Introduce ROCK 5B - ARM Desktop level SBC

Considering that this is supposed to be a thread created for general discussion about a specific device, there is currently way too much discussion about wholly irrelevant things.

Now that the board is in the hands of some, I would have thought that more focussed discussion would be of far greater use to those who have been waiting for this to come along.

There is even a dedicated thread for those invited to the debug party to discuss the more technical areas that may perhaps be of less use to end users and more for the Radxa devs.

As part of the general use that these boards will get, I am surprised that we have not seen them sent out to the usual YT reviewers that will cover video, gaming and things that are likely to be of greater interest to the masses.

In addition, as well as debug testing and the like, Radxa should consider sending some out to average users to put through it’s paces and receive more basic and generic feedback from those that are likely to be the key consumer purchasers (those who have likely bought the P4 and are looking for the next thing to upgrade to).

Key prospective marketing opportunities are being missed by Radxa.

We already have some idea of what the RK3588 boards can potentially achieve from video posts from users of competing products and although the Rock 5 is behind the curve, its prospective price could be compelling enough for people to hold on to their cash for a while longer.

But the longer the wait, without some real world, more mass use demonstration can lead to money being spent elsewhere.

Have a dual party invite. One for the high level techies and one for the average users who are going to be the ones to gush over the product and more likely promote its potential purchase.

1 Like

These are Dev boards pre-release engineering samples with testers doing what testers do.
It would be a big mistake to release to the usual YTer’s until the testers and fixes and final production version is released.
It was just a small batch that Radxa forward to certain knowns who will test with various configs that might not be considered your average user.
Open testing of opensource hardware in an open conversation is just a positive as shut doors often blind to oversights.

2 Likes

I had read this a few weeks ago, I think it sums up the situation well.

1 Like

Actually, why do we bother with the “intrinsics” of the process nodes? It is far more complicated than what we could read in Wiki, as most of the details are trade secret for sure, especially the cutting edge ones. I remember that back in the days (like in late 90s and early 00s) when the process nodes naming really means something, they were something like 130nm and 90nm. After that, the transistor “form” changed, say from “traditional” MOSFET to FINFET to GAA nowadays. The naming then no longer really referring to the transistor size, and if we read “carefully” the foundries would say “7nm class process” instead of “7nm process”. In addition, we also have the substrate to consider, like SOI (lower leakage) and GaAs (higher switching frequency) that would also affects transistor characteristics. And lately we also have GaN that’s used in power supples (I have a few PD ones already), which should have good “heat parameters”. There is no “single” parameter that would dominate the performance of a design. Oh, and let’s not talk about the differences between analog and digital circuit…

I really hate my BJT classes back in college :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

We shouldn’t as usage stats and benchmarks give us end stats.
But yeah even the shape as the nodes is not representative of gate length and such which are all 2d measurements whilst a lot of innovation is with 3d shape such as troughs or fins as in FinFet.
We have this strangely prearranged ITRS roadmap that you can expect the next gen to be more efficient or powerful.

Sorry if I may have missed this but we are in Q3, can the Rock 5B be ordered and redeem the $50 coupon? I got mine from allnet but it doesn’t seen to be in stock there.

In June, didn’t you already pay attention to this product?

They didn’t give any firm dates

expected Q2, 2022

Currently @ revision v1.4 and guess it will be as long as it takes.

July is soon first month of Q3, and ending !

Is there some videos showing real testing on these boards, showing real Debian in duty ?

They often get posted in the more social chat bias discord channel

No I mean I have a $50 off coupon for allnetchina I got this back in May 2022.

The promise was that you could order in Q2 2022 and we are now past that…

https://shop.allnetchina.cn/products/rock5-model-b has “sold out” as it has never been released yet…

so my question is has it been released as promised or not? I never got any email from allnetchina telling me I can now redeem my $50 off coupon

1 Like

There is written

expected Q2

Expected, not promised

1 Like

If my assumption isn’t wrong, you will get another email from AllNet regarding your order when it is ready for delivery, and there the total price will reflect the discount.

@thelinuxguy - Yes I totally get you’re perspective. Don’t expect any answers on this thread because no one has any definitive information. All the Devs are “busy” with their development boards and have been for approximately a month now. One developer posted his findings so far and from what he showed Rock5b is nowhere near ready for general public. I also felt duped because I purchased my 5 dollar discount back in late April expecting the fabled(kidding, kind of) Rock5b to be in my hands in late June because that is what I read and believed. Now I understand that the Q2 2022 release was for software devs not us regular folk.

@Compent- Facts! I feel very similar. The software devs on this thread won’t or can’t appreciate your perspective. Only about 5 to 10 percent of technology users actually care about what how or why something works only that it does what that user wants which is usually something non technical. Media viewing, sending receiving messages emails notifications, playing some sort of video game these are the things that 90 percent of the folks who purchase these devices will do with them. Technical mumbo jumbo is kinda cool to me but honestly I just want an upgrade to my two boards Rpi4 and Khadas vim3 respectively. Rock5b is an absolute game changer in comparison to these two boards.

Care to share the link?

3 Likes

My favorite software dev lol. Hello . CNX embedded software news. Rock5b developer edition preview.

So you’re talking about this.

Having in mind that @CNXSoft most probably received a slightly defective board what makes you feel Rock 5B would be ‘nowhere near ready for general public’?

Jean-Luc showed that a 5V/3A charger isn’t enough with NVMe SSD and peripherals (as expected and USB PD situation needing improvements anyway).

And missing GPU/VPU acceleration is also quite common with new SBC originating from the ‘Android e-waste’ world where sometimes SoC manufacturers only license Android libs for GPU and totally forget about Linux (not the case here and Rockchip seems a bit more commited to Linux than other SoC makers).

Thank you. “Most probably “ isn’t definitive my guy. Supposition and or conjecture. I can only go by info available. I haven’t spent my monies on another available sbc so I’m definitely waiting (not patiently lol) for Radxa because it’s just better than fireflys or khadas recent contributions in my opinion. Price point is quite appealing. I haven’t seen any other devs post anything recent about the Rock5b so why don’t you do it, assuming your dev board isn’t faulty or whatever?

Erm, what exactly are you looking for?

GPU&VPU is not yet available - it will be at least (i would expect more) 1-3 months before panfrost will advance

Cpu benchmark? There quate a few at the beginning of thread

Whole sbc stability? Hello, it’s dev party, the whole point is find them and, maybe, workaround.

Storage benchmark? There is a few pages up

Memory benchmark? Same