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ROCK5 Model B RK3588 single board computer is up for pre-order for $79 and up
Some will say "finally!" After years of waiting for [the] 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.
[...] So how much does the board cost exactly? Those are the standard prices:
- $129 with 4GB RAM
- $149 with 8GB RAM
- $189 with 16GB RAM
This is getting quite close to Intel hardware, but ROCK5 Model B has some features not found in most platforms at that price including HDMI input, MIPI CSI camera interfaces, GPIO header, and 2.5GbE.
But as mentioned in the introduction you can get the board for as low as $79 by pre-ordering the board. To get this price, you'll need to pay a $5 deposit (called R3 code "Radxa ROCK5 Redeem") to reserve the board, and then you'll be able to get a $50 discount on the prices above, meaning $79 for the 4GB version, $99 with 8 GB RAM, and $139 for the model with 16GB RAM. This is only valid for one board, and the R3 code is refundable at any time before shipping if you decide you don't want to[sic] board anymore.
Beware the VAT.
Previously:
Rockchip RK3588 Datasheet Available, SBCs Coming "Soon"
CNX Software: Year 2021 in Review
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @05:17PM (5 children)
Do you have any experience or opinion on the Pine SBCs (A64, Rock64, RockPro64)? I have a few things I want to mess around with that I was looking in the direction of the Pi, such as a media server and front end for my "smart TV" (to make it a bit less surveillance-y), but I saw these boards I like the idea behind the Pine people. Problem is I don't see much in the way of tutorials. I assume I could do what I want on these boards running Armbian, but I wasn't entirely sure.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 10 2022, @05:29PM (1 child)
Nope. I run Raspberry Pi OS and LibreELEC (Kodi) on Pi 4.
LibreELEC supports a bunch of the older PINE SBCs but I don't think it's ready for the Quartz64 [libreelec.tv] yet.
LibreELEC is likely to be able to accomplish everything you could possibly want for a TV frontend.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @05:39PM
Thank you. I appreciate your opinion.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @06:03PM
Pine is OK. Any of the Rockchip boards should work with Armbian out of the box, although I don't think Quartz (the newest) is fully supported yet. Quality isn't much different from a RasPi, accessories are often dodgy. Hardkernel/ODROID make better SBCs, but charge higher prices and are more conservative about pushing out hardware and don't necessarily focus on what's friendly to free software. Remember that USB/PCI slots are often sharing the bus and research+plan accordingly.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by epitaxial on Monday January 10 2022, @06:16PM
the oDroid N2+ works great for that. It does 4k 60hz in hardware. I tried it out for a while and the performance was impressive but I hated how limited Kodi or Libreelec or whatever you want to call it was. All the addons were ugly and had tons of bugs. I thought I could use it like a regular linux distro and run a browser for streaming. Turns out you can't because Kodi doesn't use X. I hate all the media library bullshit. Give me a shared folder and a web browser. Kodi could not meet my needs. Right now I use a small i5 box with a GT 710 gpu. My plans are to upgrade to a GT 1030 for the hardware 4k hevc decoding. People talk about the Nvidia Shield but it's basically Nvidia's version of Kodi. More stuff I don't like.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday January 11 2022, @04:15AM
I've always found the Pine's to be a bit... underdesigned, and not so well supported on some OSes (FreeBSD springs to mind), way too much tweaking required to get things working. I prefer the ODroids, which are also a lot cheaper than these new Pine's, at those prices you may as well go with Intel/AMD SBCs.