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Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

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Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#21

Post by sylware »

dlcarrier wrote: post #20
sylware wrote: post #16

This hardware is very interesting (RISC-V). Is the hardware open and simple enough I can reasonably run a custom assembly written mini-kernel?

The StarFive JH7110 should be fine for that, but there's some lower-power hardware that's even better for your use case. The Bouffalo Labs BL808 and Sophgo SG2000 series are both asymmetric multiprocessor SoCs that allow you to run a full OS, such as Linux, on one core, and run bare metal on the other. Unlike symmetric multiprocessing, you aren't just running a premptable thread on a spare core, but you get full cont…

If I remember well I did dodge the BL808 as it seems to be very difficult to have a clean RISC-V 64bits kernel to run since the real core is a RISC-V 32bit MCU. It seems to be the same thing with the SG2000.

I may go first with some code extraction and customization from linux, before probably ending with a lot of "hand compiled" linux code.

And yes, lower-power for the moment, since I would first use that for self-hosting.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#22

Post by kcb »

dlcarrier wrote: post #18
Bosinski wrote: post #2

I can not find infos about the Vector-extensions ? Is this cpu/board suitable to test the RISC-V Vector extensions ? thx for any insights..

It has a JH7110 onboard. From what I can tell, all of the vector processing is in dedicated hardware subsystems, not individual vector instructions. We're still very early in the RISC V ecosystem, so most of the processors in production pre-date current standardizations, which requires applications to target specific silicon. To add insult to injury, those individual processors are relatively new, so the dedicated im…

This is not JH7110 based.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#23

Post by ThatPlayer »

rcarmo wrote: post #19
UK-AL wrote: post #14

Will this run off the mainline kernel? Or will require strange patches from somewhere? Half the problem with orange pi is lack of main Linux distribution support.

All my (ARM) Orange Pi boards run Armbian just fine. This one, of course, is unlikely to, but I'm curious to see what it ships with.

I know Armbian for the Orange Pi 4 had broken video out for at least a year: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/26818-opi-4-lts-no-hdmi-outp...

Haven't tried it on mine recently so no clue if it's better now.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#24

Post by dlcarrier »

sylware wrote: post #21
dlcarrier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The StarFive JH7110 should be fine for that, but there's some lower-power hardware that's even better for your use case. The Bouffalo Labs BL808 and Sophgo SG2000 series are both asymmetric multiprocessor SoCs that allow you to run a full OS, such as Linux, on one core, and run bare metal on the other. Unlike symmetric multiprocessing, you aren't just running a premptable thread on a spare core, but you get full cont…

If I remember well I did dodge the BL808 as it seems to be very difficult to have a clean RISC-V 64bits kernel to run since the real core is a RISC-V 32bit MCU. It seems to be the same thing with the SG2000. I may go first with some code extraction and customization from linux, before probably ending with a lot of "hand compiled" linux code. And yes, lower-power for the moment, since I would first use that for self-h…

The BL808 does use a 32-bit core for the secondary core, but the SG2000 series uses the same 64-bit C906 core for both RISC-V cores. The only difference is the reduced clock speed and a lack of vector extensions.

Here's an English datasheet for the SG2000 series: https://github.com/sophgo/sophgo-doc/releases/download/sg200...

…and for the C906 core itself: https://occ-intl-prod.oss-ap-southeast-1.aliyuncs.com/resour...

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#25

Post by sylware »

dlcarrier wrote: post #24
sylware wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember well I did dodge the BL808 as it seems to be very difficult to have a clean RISC-V 64bits kernel to run since the real core is a RISC-V 32bit MCU. It seems to be the same thing with the SG2000. I may go first with some code extraction and customization from linux, before probably ending with a lot of "hand compiled" linux code. And yes, lower-power for the moment, since I would first use that for self-h…

The BL808 does use a 32-bit core for the secondary core, but the SG2000 series uses the same 64-bit C906 core for both RISC-V cores. The only difference is the reduced clock speed and a lack of vector extensions. Here's an English datasheet for the SG2000 series: https://github.com/sophgo/sophgo-doc/releases/download/sg200... …and for the C906 core itself: https://occ-intl-prod.oss-ap-southeast-1.aliyuncs.com/resour.…

Indeed, it seems there is something about the SG2000, maybe I should have a look at the various boards with it. I don't really mind about the vector extensions right now as I do code RISC-V core only assembly (not even compressed) with near 0 pre-processing (as it should be for all system software, and yes that includes the kernel).

