Radxa Zero 3W SBC – Rockchip RK3566 SoC, 8GB RAM, WiFi 6 in Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W form factor

RADXA Zero 3W

More Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W lookalikes are coming to market, as after the Allwinner H618-based Orange Pi Zero 2W, the Radxa Zero 3W has now been introduced with a 1.6 GHz Rockchip RK3566 processor and up to 8GB RAM, plus WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, which makes it one of the most powerful Arm Linux SBCs in the compact Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. The board also comes with an optional eMMC flash with up to 64GB capacity, a microSD card, a micro HDMI port, two USB Type-C ports, a MIPI CSI camera connector, and of course, the usual 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header. Radxa Zero 3W specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.6 GHz (Note the RK3566 is usually clocked at up to 1.8 GHz but may have been underclocked here due to heat issues at the higher frequency as the […]

Radxa ROCK 3B Rockchip RK3568 SBC combines Pico-ITX and Raspberry Pi form factors

Radxa ROCK 3B

Radxa ROCK 3 Model B, or ROCK 3B for shorts, is a “PI-CO ITX” SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3568 SoC that combines the benefits of Pico-ITX and Raspberry Pi form factors in the sense that the 100x72mm board features all main ports on the rear side and supports expansion through a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header and several M.2 sockets for storage and wireless modules. The ROCK 3B is the younger, but bigger brother of the ROCK 3A business card-sized SBC introduced in 2021, still with an RK3568 CPU and up to 8GB LPDDR4, but the board features two gigabit Ethernet ports, an M.2 B Key socket for 4G LTE/5G cellular modules, an M.2 PCIe 3.0 x1 socket for an M.2 2280 SSD not necessitating an expansion board, besides the M.2 Key-E socket for WiFi 6. ROCK 3B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568(J) CPU – Quad-core Cortex A55 processor […]

FriendlyELEC CM3588 NAS Kit comes with four M.2 Key-M 2280 PCIe Gen 3 x1 sockets

Rockchip RK3588 board four M.2 sockets

FriendlyELEC CM3588 NAS Kit is a new Rockchip RK3588 board with four M.2 Key-M sockets each with a PCIe Gen 3 x1 interface and designed to take 2280 NVMe SSDs or other M.2 PCIe modules. Equipped with the CM3588 Core system-on-module, the feature-rich CM3588 NAS SDK board also comes with a 2.5GbE RJ45 connector, two HDMI 2.1 video outputs, one HDMI 2.0 video input, MIPI DSI and CSI connectors, several USB 3.0/3.1 ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. FriendlyELEC CM3588 NAS Kit specifications: System-on-Module – CM3588 Core board SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – 4x Cortex‑A76  cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex‑A55 core @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 “Odin” GPU Video decoder – 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC, 4Kp60 AV1, 1080p60 MPEG-2/-1, VC-1, VP8 Video encoder – 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder AI accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB, […]

ODROID-M1S is a smaller, cheaper, and more efficient Rockchip RK3566 SBC with additional GPIOs

ODROID M1S RK3566 SBC

Designed for Hardkernel’s 15th anniversary, the ODROID-M1S is a smaller, cheaper ($49 and up), and more efficient single computer board compared to the ODROID-M1 single board computer introduced last year with a Rockchip RK3568 SoC. The new ODROID-M1S SBC features a Rockchip RK3566 SoC which is similar to the RK3568, but with fewer peripheral interfaces, 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4 memory, a 64GB eMMC flash solder on the board (instead of an eMMC flash connector), HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI video interfaces, gigabit Ethernet, a few USB ports, and two GPIO headers. It does lose a few features compared to the ODROID-M1, as its memory is clocked at a lower speed, the M.2 socket only supports PCIe 2.1, the SPI flash and SATA port are gone, and so is the MIPI CSI camera connector. The power supply has also changed from a 12V DC jack to a 5V USB-C port. ODROID-M1S […]

