A WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 module

Orange Pi 3 LTS

Orange Pi 3 LTS is a cost-down, more compact version of Orange Pi 3 SBC launched in 2019 with Allwinner H6 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, and mPCIe socket with a PCIe x1 Gen2 lane. AFAICR, the latter never really worked well due to a botched implementation in the SoC. The new slimmed-down Orange Pi 3 LTS is sized like a business card, loses the mostly useless mPCIe socket from the original board, comes with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM (no more 1GB RAM option),  a lower number of USB ports, USB Type-C power input, and an Allwinner AW859A WiFi and Bluetooth module replaces the Ampak AP6256 module from the original board. Orange Pi 3 LTS specifications: SoC – Allwinner H6 quad-core Cortex A53 processor clocked at up to 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-T720MP2 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.1/3.0/2.0/1.1, DirectX 11 System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 (before 1GB […]

Raspberry Pi 4 gets Armbian test images, DietPi 7.9 released

Raspberry Pi 4 Armbian DietPi 7.9

Ubuntu and Debian images built by Armbian got popular because of the sad state of affairs of most single board computers. But since Raspberry Pi boards are rather well-supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and community, plus part of it is closed-source, there’s been little motivation by the Armbian community to work on it, and that means there’s no official support for Raspberry Pi. But some Armbian test images have just been released for Raspberry Pi 4, specifically Ubuntu 22.04 “Jammy Jellyfish” images with a CLI (headless) version, and two desktop variants with Cinnamon and XFCE desktop environments which you can download on their server(s). Separately, DietPi 7.9 lightweight Linux distribution based on Debian has also been released with various improvements. The good news about Armbian images for Raspberry Pi is that they exist, but the less good news is that those are still “test images”, and the popular board […]

A deep dive into Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W’s power consumption

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Power Consumption measurements with Otii Arc

When I completed my review of Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, I mentioned I would test the power consumption of the board later. It took a while, but I’ve finally come around it using Otii Arc from Qoitech and Otii software to provide some pretty power consumption charts, and even energy consumption. Since the Raspberry Pi Foundation recommends a 5V/2.5A power supply, I’ll first try to get as close as possible as 2.5A, then I’ll go through tricks to reduce idle power consumption to less than 75 mA / 375 mW, and finally check the energy consumption under various CPU core count and frequency. Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Power consumption under load, with accessories I started with the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite “Bullseye” image and connected my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W board to Qoitech Otii Arc tools as shown below. It used to cost around $500, but […]

Sipeed LicheeRV – A $16.90 Allwinner D1 Linux RISC-V board

Sipeed LicheeRV

Finally! There’s now a much more affordable Allwinner D1 RISC-V Linux board thanks to Sipeed LicheeRV Nezha CM SBC sold for $16.90 and up on Aliexpress, that’s much cheaper than the $100 asked for Nezha SBC, although still not incredibly cheap as we’ll see from the specifications below. Sipeed LicheeRV is actually both a board and a system-on-on-module with an edge connector, and is equipped with 512MB DDR3, a USB-C OTG port, a MicroSD card socket, and an SPI display interface. The dual M.2 edge connector can be plugged into a carrier board, and they will be a “86 Box” (86x86mm) for HMI display that can be used for home automation. Sipeed Lichee RV specifications: SoC – Allwinner D1 single-core XuanTie C906 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.0 GHz with HiFi4 DSP, G2D 2D graphics accelerators Memory – 512MB DDR3 memory @ 792 MHz Storage – MicroSD card slot Video – […]

Raspberry Pi OS upgraded to Debian 11 “Bullseye”

Raspberry Pi OS Debian 11 BullsEye

Debian 11 “Bullseye” was released in August 2021, and I was expecting Raspberry Pi OS to soon get upgraded to the latest version, especially the last time around, in 2019, Raspian Buster was released even before the official Debian 10 “Buster” release, although the reason was Raspberry Pi 4 launch. This time around it took longer, but the good news is that Raspberry Pi OS has just been upgraded to Debian 11, meaning it benefits from the new features such as driverless printing, in-kernel exFAT module, “yescrypt” password hashing, and packages upgraded to more recent versions. The Raspberry Pi Foundation goes into more details about what changed in the new Raspberry Pi OS release with GTK+3 user interface toolkit, Mutter window manager replacing OpenBox in boards with 2GB RAM or more, new KMS video and camera drivers, and more. Raspberry Pi OS “BullsEye” can be downloaded from the usual place, […]

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