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Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

cnx-software.com

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Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#41

Post by thebrid »

ilikeorangutans wrote: post #13
api wrote: post #2

There's quite a few third party boards that are far better than the Raspberry Pi 4. I found the Rpi4 quite disappointing, especially the half-supported GPU and the lack of AES/crypto extensions in the ARM64 chip. Only ARM64 chip I've ever seen that lacks those.

What boards would you consider "better" and for what reasons (gpu and crypto extensions, or are there other factors)? I run a few raspberry pis and always looking for new/better toys.

The Raspberry Pi optimises more for lower cost. For not that much more you can get something like the Odroid N2+ which has 6 cores total, 4 Cortex A73 cores @ 2.4 GHz for performance and 2 A55 cores @ 2 GHz for efficiency.

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-4gbyte-ram-2/

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#43

Post by CameronNemo »

captainmuon wrote: post #31
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry more about the price of a 10 inch e-ink panel.

Don't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)

Kobo's Clara HD is 99$, runs post market OS, has a small 1GHz core and 512 MB of RAM.

Great low end option IMO.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#44

Post by ac29 »

qchris wrote: post #17
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #4

How does the onboard battery charging IC work? Can I hook up a 3s li-ion battery and charge it via the 12v power input? Does the battery kick on if the main PSU is interrupted?

I think that this could be an underlooked, but absolutely killer feature for this board. Built-in support for high-capacity li-ion batteries that automatically kick-in for a battery backup would be awesome for homemade NAS set-ups, not to mention a whole host of robotics-y or home automation projects.

I dont see how a battery attached to the board would do much good for powering your drives in a NAS situation - they'd still need their own UPS.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#45

Post by ac29 »

StillBored wrote: post #38
api wrote: post #2

There's quite a few third party boards that are far better than the Raspberry Pi 4. I found the Rpi4 quite disappointing, especially the half-supported GPU and the lack of AES/crypto extensions in the ARM64 chip. Only ARM64 chip I've ever seen that lacks those.

While this board has a nice selection of features, its likely the pi4 is faster in any number of workloads due to the use of the A72s. A55's are still in the small/energy efficient category (the article notes they are slower than the existing rk3399). Which is fine if your doing traditional micro-controller functions. But the problem with these boards is they end up being application specific rather than general purp…

A quad-A55 is a surprisingly performant board - not a desktop replacement, but certainly more than a fancy microcontroller. Keep in mind this SoC is also clocked 20% faster than the RPi4. Not enough to make it faster overall, but enough to substantially close the gap.

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#46

Post by ac29 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #30
api wrote: post #2

There's quite a few third party boards that are far better than the Raspberry Pi 4. I found the Rpi4 quite disappointing, especially the half-supported GPU and the lack of AES/crypto extensions in the ARM64 chip. Only ARM64 chip I've ever seen that lacks those.

I'm unaware of ARM SBCs that have as much support from their vendors as the Raspberry Pi models do, though.

Pine64 is a probably a pretty close second. For example, many of their boards are supported by upstream Debian [0], which isnt true for the RasPi devices.

[0] https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-c...

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#47

Post by eqvinox »

CameronNemo wrote: post #26
ilikeorangutans wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What boards would you consider "better" and for what reasons (gpu and crypto extensions, or are there other factors)? I run a few raspberry pis and always looking for new/better toys.

I like rk3399 boards, unless you need deep suspend or video out through the USB type c port.

The only thing really atrocious on the RK3399 is the internal bus matrix. It's a legacy 32-bit crossconnect, i.e. physical address space is only 4GB.

Among other things, this means the PCIe aperture is squeezed down to a very measly 2×16MB — which is not even remotely enough for a lot of PCIe cards.

Also, if you install 4GB RAM, you only get to use something like 3.5G.

Oh and if I remember correctly, PCI MSI are broken, which again limits the PCIe card selection even more...

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#48

Post by eqvinox »

qchris wrote: post #17
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #4

How does the onboard battery charging IC work? Can I hook up a 3s li-ion battery and charge it via the 12v power input? Does the battery kick on if the main PSU is interrupted?

I think that this could be an underlooked, but absolutely killer feature for this board. Built-in support for high-capacity li-ion batteries that automatically kick-in for a battery backup would be awesome for homemade NAS set-ups, not to mention a whole host of robotics-y or home automation projects.

A killer feature that can be replaced by a 6€ external module? https://www.ebay.com/itm/402641596500

(you can get crappier ones for 2€... this one has a charge controller [MCP73833] from a recognizable brand [Microchip] with datasheets available)

Re: Pine64 Unveils Quartz64 SBC

#49

Post by bityard »

Funes- wrote: post #8
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The target market for the Raspberry Pi foundation is education. They get cheap boards into the hands of people everywhere and provide plenty of documentation to get them started. Raspberry Pi has the biggest community, and therefore it’s the best choice for anyone looking to get started. If you’re the type of person who needs very specific features like AES acceleration, then you don’t want to invest in a board aimed…

In my opinion, Raspberry Pi's main problem has to do with using SD cards, which are prone to errors and corruption. It's a kind of media storage that works best if it operates more statically--for instance, you read some photos on your camera, remove a few, take some new ones... and that's it for the day. They are not intended to undergo a large number of read/write cycles on a regular basis, and that's what the Rasp…

I read this same comment in every single HN post even tangentially related to the Pi. As others have pointed out, the Pi can run just fine off of USB and the newer ones support it out of the box. I ran my version 1 256MB Raspberry Pi for off an external USB drive. I only had to _boot_ from the SD card.

There have also been, for a long time now, SD cards with much better durability than the cheapest ones you can buy on Amazon. I personally look for ones labeled "high-endurance" or for use with dashcams because those are much closer to a proper SSD in terms of wear cycles.

I wish the RPi foundation would make it clearer in their documentation and blog posts you're going to have a bad time if you use a generic SD card as if it was a general-purpose hard drive.

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