Last October, Radxa unveiled Rock Pi 4C SBC as an update to the company’s Rock Pi 4 SBC, with the same Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM, but instead of providing one HDMI output only, Rock Pi 4C board offers two video output just like Raspberry Pi 4 board, but with a twist, since it combines a micro HDMI port with a Mini DisplayPort connector.
It’s all good except for one small detail. So far, it was not possible to purchase the board. The good news is that Radxa has now announced the availability of the board for just $59 on AllNetChina. You can also buy Rock Pi 4C on other platforms, but the price is much higher at $109.99 on Amazon, and $99.99 on Aliexpress.
Rock Pi 4C specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with
- 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz
- Mali-T864 GPU with support OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1/3.2, Vulkan 1.0, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL 1.1/1.2, DX11, and AFBC
- VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding
- System Memory – 64-bit 4GB LPDDR4 @ 3200 Mbps (single chip)
- Storage
- eMMC module socket up to 128GB
- Micro SD card slot up to 2TB
- 4-lane M.2 NVMe SSD socket (expansion board required)
- 4MB SPI flash with support for NVMe booting
- Video Output / Display Interface
- Micro HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz
- Mini DP 1.2 up to 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz
- 2-lane MIPI DSI via FPC connector
- Dual independent display support
- Audio – Via HDMI and 3.5mm audio jack; HD codec supporting up to 24-bit/96Khz audio
- Camera – MIPI-CSI2 connector for camera up to 8MP
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with PoE support (additional HAT required), dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 with on-board antenna
- USB – 1x USB 3.0 host port, 1x USB 3.0 OTG port, 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Expansion – 40-pin I/O header with 1x UART, 2x SPI bus, 2x I2C bus, 1x PCM/I2S, 1x SPDIF, 1x PWM, 1x ADC, 6x GPIO, and power signals (5V, 3.3V, and GND)
- Misc – RTC with connector for backup battery
- Power Supply – Via USB-C port supporting USB PD 2.0 (9V/2A, 12V/2A, 15V/2A, or 20V/2A) and Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0/.0 (9V/2A, 12V/1.5A).
- Dimensions – 85 x 54 mm
Sadly, the board does not offer dual 4K video output, as some of the signals from the Rockchip RK3399 processor were used for other purposes and the miniDP port can only output up to 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz.
Eventually, I’d expect Rock Pi 4C board to support the same operating systems as the earlier Rock Pi 4A/4B single board computers since the hardware is so similar. That includes Android TV 7/9.0 (unofficial), Android 7/9, Ubuntu, Armbian image, and more, but right now, the company only provides an image for Debian 9 desktop. I suspect firmware images for Rock Pi 4A/B can run on the new board, but without support for mini DP output.
Radxa mentions most accessories for Rock Pi 4 will also work on Rock Pi 4C including the big heatsink, the 23W PoE HAT, and the Penta SATA HAT with an enclosure.
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.
Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress
The more, the merrier.
Put RK3588 in something and I’ll be interested.
If that SoC is ever released
I would love to have that RK3588 too.
At some point, you are beating a dead horse. Why build it in that form factor?
Mini DP ok, but micro HDMI? I would have loved to see one a couple of mm larger with a full size HDMI instead.
Those flimsi HDMI connectors are also the reason I couldn’t really relate to rpi4, even though it would be a lot of bang for the buck.
You don’t hear much about over clocking on rk3399. I have read that small up clocks are possible. You would think Rockchip, would do a faster revision of the SoC?
There’s already RK3399K processor that works @ 2.0 GHz: https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/10/17/rockchip-rk3399k-processor-clocks-up-to-2-0-ghz-supports-wider-temperature-range/
I think it’s be possible to overclock RK3399 to 2.0 GHz but it may work on all boards, and cooling may become an issue as well.
All of my RK3399 work at 2.0+1.5. If you remember, this was what was initially announced for this SoC everywhere, and we found it running at only 1.8+1.4 later. It was the same as for RK3288 announced at 1.8 and found at 1.6 while all of them work fine at 1.8 even at 100 degrees. I strongly suspect that for both SoCs the much higher power draw at the nominal frequency was finally considered too high for powering SBCs over micro-USB and that it was the only reason for lowering the frequency there.
Thank you.
Speaking RK3399 what happened with the HardRock64. All the news in february
TL Lim, founder of Pine64 says:
allnetchina.cn : MIPI CSI 2 lanes via FPC connector, support up to 800MP camera?
It happens when translating from Chinese they have a name for 10,000 (Wan), and in Chinese they write the camera supports 800 Wan resolution, which should translate into 8MP.
The RK3399 is a bit in a rough spot compared to the Pi4-chip or S922.
Both are stronger and it isn’t really competing on price either. Just not a very good chip.
Not another RK3399 SBC!. Where’s the RK3588? It has been 4 years already since ancient RK3399 was released. Time to move on. How much longer do we have to wait for RK3399? 2021, 2022?
I was going to buy a ROCK PI N10 Model A(RK3399 Pro) but it’s sold out everywhere. I went for Odroid-N2Plus instead.
I too am, or rather was, looking to buy the Rock Pi N10. Was it ever actually sold to anyone? Someone inquired about a case for it in another thread here on CNX-Software where a Radxa person replied that there will be one. Yet when asked again a few months later when still no case was offered, there was no reply.
ROCK Pi N10 is in production now. It should be available in 3 weeks.
Maybe Tinker Edge R? it already launch, and as I know it also is the first RK3399Pro SBC.
While this is nice for some, I have 2 major issues.
1. Support and hardware acceleration is crap last I checked, compared to raspberry pi.
2. Since this is a Chinese company, and we known that their government requires hands in all companies, like with cell phone provider huewei which is banned being used by US gov., I suspect they could have backdoors on these chips allowing them to be monitored and watched.
Due to these 2 major issues this is not really comparable to Raspberry Pi.
You mean like those Apple phones made in China. Oh and the Nvidia shield TV, not forgetting the official chinese made Rpi boards.
You are still forgetting my primary point, which leads me to believe you only want to argue.
In mainline linux i bet rk3399 is better supported than rpi in any respect.
And wrt spying there is not a single blob required for rk3399 if you don’t feel like, pretty hard for the omnipotent chinese cp to place an awful lot of their own code in there.
And please show me where Huawei is spying, no one has shown any proof as of yet! Otoh it has been proven, that cisco et al. do it and they come from which country? Which has what kinds of secret laws? I knew those were chinese products 😉
I don’t know for sure they are spying but I truly don’t think they have been ousted by multiple countries over rumors.
I believe it’s more about lack of control and the worry of OTA updates and the security risk they pose.
Such as this article brings up:
https://newatlas.com/huawei-ban-us-what-spy-evidence-exists/59772/
Evidence like the one that convinced the uk to ban them while at the same time telling to Huawei reps that they will reverse the ban once the potus changes.
It’s all a us led political campaign, thus not negating the possibility there might be some potential for spying but what’s so bad about chineese spying laws as compared to us spying laws? I mean for a European how would you feel if a foreign state decides your data can always be requested by them from serrvers located on your soil as long as they are operated by a us company? And looking at the tsmc deal soon also if a server contains a single resistor made in us… Its scary. And then they blame huawei when the world knows those who blame are the worlds biggest “spies” so once again the yanks are fearing the rest of the world could do what they are doing for ages and what they consider their sole privilege…
Sorry no prove shown no spying just a political campaign!
You sure are uptight about it, I simply posted a link and said I think this is what it’s about.
You think Americans are happy about the spying our government does? Did you happen to know they spy on US TOO!
Get your head out of your ass!
Forgot one mpre thing Huawei over this whole controversy opened several centers in this part of the world, where they allow customers and governments to assess their tech incl. sources making them the most open supplier at the moment. If you can’t rule out backdoors that shows deficiencies on the other side or some miles ahead of the chinese, but then we should burry 5g along 4g right away.
USA spying, whats new 😉
2014 https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/uae-alleges-us-backdoors-found-spy-satellites-135012