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Thread: Radxa: Pi's with rocks in

  1. #1
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    Radxa: Pi's with rocks in

    The title is a paraphrase of Sir Terry Pratchett's 'Music with rocks in' (Read: 'Soul Music'), but now applied to the SBC landscape. There is a real plethora of possible Pi's nowadays (e.g. Sinovoip's Banana Pi M5, Marcel Thuermer's Blueberry Pi, FriendlyElec's Nano Pi K2, Shenzhen Xunlong's Orange Pi 4B, The well-known Raspberry Pi 4B, Tantron's Roseapple Pi), and there are also SBC's with 'Rock' in their name (e.g. Pine64's ROCK64 and ROCKPro64)

    There is one company that manages to combine the two: Radxa, makers of the Rock Pi's -amongst others.
    Radxa first came on my radar when all of a sudden they were offering their Rock Pi 4, in three versions (A, B or C), three different amounts of RAM: 1, 2 or 4GB and five possible eMMC sizes, making for 3 x3 x5 = 45 versions. The SOC that is used by the Rock Pi 4 is a six-core Rockchip RK3399, that has two Cortex-A72 cores @1.8 GHz and four Cortex-A53's @1.4 GHz. The later (2021) Rock Pi 4+ has the 'OP1' version of the RK3399, offering two Cortex-A72 cores @2.0 GHz and four Cortex-A53's @1.5 GHz. Do not forget to buy the special heatsink for the Rock Pi 4, as the SOC is strategically placed at the underside of the board! And while you're at it: try to screw a 50mm fan unto that heatsink, or the board will screw you...

    And despite claims that it was 'much better and faster than the Raspberry' -ruthless marketeers often quoting it as 'an overclocked six-core Cortex-A72'- real-life experience often found boards equipped with the RK3399 (and not just only those of Radxa: Pine64?s RockPro64, FriendlyElec?s NanoPC-T4, and Khadas? Edge line, just to name a few) lacking in both software- and hardware support, if not in sheer performance. And just as fast as the Rock PI 4's were offered they were suddenly withdrawn by the sellers I frequented (Antratek, Botland, Conrad, Reichelt, etc.)....

    Searching where all those Rocks had suddenly gone also brought me to where they came from. They (amongst them a certain Tom Cubie of Cubieboard fame) had started in 2013 with a 'Rock' SBC board,

    featuring a quad-core Cortex-A9 RK3188 that can also be found in your older Frankendroid TV boxes. Their next board was the 2015 SOM-based 'Rock2'

    with a quad core Cortex-A17 RK3288. Logic now dictates that their next board would have 'Rock3' in it but it is not always very dependable, logic, so their next model was in fact the before mentioned 2018 Rock Pi 4, here with both under- and top side.

    followed in 2020 by the Rock Pi N10

    and in 2021 by the Rock Pi X -a x86 SBC.

    Their latest board is the Rock 3,

    without Pi, but with a quad-core Cortex-A55 RK3568 on the right side of the board, and that is the top side in this case. In an attempt to restore sanity in their numbering the model to be is the Rock 5, a real interesting octo-core with four Cortex-A76 and four Cortex-A55 cores.

    I eagerly await their competitors replies (e.g. Odroid-N3, Raspberry Pi 5, Banana Pi M6, ASUS TinkerBoard 3, Jetson Nano2, BeagleBone MAIL (MAIL=Machine Learning+AI))....

    Another product is their CM3, a compute module of the same form factor as the Raspberry Pi CM4 Compute Module, but with an extra row of connectors.
    Last edited by Dirk Broer; 02-22-2022 at 10:43 AM.


  2. #2
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    So far I have found one board that uses the RK3588, the Radxa Rock 5B. It is not easy to get one -just as you can hardly buy a new Raspberry Pi 4.
    There are three models (4, 8 and 16 GB) and you can pre-order them for $5 to get a $50 discount later at e.g. Ameridroid or Allnet. More information (such as the price) at Radxa themselves.

    One warning for the too early adapters: You may want to search for an OS too, to be able to use the board....
    The page with downloadable Android or Linux images features Debian 11 Bullseye and Ubuntu Server 20.04 now (June 7th, 2022)
    Android, Debian 11 Bullseye and Ubuntu Server 20.04 as of November 9 , 2022

    Jean-Luc Aufranc of CNX Software has just finished his ROCK 5B developer edition preview!
    TLDR: The design has changed a little bit with the HDMI IN connector moved to the front panel, MIPI DSI and CSI connected moved to the side edge of the PCB, and heatsink mounting holes dimensions changed to “north bridge” dimensions. Besides the micro HDMI input ports, the front panel comes with the power and recovery keys, and a color-coded 40-pin GPIO header. As one would expect, [the] Rockchip RK3588 should get pretty hot under load, so a 5V fan + heatsink has been fitted on top of the CPU.
    Last edited by Dirk Broer; 11-09-2022 at 09:52 AM.


  3. #3
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    You can now actually buy Radxa Rock 5B's, but be careful where you buy it/them:


    (click on the pictures to make them bigger)

    Compared to the earlier posting of a prototype board the actual production board looks slightly different, the CPU/SOC is moved to the side, as is the RAM.
    Some guy (Justin Pinkowsky) from a facebook group posted this as cooling solution:


    More on


  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dirk Broer View Post
    I eagerly await their competitors replies (e.g. Odroid-N3, Raspberry Pi 5, Banana Pi M6, ASUS TinkerBoard 3, Jetson Nano2, BeagleBone MAIL (MAIL=Machine Learning+AI))....
    Well...so far we've had the Banana Pi M6, BeagleBone AI-64 and the Jetson Orin Nano is seemingly just around the corner. The waiting is still for the next-gen Odroid, Raspberry and Tinkerboard....

    The Jetson Orin Nano seems to be the winner -but is still vaporware. The best boards -ATM- are the Radxa Rock 5B and the Orange Pi 5, both with a RK3588 octa-core.


  5. #5
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    Hardkernel seem to be slow in releasing fast / more powerful Odriods.

  6. #6
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    Their reaction so far is a light version of the Odroid-N2/N2+, the Odroid-N2L. And while very reasonably priced, its features leave to be desired (a.o. no LAN port, noisy cooler -from XU4 days!)
    I had hoped for an octa-core Amlogic A311D2 version of the N2/N2+ as Odroid-N3.
    They might also release a Rockchip RK3588 version of the Odroid-M1, as Odroid-M2, or an octa-core Samsung Exynos 850 equipped Odoid-XU5...

    They did not release their Rockchip RK3399 equipped Odroid-N1, because it did not meet their expectations -kudo's to them. They at least test before mass-release...as with the Odroid-C3
    Last edited by Dirk Broer; 12-20-2022 at 11:37 AM.


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