StarFive recently announced an SBC using the StarFive JH7110 quad-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC. Now Pine64 is announcing their own version, the Star64:
Pine64 Star64 is an upcoming single board computer (SBC) powered by StarFive JH7110 quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor equipped with an Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU, and in a form factor similar to the earlier Pine64 model A boards such as the Quartz64 Model A.
The Star64 SBC will be offered with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM, an HDMI 2.0 video output connector, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module, USB 3.0 ports, a PCIe slot, and a GPIO header for expansion.
[...] Both Star64 and VisionFive 2 SBCs offer many of the same features, but the Pine64 board provides access to the PCIe interface via a PCIe x4 slot instead of an M.2 socket and is equipped with a wireless module for WiFi and Bluetooth that the VisionFive 2 board completely does without.
More information about the JH7110 is available:
It's actually an SoC with six RISC-V cores, of which four 64-bit RISC-V cores run the main OS, plus a 64-bit RISC-V monitoring core, and a 32-bit RISC-V real-time core. The AI accelerators found in the JH7100 (Neural Network Engine and NVDLA) appear to be gone for good, and there are two 1-lane PCIe 2.0 interfaces up to 5 Gbps each.
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StarFive VisionFive 2 quad-core RISC-V SBC launched for $46 and up
As expected, StarFive has officially unveiled the JH7110 quad-core RISC-V processor with 3D GPU and the VisionFive 2 SBC. I just did not expect the company to also launch a Kickstarter campaign for the board, and the version with 2GB RAM can be had for just about $46 for "early birds".
The VisionFive 2 ships with up to 8GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, dual Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, a QSPI flash for the bootloader, as well as support for eMMC flash module, M.2 NVMe SSD, and microSD card storage.
Compared to the Raspberry Pi 4, it has better I/O, worse CPU performance, and potentially better GPU performance (it's an Imagination BXE-4-32), with similar price points for RAM amounts. It uses the the 100 × 72 mm "Pico-ITX" form factor like some recent RK3588 boards (RPi 4 is 85.6 mm × 56.5 mm).
Previously: Imagination Announces B-Series GPU IP: Scaling up with Multi-GPU
VisionFive V1 RISC-V Linux SBC Resurrects BeagleV Single Board Computer
Official Ubuntu RISC-V Images Released For StarFive's VisionFive Board
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2022, @05:50PM (2 children)
I like the Pine64 people and what they put out. I wouldn't mind picking up something like this to mess around with (I've been wanting to pick up a RasPi, but they were hard to get for a while and it dropped off my mental to-do list). Other than reading SN, of course, I've been spending my evening time messing around with things I used to mess around with, and hardware/software was one of those things. What I'm missing is a good use-case. I'm assuming this is way overkill for many things that immediately come to mind, but if it easily interfaces with SPI or I2C or something, I can always pick up some cheap sensors and make a weather station or something. Or some sort of signal processing box to work on audio files or create a little oscilloscope. Hmm, I still have that hot air popcorn maker I picked up a ways back in order to turn it into a coffee roaster . . . .
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Tuesday August 30 2022, @07:50PM
I'm hoping to use this, or the StarFive SBC as an OpenWrt router. Both SBCs have dual Gigabit Ethernet, and I hope that they will have enough processing power to cope with Gigabit throughput and acting as a firewall/traffic shaper. The newer RPis can, but are difficult to get hold of, and require either a USB dongle or PCI hat to add a second GigE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2022, @06:14PM
I thought the point of RISC-V was to provide a desktop for the truly paranoid.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MonkeypoxBugChaser on Wednesday August 31 2022, @02:28AM
It's not a daily driver and now they're fighting with the community to boot.
SBCs are a dime a dozen baring chip shortages.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 31 2022, @07:49PM
But I wanted to run Java on it.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...