Rockchip RK33xx Category - Page 17 of 46 - CNX Software

November 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Giveaway Week Winners – November 2019

We just had another of our yearly “Giveaway week” on CNX Software with 7 prizes including Arm and RISC-V development boards, NB-IoT tracker, USB-C hub, as well as development kits based on ESP32 or ESP8266 WiSoCs. People just had to comment within a 48 hours period, and we would randomly select a winner each day. We now have all confirmed winners with a strong start from Europe, Asia catching up mid-week, before with Poland and Brazil taking the week-end prizes: Balena Fin Developer Kit – Laurent H, FRANCE WisCellular NB-IoT & eMTC GPS Tracker – Jimmy, SWEDEN MINIX NEO S1 USB-C Hub with 120GB built-in SSD – Jeroen, BELGIUM Maixduino Sipeed M1 RISC-V AI Kit – Nguyen Tung, VIETNAM ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit – Bumsik Kim, SOUTH KOREA Particle Mesh IoT Development Kit – Wojciech Lubicz-Lapinski, POLAND NanoPi M4V2 SBC & Metal Case Kit – Thiago Tavares, BRAZIL I […]

November 10, 2019November 12, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 283 Comments

Giveaway Week – NanoPi M4V2 SBC & Metal Case Kit

Let’s finish giveaway week 2019 on a high with FriendlyELEC NanoPi M4V2 single board computer, and its metal case kit. The board features a Rockchip RK3399 processor with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, and the metal case kit allows the addition of an NVMe M.2 SSD as well. I tested the mini PC with FriendlyCore Desktop based on Ubuntu 18.04, since at the time, Armbian was still not working with the updated board equipped with LPDDR4 memory, and Android requires an eMMC flash module which was not part of the kits I received. NanoPi M4V2 performed fairly well in the case, but the fan is quite noisy, and somehow the RAM bandwidth was almost half of the one in the earlier NanoPi M4 board with DDR3 memory, which is the opposite one would expect. Probably related to some software tweaks as explained in the comments section of the review. I received two […]

October 28, 2019February 29, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NanoPi M4V2 Kit Review – Part 2: FriendlyCore Desktop

We’ve already seen how to assemble NanoPi M4V2 metal case kit which offers an Arm mini PC solution with support for NVMe SSD. The new NanoPi M4V2 Rockchip RK3399 SBC is an evolution of the M4 board that brings faster LPDDR4 memory and adds power & recovery buttons. Since we’ve already tested several RK3399 SBC‘s and TV boxes, I planned to focus the review on thermal design evaluation (i.e. see how well the board cools), and see how memory bandwidth evolved from LPDDR3 to LPDDR4. I wanted to do so both with Linux and Android, since I could compare NanoPC-T4 (LPDDR3) benchmarks in Android. But this requires an eMMC flash module, and I don’t own any. So instead I planned to run Armbian because of support for armbian-monitor for nice temperature chart but it’s not working just yet, so instead I’ve done all tests with FriendlyCore Desktop (rk3399-sd-friendlydesktop-bionic-4.4-arm64-20190926.img) based on […]

October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Rockchip RK3399K Processor Clocks Up to 2.0 GHz, Supports Wider Temperature Range

First unveiled in 2016, Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor is still widely used in development boards, Android mini PCs and Chromebooks. But today, I’ve come across another variant. Rockchip RK3399K has exactly the same features but either supports higher clock CPU clocks (Cortex-A72 @ 2.0 GHz, Cortex-A53 @ 1.6 GHz), or wider temperature range between -20°C and 85°C with lower clock speeds for the CPU (A72: 1.8 GHz, A53: 1.4 GHz) and the GPU (600 MHz) I think I’ve read stories about Rockchip RK3399 being clocked at 2.0 GHz with proper cooling, but it may not be reliable on all boards. RK3399K should fix that. Rockchip actually updated its datasheet on the 29th of May, but I only found out about it today. Everything else looks the same, and you’ll be able to find out whether your device uses RK3399 or RK3399K by looking at the marking on the chip. That’s […]

October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

HK1 MAX PLUS TV Box Features Upgraded Rockchip RK3368PRO SoC with USB 3.0, HDR Support

Rockchip RK3368 octa-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz was introduced in 2015 mostly in TV boxes running Android 5.1 such as Beelink i68 or Tronsmart Orion R68. Unsurprisingly we don’t read much about new Rockchip RK3368 products four years later. But Rockchip appears to have launched a RK3368 “refresh” with RK3368PRO processor equipped with most of the same features, plus the addition of a USB 3.0 interface, and HDR support. The company also updated software support to Android 9.0 Pie. We don’t actually have much information about the processor as we learned about it via a listing on Aliexpress for HK1 MAX PLUS TV box with the following (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3368PRO Octa-Core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Imagination PowerVR G6110 GPU System Memory – 4 GB DDR3 Storage – 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB flash; MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ […]

October 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Novasom M7+ SBC Adds FFC HDMI Connector, USB & RS-485 Headers, Improves on Raspberry Pi 3 SW Compatibility

We previously wrote about Novasom M7 Rockchip RK3328 SBC being promoted as a drop-in replacement for Raspberry Pi 3 in industrial projects. That’s despite the different port arrangement, and instead, the company bases the claim on the availability of the 40-pin header, mounting holes matching RPI 3 board design, as well as software compatibility thanks to a library that allows customers to re-use the code written for Raspberry Pi boards. Based on feedback from customers, the company has made some changes to their design and launched Novasom M7+ SBC, and made several improvement to the software to be even more compatible with Raspberry Pi 3 board. Specifically there are five changes: Ability to power the board via the USB type-A port (5V) as an alternative to the 12V power barrel jack Stronger Backlight Driver for display up to 6A @5V) t FFC cable for HDMI output – The dimension of […]

October 10, 2019October 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

Rock Pi S mini SBC Now Available for $15 with 512MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND Flash, WiFi & Bluetooth

Rock Pi S is a tiny single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor coupled with up to 512MB RAM, up to 1GB SD NAND flash, as well as a USB port, Fast Ethernet & optional WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity which was announced to sell for as low as $9.90 with 256MB RAM, 256MB flash and no wireless module. Seeed Studio has now started to take pre-orders for Rock Pi S with the board selling for $14.90 with 512 MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND flash, WiFi & Bluetooth. Shipping is scheduled to start on October 15th. [Update: Seeed Studio has also listed the 256MB RAM version of the board for $9.90] Rock Pi S specifications as currently sold on Seeed Studio: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – MicroSD […]

October 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

ecoPI STARTER is a Cute Mini PC Kit Based on Rock Pi 4 SBC with Optional M.2 NVMe SSD

Rock Pi 4 is an affordable single board computer inspired by Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, but equipped with a more powerful Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, and selling for around $80 with 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11ac + Bluetotoh 5.0 wireless module. I’ve just come across ecoPI STARTER mini PC kit for the board with an aluminum case that can also fit an M.2 extension board to add an M.2 NVMe SSD card. The kit comes with an aluminum housing, an acrylic cover, some screws, bolts and silicon feet, and short ribbon cables for M.2 card. The acrylic cover is designed to let the WiFi & Bluetooth signal go through, but I’m not so confident the case won’t cause issue with WiFi. It’s currently sold for $16.50 on Aliexpress. You’ll also need to get Rock Pi 4A or 4B for $40 and up, M.2 Extension board ($8.39), heatsink ($8.39), […]