Giveaway Week 2023 – i-Pi SMARC 1200 devkit with Mediatek Genio 1200 Cortex-A78/A55 SoC

i-Pi SMARC 1200 Yocto Linux glmark2 benchmark

We’ll end this year’s Giveaway Week with a pretty powerful development kit – ADLINK i-Pi SMARC 1200 – powered by a MediaTek Genio 1200 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A78 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, an Arm Mali Mali-G57 MC5 GPU, 4K hardware video decoding and decoding support, and a 4.8 TOPS NPU. The mainboard is comprised of a SMARC 2.1-compliant system-on-module with 4GB LPDDR4 memory and 64GB UFS storage and fitted with a heatsink for cooling as well as a carrier board with a 4Kp60 capable HDMI 2.0 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, two 40-pin headers for I/Os including one compatible with the 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, plus LVDS connectors, MIPI CSI camera connectors, and M.2 expansion slots for storage and/or wireless expansion. I tested the MediaTek Genio 1200 devkit with a Yocto […]

Firefly ROC-RK3588-RT Rockchip RK3588(J) SBC comes with three 2.5Gbps/gigabit Ethernet ports

ROC-RK3588-RT router SBC

Firefly ROC-RK3588-RT is a Rockchip RK3588(J) SBC suitable for networking applications such as routers and firewalls thanks to one 2.5GbE port and two gigabit Ethernet ports and available in both commercial and industrial temperature grades. But the board is likely to be used for more complex workloads since it also comes with three video output interfaces (2x HDMI and USB-C DisplayPort), M.2 sockets for a SATA or NVMe SSD, a WiFi 6/Bluetooth 5.2 module, a 6 TOPS NPU embedded in the Rockchip processor, and a (non-standard) expansion connector with PCIe Gen 3 and other interfaces. Firefly ROC-RK3588-RT specifications: SoC (one or the other) Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with CPU – 4x Cortex‑A76  cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex‑A55 core @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 “Odin” GPU @ 1.0 GHz Video decoder – 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC, 4Kp60 AV1, 1080p60 MPEG-2/-1, VC-1, VP8 […]

MediaTek drops efficiency cores in Dimensity 9300 Cortex-X4/A720 mobile SoC

MediaTek Dimensity 9300

MediaTek Dimensity 9300 is a premium octa-core 5G mobile SoC with two clusters of four Cortex-X4 cores and four Cortex-A720 cores, but doing without any Cortex-A520 efficiency core, plus the latest Arm Mali-G720 GPU, and a MediaTek APU 790 neural processing unit (NPU) capable of support generative AI and large language models (LLM) with up to 33 billion parameters. Arm invented big.LITTLE and then DynamIQ technologies in order to mix cores with different power efficiency and performance characteristics in order to improve power consumption. Their latest launches included the Cortex-X4 premium core, Cortex-A720 performance/big core, and Cortex-A520 efficient/LITTLE core, but MediaTek decided to do without the Cortex-A520 in the Dimensity 9300 which strikes me as odd for a mobile SoC where power efficiency is important for a long battery life. MediaTek Dimensity 9300 specifications: Octa-core CPU with DynamIQ 4x Arm Cortex-X4 at up to 3.25GHz 4x Arm Cortex-A720 up to […]

Giveaway Week 2023 – VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit

VOIPAC IMX8M Industrial Development Kit Review

The 10th edition of CNX Software giveaway week is on! We’ll have seven items to give away this time around: six items that I will send myself from my review samples and one from a company that will offer one of its own IoT development kits… We’ll start this year’s giveaway week with the VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit equipped with an “iMX8M Industrial Pro” system-on-module powered by an NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, fitted with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, and a WiFi and Bluetooth module. The VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit is quite a feature-rich development board whose main purpose is to evaluate the company’s system-on-module for integration into final products. I tested it last summer showing how to get started with the Yocto BSP by building the image from scratch, booting from the eMMC flash or a microSD card, and testing several features such as networking, […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC