Rockchip RK3308 is a quad-core Cortex-A35 processor that was announced in 2018 together with RK3326 specifically for Smart AI solutions. While the processor is equipped with an RGB LCD output interface, it does not come with a 2D or 3D graphics accelerator, so it’s better suited to smart speakers with an optional display using a basic user interface. I’ve not seen many hardware platforms or boards based on the processor, but today I noticed “Hangzhou Wild Chip Tech” had an RK3308 system-on-module, as well as development kits for sale on Aliexpress with the module price starting at $23. Mcuzone MDK3308 Coreboard Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.3 GHz with NEON and VFPv4 FPU System memory / storage configurations: 256MB DDR3/3L + 256MB NAND flash 512MB DDR3/3L + 8GB eMMC flash 2x 100-pin dual row headers (1.27mm pitch) exposing: Display – LCD interface up to 1024×600 (RGB), […]
ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX Board to Feature Rockchip RK3399Pro SoC
Just a few days ago, we wrote about ASUS Tinker Edge T board and other products from ASUS featuring Google Coral Edge TPU which were showcased at Computex 2019. It turns out the company is working on another Tinker with a processor featuring an neural network accelerator. Meet ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX SBC powered by Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core processor equipped with a 3.0 TOPS NPU. One of the reasons it did not get noticed is that ASUS may not have had a sample for display at the event, but instead only described the board in a brochure. [Update: ASUS Tinker Edge R was also showcased at Computex 2019] ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC preliminary specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL […]
FriendlyELEC SOM-RK3399 Development Kit Targets AI & Machine Vision Applications
FriendlyELEC is better known for their low-cost tiny single board computers, but the company has also introduced systems-on-module in the past such as Smart6818 module powered by Samsung S5P6818 octa-core processor. The company has now launched another system-on-module with SOM-RK3399, which as its name implied features Rockchip RK3399 processor, as well as a corresponding carrier board mostly designed for artificial intelligence and computer vision applications. SOM-RK3399 System-on-Module Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, Mali-T864 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and VPU capable of handling 4K VP9 and 4K 10bits H265/H264 60fps decoding, Dual VOP, etc System Memory – Dual-Channel 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash Networking 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo module (AP6356S), dual antenna interface Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet transceiver USB – 2x USB-C […]
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and Rock64 1GB SBCs Promotions
Ameridroid has some promotions for two of the most popular single board computers on the market. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (not B+) is now offered for $33.95, or $32.95 with CNXSUPPORTER1 coupon, with a free 16GB class 10 micro SD card pre-loaded with NOOBS. The company also discounted Rock64 board (1GB RAM model), with the same form factor as Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, but a faster Rockchip RK3328 processor, and high-speed interfaces like USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet, making it one of the best alternatives to Raspberry Pi 3 board. You can now get it for $24.95, a discount of $5 compared to the normal price on Ameridroid. $24.95 also happens to be the price the board is sold on Pine64, but you may save on shipping depending on where you live. You’ll also be able to save a bit more by using one of the following […]
Top 5 Raspberry Pi Alternatives in 2019
The Raspberry Pi boards are great little Arm Linux SBC’s with a low price and great community support. But the Broadcom processors used in the boards are also fairly old so they may not be suitable for some projects. If your application needs or would benefit from modern features such as memory over 1GB RAM, an actual Gigabit Ethernet port, USB 3.0 port(s), 4K video output, or H.265 hardware video decoding you’ll have to find Raspberry Pi alternatives. I’ll point out 5 alternative single board computers in this post from the point of view of existing Raspberry Pi users, who will want good software support and a board with the same or similar form factor as Raspberry Pi 3 Model B/B+ in order to reuse their add-on boards and/or enclosures. Price has to be competitive as well, so nothing above $80 will be mentioned. The boards are not listed in […]
ToyBrick RK3399Pro Board Shown to Outperform Jetson Nano SBC
NVIDIA created a lot of buzz when they released $99 Jetson Nano SBC featuring a 128-core Maxwell GPU, and said to deliver 472 GFLOPS of compute performance for running modern AI workloads with a power consumption of around 5 watts. But Jetson Nano is not the only low cost platform to deliver high performance at low power for AI workloads, as for example Rockchip RK3399Pro (RK1808 NPU) found in boards such as Toybrick RK3399Pro is said to deliver 3 TOPS for INT8, 300 GOPS for INT16, and 100 GOPS for FP16 inferences. Those operations per second numbers can be confusing and misleading, so it’s important to check out the performance of actual neural network models, and Rockchip did provide some RK3399Pro benchmarks last year for Inception V3, ResNet34 and VGG16 models comparing the results to Apple A11, Huawei Kirin 970, and NVIDIA Jetson TX2. However, ideally you’d want result from […]
$25 Wechip X88 Pro TV Box Features Low Cost Rockchip RK3318 Processor
With RK3328 SoC, Rockchip already has a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with an Arm Mali-450MP GPU, more exactly a Mali-450MP2 GPU. However, that GPU was found to underperform the penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU handling graphics in Amlogic S905X processor. If that listing on Aliexpress is correct, it appears the company has made another quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with the same penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU as found in the Amlogic processor. [Update: The description is wrong, and RK3318 GPU is not faster, so it must be the same (TBC). RK3318 is just a cost-down version of RK3328, but details have not been provided] The new Rockchip RK3318 processor can be found in Wechip X88 Pro TV box with the following specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3318 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with penta-core Arm Mali-450MP3 GPU @ up to 750 MHz System Memory – 2 or 4GB RAM Storage – 16, 32 or 64GB […]
Roshambo Retro Gaming Console Kit Features Rock64 or RockPro64 Board
Recalbox, Lakka TV, Retro Arena, and Batocera are some of the retro gaming distributions optimized to run on development boards. You can install those by yourself, and enclose the board is any case, but if you want something more fancy, Cloud Media is now selling Roshambo retro gaming kit based on Rock64 (RK3328) or RockPro64 (RK3399) SBC’s. Roshambo and RoshamboPro retro gaming kits are compatible with respectively Rock64 and RockPro64 boards, come with a shell with carrier board, power supply, cooling fan (Pro model only) and support cables. The kits support 256GB or 512GB SSD cartridges provided by the company, and optional game controllers with analog triggers and buttons are also available for purchase. Pine64 Rock64 / RockPro64 boards are compatible with Recalbox, Lakka TV, Retro Arena, and Batocera distributions, but bear in mind ROMs are not provided, so you’d have to install your own, or play free games only. […]