After ODROID-N2, Khadas VIM3 is the second Amlogic S922X powered development board to become available to the maker community. However, while the former have been available for a couple of month, we only knew most of Khadas VIM3 specifications so far.
Shenzhen Wesion has now announced a launch date and pricing for the board, and as well as released a few more details. Khadas VIM3 Basic and Pro will start selling on June 24 for respectively $69.99 with 2GB RAM and 16GB flash, and $99.99 with 4GB RAM and 32GB flash. Those prices are very attractive, and competitive against ODROID-N2 due to the extra features like built-in flash. The downside is that those are introductory prices that will be effective for the first production batch and until July 22, 2019 only, after which prices will increase.
The company also provided a comparison table showing the main difference between their earlier Edge-V Pro (RK3399) board, ODROID-N2 4GB and Khadas VIM3 Pro to help people decide which board is right for them.
| Model | Edge-V Pro | VIM3 Pro | Odroid-N2 4GB |
| SoC | Rockchip RK3399 x2 A72 + x4 A53 Mali T864 GPU |
Amlogic S922X x4 A73 + x2 A53 Mali G52 MP4 GPU |
|
| NPU | – | ||
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR4, 64bit 800MHz | 4GB LPDDR4, 32bit 1600MHz | 4GB DDR4, 32bit 1320MHz |
| eMMC | On-board, 32GB | Socket | |
| SPI Flash | 16MB | 8MB | |
| Wi-Fi | 2T2R 802.11 ac with RSDB | – | |
| Bluetooth | V5.0 | – | |
| M.2 Socket | 4-lane PCIe | 1-lane PCIe (shared with USB 3.0) | – |
| Wake-on-Lan | |||
| Timer on (RTC) | |||
| USB-C DP Display | – | ||
| eDP Display | – | ||
| MIPI-DSI Display | 2 |
1 | – |
| MIPI-CSI Camera | 4-lane x2 with dual 14MP ISP | – | |
| Gesture Control | &l;/td> | – | |
| Motion Tracking | Tri-axis Gyroscope Tri-axis Accelerometer |
Tri-axis Accelerometer | – |
| Battery | – | ||
| User Buttons | Reset, Power, Function | – | |
| Power Supply | 2x USB-C | USB-C, Pogo Pad | DC Jack |
| IR Receiver | Dual Channels | One Channel | |
| AV Out | – | ||
| USB Host | 1x USB 3.0 + 1x USB 2.0 | 4x USB 3.0 | |
| USB OTG Port | USB-C | Micro USB | |
| Board Dimensions | 82.0 x 58.0 x 13.0 mm | 90 x 90 x 17 mm | |
| SoC Process | 28nm | 12nm | |
| Decoding | 4K 60fps | Support multi-video decoder up to 4Kx2K@60fps + 1x1080P@60fps | |
| Encoding | H.264 at 1080P@30fps | H.265 & H.264 at 1080P@60fps | |
You may wonder why there’s an NPU row since none of the board listed here come with one. That’s because there’s a blacked out column in the original comparison table. but Khadas does mentioned a “Next generation, deep-neural-network applications, at 2.5 TOPS” in the product page, so I suspect a Khadas VIM3 “AI” board with Amlogic S922D processor may be in the works too.
We also got the first photo of the back of the board with MIPI CSI camera connector, MIPI DSI and TP (touch panel) connectors for LCD displays, as well as the M.2 socket and microSD card slot. In case you wonder how will an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD will fit in a 82 cm long board, the company will provide an adapter with a flexbile cable.
The comparison did not stop there, as the company also provided a price comparison table if one was to add all Khadas VIM 3 features to ODROID-N2.
| SBC Board | $159 (Free shipping) |
$99.99 (Free shipping) |
$79 (Does not include shipping) |
| eMMC | – | $26.90 | |
| WiFi | – | $7.9 | |
| Bluetooth | – | $4.8 | |
| Shipping | – | $10 (Estimated) | |
| Amount | $159.00 | $99.99 | $128.60 |
So if you plan to get a 32GB eMMC flash module with your ODROID-N2, Khadas VIM will already be cheaper. All prices for N2 board’s accessories are taken from Hardkernel store. One little detail not mentioned in Khadas comparison tables is that ODROID-N2 comes with a proper cooling solution by the way of a large heatsink plate placed on the processor-side of the board. There’s no information about Khadas VIM3 cooling solution just yet, so we’ll have to find out what it is and this will add to the cost as well, but likely only a few dollars. Khadas VIM3’s $99.99 price tag is also temporary, and price after July 22 has not been announced.