EDIT ---

It seems the SG200X includes an ARM block and this is a definitive nono for me. I want to buy a SOC free from ARM royalties. I tolerate HDMI/mpeg royalties though.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#26

Post by brucehoult »

sylware wrote: post #25
dlcarrier wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BL808 does use a 32-bit core for the secondary core, but the SG2000 series uses the same 64-bit C906 core for both RISC-V cores. The only difference is the reduced clock speed and a lack of vector extensions. Here's an English datasheet for the SG2000 series: https://github.com/sophgo/sophgo-doc/releases/download/sg200... …and for the C906 core itself: https://occ-intl-prod.oss-ap-southeast-1.aliyuncs.com/resour.…

Indeed, it seems there is something about the SG2000, maybe I should have a look at the various boards with it. I don't really mind about the vector extensions right now as I do code RISC-V core only assembly (not even compressed) with near 0 pre-processing (as it should be for all system software, and yes that includes the kernel). EDIT --- It seems the SG200X includes an ARM block and this is a definitive nono for…

The CV1800B on the original 64 MB Milk-V Duo does not have an Arm core. It is otherwise very similar to the 256 MB and 512 MB SG2000 chips (Sophgo bought CVITECH, so the CV -> SG is just a rename)

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#27

Post by sylware »

brucehoult wrote: post #26
sylware wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it seems there is something about the SG2000, maybe I should have a look at the various boards with it. I don't really mind about the vector extensions right now as I do code RISC-V core only assembly (not even compressed) with near 0 pre-processing (as it should be for all system software, and yes that includes the kernel). EDIT --- It seems the SG200X includes an ARM block and this is a definitive nono for…

The CV1800B on the original 64 MB Milk-V Duo does not have an Arm core. It is otherwise very similar to the 256 MB and 512 MB SG2000 chips (Sophgo bought CVITECH, so the CV -> SG is just a rename)

Well, we can all expect sophgo will refrain putting ARM cores in their SOC in the future :( (... and I would not mind displayport instead of hdmi and av1/opus codec block instead of a mpeg one neither... 0 royalties...)

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#28

Post by brucehoult »

homarp wrote: post #7

https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/03/08/orange-pi-rv2-low-co... has more info SoC – Ky X1 CPU – 8-core 64-bit RISC-V processor GPU – Not mentioned VPU – Not mentioned AI Accelerator – 2 TOPS

The most annoying thing here is the complete lack of information on caches.

If it's the same as K1/M1 then ok, 512 MB L2 per 4 core cluster is simply inadequate for a normal Linux workstation workload.

I don't know where they (or SpacemiT) get the "30% faster than A55" claim because I certainly haven't seen any such thing. On some micro benchmarks such as my own primes one the K1 comes in at slightly more clock cycles than the U74 in JH7110, but pulls slightly ahead on high clock speed. Both are right around A55 performance, and 30% faster than A53.

On real-world tasks such as building software (e.g. Linux kernel, gcc) all 8 cores on a K1 working together come in slightly slower than the 4 cores on the JH7110 -- not much in it, call it the same. If you use `-j4` then it's miles slower.

I'm pretty sure that's down to the smaller caches. Or possibly TLB misses. U74 has 40-entry L1 Data and Instruction TLBs, and a direct-mapped 512-entry L2 TLB -- bigger than A53, smaller than A55. I haven't seen any information on the X60 core's TLB structure.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#29

Post by pabs3 »

rcarmo wrote: post #19
UK-AL wrote: post #14

Will this run off the mainline kernel? Or will require strange patches from somewhere? Half the problem with orange pi is lack of main Linux distribution support.

All my (ARM) Orange Pi boards run Armbian just fine. This one, of course, is unlikely to, but I'm curious to see what it ships with.

Armbian adds all sorts of non-mainline Linux kernels and other stuff in order to achieve the hardware support it does have. Other more standard distros like Debian or Fedora don't do this.

Re: Orange Pi RV2 is a single-board PC with an 8-core RISC-V processor

#30

Post by rcarmo »

pabs3 wrote: post #29
rcarmo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my (ARM) Orange Pi boards run Armbian just fine. This one, of course, is unlikely to, but I'm curious to see what it ships with.

Armbian adds all sorts of non-mainline Linux kernels and other stuff in order to achieve the hardware support it does have. Other more standard distros like Debian or Fedora don't do this.

Well, do you want things to work or are you willing to wait years until things are mainlined?
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