Allwinner and Cubietech announced they were working on Cubieboard8 in May, before we got to see some pictures of the first engineering samples. Cubieboard8 has now been renamed to Cubieboard4, also known as CC-A80 (CubieTech single board Computer A80), and the company has listed the board on Taobao for 620 RMB (~$102), with shipping scheduled for October 30.
Cubietech CC-A80 board specifications, which have changed since the first pictures were released in July:
- SoC – AllWinner A80 octa core 4x Cortex A15 @ 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, and Imagination PowerVR G6200 GPU
- System Memory – 2GB DDR3
- Storage – 8GB eMMC (25MB/s read and write speed), micro SD Card slot
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4, and VGA
- Audio I/O – HDMI, 2x 3.5mm audio jacks for audio output and microphone
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n up to 300 Mbps + Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6330 module)
- USB – 4x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x Micro-B USB 3.0 port
- Debugging – UART and JTAG (4 pins on top left of battery slot)
- Expansion Header – 20-pin header with 2x UART, 3x I2C, GND, and VCC (5V)
- Misc – IR receiver, RTC + battery slot, 2x user LEDs, 1x power LED, 3 push buttons for power, reset, and reboot (FEL).
- Power – 5V/2.5A, USB 3.0, or 3.7V LiPo battery
- Dimensions – 146x142mm
The board is clearly called CC-A80 V1.1 on the PCB, but it will also be referred to as Cubieboard 4. Since the board still have about 10 days before shipping, CC-A80 Wiki is far from being complete (understatement of the month), but you can find some resources on their FTP server including schematics (PDF), datasheets for A80T, AC100, AXP809 PMIC…, and Lubuntu rootfs. Most directory are currently empty, and there are more details on Baidu including Lubuntu (eMMC and SD card) and Android 4.4 (eMMC) firmware images, as well as instructions to use CC-A80 Linux SDK. There are also some images on http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/a80/, but these may not be up-to-date, or even for Cubieboard 4.
Beside Taobao, I also found it for pre-order on a UK site for 110.79 GBP excluding VAT (about $180), with delivery expected for November 3, 2014. The price delta versus Taobao is a bit excessive, so it may pay to wait a couple of weeks to get a better deal.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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God damn it, no SATA 🙁 I wanted to upgrade my NAS to something with better cpu instruction set.
embeddedcomputer.nl/cubieboard-4.html
Got the Cubieboard 4 online, price could change (downwards). The Cubieboard 4 should be available half november 2014
@Johny007
Got a Jetsons TK1 which has SATA but yes, it is a bit more and you can’t easily get it outside of the USA.
@Johny007 USB 3.0 not good enough? (Why micro IDK… maybe space?)
no problem in EU
Still no AArch64 CPU? When can we expect such boards with a max price of 100 USD?
Any word on if these images are compatible with the Optimusboard, as well?
Jetsons TK1 costs 210$ if I remember well with sata.
cubieboard 4 costs 180$ and no sata.
Which board you think will sell most?
I must amend myself : jetson costs 192$! and its true open hardware with bom list and tools…
I tried these images with the Optimusboard and they did not work.
The HDMI display would show the four penguins while booting,
you get messages at the serial console and then it gets stuck. The serial console stops working and the last messages are about AXP809 PMIC.
I am trying to compile the kernel source at https://github.com/cubieboard/CC-A80-kernel-source
Anyone has an appropriate .config file?
Ahem, so if Tom cubie can get all this gear into a board and retail it for $100; why the f does google charge $100 for their lower spec lower expansion yet to be FCC approved nexus player.
Remember when the nexus was supposed to be a low margin high value line to demonstrate the cutting edge.
at this level you have to compare this with x86 chips, it really should come with SATA3 and/or some PCIe for extension.
@Dima
Tom does not work at Cubietech anymore. He runs Radxa instead.
@Sander
Chinese SoC with A15/A17 have just hit the market a few months ago, you’ll probably need to wait for Q2 2015 to get an ARM 64-bit board properly supported. Allwinner Nobel64 board is scheduled for Q1 2015, but based on past experience, Chinese companies are a bit too aggressive/unrealistic with their roadmaps.
Well, after having a Cubieboard and a Cubietruck, and lots of trouble and time waisted, all I can say is that I will NEVER NEVER anymore buy anything that comes from Tom Cubie, Cubietech or Radxa!
What’s your problem? Wifi or something else@JotaMG
I just heard that allwinner is no longer pushing A80 to the market, any Allwinner here to clarify that? it’s bad because I ordered an A80 board yesterday after reading news here.
@xxiao
That’s not true. A80 is still one of Allwinner’s key products, and more products based on A80 will be disclosed soon.
@hoangdinh86
on cubietruck wi-fi and, most worse, a defective nand, that over time loses data
on cubieboard sata performance and USB problems with some dongles (sometimes they are not recognized)
on both, i found them to be very sensitive to the voltages and ambient temperature
also, after losing lots of time trying, I’ve been disappointed by the quality of the Android images.
Why is emmc so slow ?
Cubieboard 4 with eMMC storage (25MB/s read and write speed).
Odroid XU3 uses 5.0 eMMC (198 MB/s read and 74 MB/s write) … all another world !!!
@louac
@Peter
Are these number actual benchmarks or theoretical? I’ve noticed eMMC rating, and actual performance is usually much different.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
It’s likely the actual numbers. The problem is that the board designs don’t have a separate regulator
for each of the mmc interfaces, and the driver just hard codes it for 3.3V.
You will not get faster speeds at that voltage.
@wens
Thanks. I did not know that.
Max speed at 3.3v is 104 MB/s (theoretical with 8x bus).
For higher speeds 1.8 or 1.2V is required.
http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/eMMC_speed_modes_voltage.jpg
Source: http://www.zeroplus.com.tw/software_download/201207-eMMC_en.pdf
Edit: Updated table from eMMC 5.01 specs
@JotaMG
Maybe this post may be some help to you:
http://cubieboard.org/2014/08/12/how-to-choose-the-storage-media-in-cubieboard/
Cubieboard 4 (CC-A80) has now officially been launched -> http://cubieboard.org/2015/03/10/cubieboard4cc-a80-released/
You can purchase it for $125 + shipping on:
* Seeed Studio -> http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Cubie-Singleboard-Computer-Octa-core-A80-p-2157.html?cPath=122_112
* R0ck.me -> http://store.r0ck.me/collections/home-slide/products/cubieboard4-cc-a80-high-performance-mini-pc
Other distributors can be found @ http://cubieboard.org/buy/