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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: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM (2 children)
If it's making the front page of news sites there's gonna be such a stampede for these, I'll be waiting till 2027 for production to catch up.
As a slight damper on things, they're not exactly performant. Fun to play with for a RISC-V device, but still some way behind the ARM equivalents if you're looking to use one as a media server or similar.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:12AM (1 child)
It probably has usable performance for its price class, compared to the dual-core VisionFive V1 with no GPU or other single-core RISC-V products. And it's much cheaper than previous SiFive PCs [soylentnews.org].
But yes, it's still a niche product.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24AM
Oh, it's definitely an easy way to get into playing with RISC-V, and hopefully will get more momentum behind it than earlier attempts like the D1 boards... you had to be pretty keen on RISC-V to work with one of those.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snospar on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:42AM (1 child)
Interested to know how this could perform as a small firewall. Are there enough resources available to filter traffic between those two Ethernet ports? Raspberry PI with a USB-Ethernet dongle seems to be able to cope with sub 100Mb loads but once the rules become more complex performance drops off.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday August 24 2022, @04:57PM
I'm interested too. The later Raspberry Pis are quite capable: they can cope with processing full Gigabit Ethernet speeds. I'd love to know what this RiscV SBC is capable of in that department - it could become the 'go-to' device for OpenWrt as a firewall/edge router (OpenWrt isn't just about all-in-one Wifi Routers), especially if it becomes more easily available than Pis. Having two built-in GigE ports is a definite advantage.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 24 2022, @05:06PM
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxvTTVjfH9Jw3hBlWu2apJ8LFMxlyh4SUP [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]