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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you must add 9,99 USD for a heatsink to the price comparison. you can find some infos on vim3 page. all accessories for vim2 are compatible with vim3
Their heatsink is inefficient so you need to add their fancy fan for 25 bucks in total: https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/05/14/khadas-vim3-amlogic-s922x-board-m-2-nvme-ssd-wifi-5-bluetooth-5/#comment-562834
If we consider the USB 3.0 hub on the N2 board, there must be 35 bucks in total probably.
So the N2 seems to be more competitive in many generic application if the fan on the vim3 is annoying.
But I believe the on-board wifi/bt of the Vim3 is quite useful though.
> If we consider the USB 3.0 hub on the N2 board, there must be 35 bucks in total probably
For the use cases I’m interested in (fast storage and network) the last thing I want is an USB3 hub between the host and the disks. USB storage with Linux already sucks too much without a hub.
Their fancy fan is currently on back-order. Just received the VIM2 1.4 I ordered w/ heat sink and fan, but fan did not arrive as it’s still not available!
I would like to see big GFX card connected to this 🙂
I’ll let you have my N2 when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Have Khadas done the same as Odroid and got examples out to the programming community?
They don’t appear to have done.
Of course they have.
Here is even LibreELEC already being developed for Vim3.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ayEYnP1ze5jS4pNg9drZ_c51JfuLXy4i/view
Right, now they are also contacting people to send them review samples.
The comparison is wrong. RTC (Timer) wakeup and WoL works on the N2 too from both suspend and poweroff. Its also not fair to compare promo prices with actual ones 😉
Bad intro for specs, this will not include any a.i. tops anything, it is the S922D which is not specified for any “tops” anything.
But due respect they have several different chipsets to be released under VIM3 spec. But S922D will not be the one to do any deep fake videos that require as many tops you can provide.
No longer S922X, getting upgraded faster SoC.
https://www.khadas.com/post/khadas-vim3-won-t-use-s922x?utm_campaign=5cc6c00b-e522-4bb4-ad46-ab94121ab0d9&utm_source=so
It has to be Amlogic S922D. Surprising they can keep it at the same price though.
According to dl.khadas.com/Hardware/VIM3/Specs/Khadas_VIM3_Specs.pdf it’s A311D and S922D is already EoL: https://forum.khadas.com/t/khadas-vim3-is-launching-on-24-june/4103/179?u=tkaiser
Pin comparable to s922x, faster 2.2GHz and a 2.5 TOPS NPU, so their link says.
Well the SoC is A311D
Sharp-eyed Khadas Members would have already figured this out, your VIM3 will be shipping with the Amlogic A311D SoC (see picture above). The A311D is a S922X-B version with the addition of MIPI-CSI and an integrated 2.5 TOPS NPU. It has x4 A73 cores clocked at 2.2Ghz, and x2 A53 cores clocked at 1.8Ghz.
And VIM3 has a new accessory – the M2X Extension Board. This board comes with an M.2 slot for mounting a 2280 NVMe SSD, 4G module (with SIM card slot), 100M Ethernet-Port with PoE (power-over-ethernet) support, and an extra USB-C port for transferring PoE power to the VIM3.
It is stackable, and uses a Rigid-Flex ribbon cable for easy connection to VIM3’s M.2 slot.
Khadas made the A311D datasheet public: https://dl.khadas.com/Hardware/VIM3/Datasheet/A311D_Datasheet_01_Wesion.pdf
Higher clockspeeds than S922X on ODROID N2, camera input and NPU. Chapter 8.6.1 talks about the ‘Neural Network Accelerator’:
* Support max frequency of 800MHz
* 4 NPE core
– 768 INT 8 MAC or 384 INT16 MAC per NPE core
– 5 TOPS :4 (NPE) x 768 (INT8 MACs) x 2 (multiply + adder) x 800MHz
* 1 PPU
– 25.6 GFLOPS16 or 6.4 GFLOPS32
* 512KB cache
* 1MB on-chip buffer
Final price of products will be interesting to see.
All what stops them making s922X 2.2 GHz ?