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Funny how 20 chrome tabs is being compared to 4K video playback.
I don’t know if it’s still the case but kernel support and related was nearly always an issue when I tested Raspi alternatives for building homebrew robots. OS updates were a gamble and support and documentation was not good to say the least. Raspi also has every HAT you can imagine to extend their capabilities too.
Best way for pi alternatives I've found is to see which one is the most popular for the project / community I'm working with.
It isn't always the latest and greatest but at least there will be plenty of support.
It's not a rival. It is in a different sector. And it will rise or fall with the availability of software and support.
As many have pointed out, price wise it's not competitive. But more than that, the main feature of the Pi is its software support. I buy a Pi not because it's got the top specs but because I know I can load a rock solid OS with security support and I won't have to think about it. This is a problem for every Pi competitor.
I think most of us moved on to x86 by now.
Price of ARM chips has gone up. Price of x86 has come down. x86 comes with a small energy penalty for a huge boost in speed. Also just a more versatile architecture, since most servers run x86.
Don't forget also the app support, a lot more apps support x86, than ARM.
That's what I was referring to about versatility
ARM boards are just a pain to use right now. There's always some stupid quirk or driver problem and that's if you even manage to find an up to date image for your chosen OS that works (because I can just about guarantee the 'generic ARM' one won't). Feels like every few months someone announces something that'll make all these problems go away yet here we are.
It does seem more likely to not have dumb problems when you have a sane x86 bootloader.
I love ARM so much compared to x86, but speaking from a low-cost consumer server perspective, x86 is a great value, and it comes with a no compromises on software compatibility.
That's the biggest thing. apt install xyz works on my N100 based box every time I expect it will, but it was always a crapshoot on a Pi. If you don't need GPIO you don't need a Pi.
I find it interesting, manufacturers of laptops and maybe even desktops, are looking to switch to arm after decades of x86.
And home servers, which have run on arm for years, are now switching to x86
What is the difference between x86 and X86?
Autocorrect 😛
The fact that X86 came after a full stop so his phone auto capitalised it.
I see I got confused as he capitalized the X in the middle of the first sentence as well and thought I had missed something
Didn't even see that one. Probably just a missclick.
That is probably it, I just wanted to check if there was something new happening
Could you install older windows systems on a single board x86? Like maybe xp? Or windows 7?
Why would you want to?
Because I don't like Windows 10, and Windows 11 seems like a privacy nightmare.
And Windows XP and 7 are a security nightmare without any support.
Not too long until Windows 10 joins the list and that’s gonna be a real nightmare because there are so many PCs still running Windows 10 that run perfectly fine but aren’t "capable" or running Windows 11. People won’t just throw away their PCs and they can’t upgrade to 11. Sure, some will try Linux but too many won’t and they’ll be easy targets.
My main PC is Windows 7. About 10 years ago I remember I had to do something with the firewall. I remember turning it off. I legit do not remember if I turned it back on.
I really hope you’re joking because that’s a security nightmare.
You can get a Ryzen minipc for under $200 now.
Where at? Not finding any that low on Amazon
For this price, just get an Intel NUC (one with like an i5 or better). They're cheaper than this is on ebay.
They might not have 32GB of memory, but I'm honestly not sure why you'd need that much for a small PC like this.
I googled a cheap Intel NUC and saw power consumption numbers of 15w to 40w. Thats quite a bit of juice (and heat) for small applications.
Perhaps the newer models consume that much (under load), but the older ones are very power efficient - back in the day they ran Windows 8 and only consumed 4.6W @ idle (this is actually the same one I have, except I run HA on it which is probably much more power efficient than Windows 8 would be).
Realistically, for something like this, you probably don't want to exclusively use the full load numbers to calculate power consumption, rather you want to use the idle+load numbers for your specific use case. Home Assistant barely uses any power even over time (I unfortunately misplaced my kill-a-watt or I'd measure it for you), and the NUC barely feels warm.
Nonetheless, you can disable a bunch of the GPU stuff in the BIOS if you're concerned about power consumption. The article I linked above explains the settings a bit. These were meant to be the middle ground between a thin client and full PC, so it wouldn't be surprising if their maximum wattage & TDP was much higher than a Pi; but that doesn't necessarily mean a higher power bill or more heat.
Lastly, I mostly meant that this would be a good alternative to the device in the article, which would need a beefier power supply than the NUC. This shop listing says that its TDP is 60W, so just looking at raw numbers the NUC runs much cooler.
Running multiple virtual machines might be one use for all that RAM. I completely agree about going with a NUC (or similar x86-64) unless power consumption is a concern. I stopped buying SBCs once Intel platforms started competing on the low end.
There's other RK3588 boards in the $60-$70 range (notably Orange Pi 5). What makes this one different?
How much is it?
Some one on the comment section said that
"There's no innovation here; it uses a Rockchip processor, which is from a Chinese company. Assembling a board with Chinese components isn't a big deal. I know people who could make an even better board. Innovation would have been if the processor was designed by an Indian company and made entirely in India. But that's not the case."
Lol, changing the country of origin doesn't constitute innovation from a consumer standpoint...
Now if this was using 5nm or chiplit or any of the other buzzwords of the day it could be marketed as innovative in the modern sense of the word.
Realistically there is no innovation left for ARM platforms. They all use the same core schematics. They only control data flow and peripheral IP as a manufacturer, unless they feel like building their own core from the spec (nobody really does that anymore as ARM has been desperately trying to standardize everything). The most "innovation" I've seen has come from stubbornness around keeping legacy bus architecture around instead of adopting AXI (even when all the IP they are trying to use already uses AXI and they keep having to make translation hardware).
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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