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SiFive has announced a mini-ITX motherboard with its SiFive Freedom U740:
At the heart of the SiFive board is a SiFive FU740 processor coupled with 8 GB DDR4 memory and 32 MB SPI Flash. It comes with a 4x USB 3.2 ports and a 16x PCIe expansion slot. The mini-ITX standard form factor makes it easy to build a RISC-V PC.
[...] SiFive Unmatched board will be available by Q4'20 for USD 665, and you can already register your interest. You will get a mini-ITX board, 32 GB MicroSD, and 3-meter CAT5e ethernet cable. SiFive did not speak on the commercial aspect of the product but are very confident about future development. Android and Chrome support is something we can see in the future. The product looks promising and we are excited to see future development in the RISC-V PC ecosystem.
Performance will probably be comparable to a Raspberry Pi 3. Alternatively:
PolarBerry is a Compact, Linux-capable RISC-V FPGA SBC and module (Crowdfunding)
Powered by Microchip PolarFire RISC-V SoC FPGA, PolarBerry is both a single board computer with Gigabit Ethernet and 40-pin GPIO header, as well as a system-on-module thanks to three Samtec board-to-board connectors.
[...] PolarBerry is not available just yet, but LinuxGizmos reports the SBC/SoM will be soon launched on Crowd Supply for $995 and shipments are expected to start in January 2021. Besides the aforementioned crowdfunding page, additional details may be found on the product page.
See also: SiFive Is Launching The Most Compelling RISC-V Development Board Yet
Previously: SiFive to Debut a RISC-V PC for Developers in October
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday November 01 2020, @10:00AM (4 children)
It's not just performance, it's also cost as the OP pointed out. For an architecture whose sole selling point over ARM is that you don't have to pay the ARM tax (vs. endless downsides to do with the fact that ARM is everywhere and supported by and with everything), having to pay $665 for something that might cost $150 on ARM isn't doing a good job of demonstrating its cost advantages.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday November 01 2020, @10:12AM (1 child)
It's not for Joe Pi User. It's for people getting paid to work with RISC-V to have a native development platform.
The extremely paranoid are going to have to pay a paranoia tax, for now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday November 01 2020, @10:29AM
Sure, but unless there's lots and lots of Joe Users getting RISC-V machines in the near future there's not much incentive to pay people to work with a RISC-V development platform now. I've asked for a RISC-V dev. system a few times but always got the same reply "why should we pay you to work on a platform with no market share?". And I expect lots of others are in the same boat.
In the meantime if anyone wants to send me a RISC-V dev. system to play with, PM me, they can't tell me what I can do in my spare time...
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday November 02 2020, @06:29AM (1 child)
I used to spend thousands on development tools to support my projects that used $0.20 Atmel Tinys.
It's a drop in the bucket when you're developing a high volume custom product.
Development boards are priceless, they allow you to get your prototype rolling before you have the actual hardware you're developing.
If you don't feel the need to invest in the up front costs that can save millions on the final product, then by all means, use an ARM..
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday November 02 2020, @09:06AM
Problem with the SiFive devices is that it's unclear when the actual hardware will be available, in what volume, or how much it'll cost when/if it appears. Mouser? A few toy dev boards. Digikey? Same. Element14? Nothing. RS? Nothing. I can't even begin to sell this to management when it's like this. Sure, a dev board is priceless when it's for something that will be everywhere in a few months' time and you get a head start on the competition, but the only thing I can say with reasonable certainty about SiFive silicon is that it won't be everywhere at any point I can foresee, and with that I can't sell it to decision-makers as something worth investing in.