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Banana Pi BPI-CM5 Pro – A Rockchip RK3576-powered Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with up to 16GB RAM, 128GB flash, a 6 TOPS NPU

Banana Pi BPI-CM5 Pro, also called ArmSoM-CM5, is a Rockchip RK3576 system-on-module electrically and mechanically compatible with the Raspberry Pi CM4 while offering up to 16GB LPDDR5 memory, 128GB eMMC flash, and a 6 TOPS AI accelerator embedded into the RK3576 SoC. It comes with a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless module, a PMIC for power management, and two 100-pin connectors mostly compatible with the pinout of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. ArmSoM also provides a CM5-IO carrier board to make use of the extra USB 3.0 and PCIe interfaces, and the company told CNX Software they tested the module successfully with the official Raspberry Pi CM4 IO board. Banana Pi BPI-CM5 Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU – 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores at 1.8GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MC3 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL up to 2.0, […]

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GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite Intel N100 mini PC comes with a 9-pin expansion header

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite is yet another Intel Processor N100 mini PC whose main differentiating feature is a 9-pin expansion header accessible from the outside for expansion. I initially thought it would be similar to having Raspberry Pi 5 SBC in an enclosure like the Pironman 5, but as we’ll see below it may not exactly be the case. As its name implies, it’s also an evolution of the Mini Air12 mini PC with a lower price due to some cost-cutting. The Mini Air 12 Lite notably ships with 8GB DDR4-3200 and a 256GB NVMe SSD, instead of the 16GB DDR5-4800 and a 512GB NVMe SSD for its older sibling. The computer also features HDMI and DP ports for dual display setups, gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, an audio jack, and five USB 3.2/2.0 ports. GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N quad-core/quad-thread processor […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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LicheePi 3A – A SpacemIT K1 RISC-V development board with SoM and carrier board

Sipeed LicheePi 3A is a development board comprised of the LM3A system-on-module based on SpacemIT K1 octa-core RISC-V SoC and the same baseboard as found in the earlier LicheePi 4A equipped with a T-Head TH1520 quad-core RISC-V “LM4A” system-on-module instead. The LicheePi 3A is currently offered with a 32GB eMMC flash and 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4x memory. The carrier board provides a microSD card, two M.2 PCIe sockets for storage or other expansion, two gigabit Ethernet ports, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module, HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, four USB 3.0 ports, and a 20-pin GPIO header for expansion. Sipeed LicheePi 3A specifications: Sipeed LM3A SoM SoC – SpacemiT K1 CPU – 8-core X60 RISC-V processor @ 1.6 GHz GPU – Imagination IMG BXE-2-32 with support for OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.2, OpenCL 3.0; 20 GFLOPS VPU – H.265 and H.264 1080p60 decoding/encoding NPU […]

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Maxtang T0-FP750 (AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS) mini PC review – Part 1: Specs, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

Maxtang T0-FP750 is a mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS octa-core/sixteen-thread SoC supporting up to 64GB 5600 MT/s dual-channel DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, equipped with two M.2 slots for up to NVMe 2280 SSDs, and an additional M.2 slot for a WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 module. The Windows 11 Pro mini computer can drive up to three displays via HDMI 2.0, USB4, and DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and offers 2.5GbE networking. Maxtang sent us a review sample of the T0-FP750 mini PC with 32GB DDR5 RAM, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and a WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module. Despite having a similar name to the earlier AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS-powered Maxtang MTN-FP750 mini PC reviewed last December, the T0-FP750 design is fairly different as we’ll see below. As usual, we’ll do a three-part review starting with the specifications, an unboxing, a teardown, and a quick first try […]

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DietPi 9.7 and Armbian 24.8 released with improved support for Rockchip, Amlogic, and Allwinner SBCs

Armbian and DietPi are two separate projects that provide Linux-based OS images optimized for Arm-based single board computers. The last time we had a look at both projects was in June with the release of Armbian 24.5.1 and DietPi 9.4, but there have been several updates since then including the releases of the latest DietPi 9.7 and Armbian 24.8 Yelt just a few days ago. So let’s check out the latest changes. DietPi 9.7 DietPi is a lightweight Debian-based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems that ships as a minimal image but users can install any packages they want, including the ones required for desktop environment, to match the requirements of the applications. It’s notably used by the Linamp project – a Raspberry Pi 4-based project that brings WinAMP to real life – that we covered a few weeks ago. DietPi 9.7 was released on August 25, 2024 with […]

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EDATEC ED-SBC2300 – A Raspberry Pi CM4-powered industrial Mini-ITX motherboard

The EDATEC ED-SBC2300 is an industrial mini-ITX motherboard built around the Raspberry Pi CM4. The motherboard offers various storage options including eMMC flash, microSD card, and mSATA SSD. It supports dual displays (HDMI + LVDS or HDMI + eDP with touchscreen), offers diverse connectivity with USB, GbE port, RS232, RS485, and GPIO, and boasts integrated security features like RTC, EEPROM, and crypto authentication. The board supports a wide 9V-36V DC power input and PoE is also an option through an add-on board. With its compact size, flexible I/O, and industrial-grade features, the ED-SBC2300 series suits applications like kiosks, digital signage, industrial automation, and IoT devices. Previously we have written about similar products from EDATEC including the RPI CM4-based industrial computer, the EDATEC ED-HMI2320-156C fanless panel PC, and the EDATEC ED-HMI2120-101C, also an industrial panel PC with an 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen. Feel free to check those out if you are interested […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Comparison of Raspberry Pi 5 with 2GB and 8GB RAM – Hardware, benchmarks, and power consumption

The Raspberry Pi 5 with 2GB RAM was launched last week, and since I got a sample for review, I decided to compare it to the Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM to see if I could find any noticeable differences between the two boards. I’ll start with a visual inspection to show differences on the PCBA, then check system information, run some benchmarks, check power consumption, and finally try to open as many tabs in Firefox until the 2GB RAM is filled and the system becomes unusable. Raspberry Pi 5 2GB vs Raspberry Pi 8GB – visual inspection We should first have a quick look at the boards and packages there’s no obvious difference apart from seeing 2GB RAM and 8GB RAM on the respective packages. But if we look closer, we can see the resistors for memory capacity detection are in different locations for “2G” and “8G”, and […]

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ODROID-M2 low-profile SBC features Rockchip RK3588S2 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR5, 128GB eMMC flash

Hardkernel has just launched the ODROID-M2 low-profile SBC based on a Rockchip RK3588S2 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 AI SoC with up to 16GB LPDDR5, 64GB eMMC flash, an M.2 PCIe socket, support for three displays through HDMI, USB-C, and MIPI DSI interfaces, gigabit Ethernet, and more. The ODROID-M2 follows the ODROID-M1 and ODROID-M1S single board computers based on respectively Rockchip RK3568 and RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processors, but a significantly more powerful Rockchip RK3588S2 processor, and a larger 90x90mm form factor to accomodate for extra features and interfaces. ODROID-M2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S2 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.3 GHz (+/- 0.1Ghz), 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU @ 1 GHz compatible with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 APIs VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder for H.265/AVS2/VP9/H.264/AV1 codecs, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder AI accelerator – 6 […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC