ROCK 5B Debug Party Invitation

[hipboi]

Dear Radxa community and developers

After 4 months development and 4 major revisions of the hardware, I am happy to announce another milestone for ROCK 5B, we can finally ship the developer edition ROCK 5B.

The ROCK 5B now is hardware vision v1.3 with some notable changes since the announcement:

• HDMI IN connector now moves to the front panel, easier for enclosure design
• MIPI DSI and CSI moves to the side edge of the PCB
• Heatsink mounting holes changes to north bridge common used dimension

The other features remains the same since the announcement:

• One USB C port for power, 4K display and USB(we spent a lot time troubleshooting this with different monitors, portable displays and power adapters, it works most USB C source we have but we need more case reported from the developers)
• HDMI 8K + HDMI 4K, for those who have 8K TV can have a try, the resolution is amzazing, note only one port can be 8K, the other port will be 4K.
• 2.5G ethernet with RX/TX at ~2.32Gbps
• M.2 M key PCIe 3.0 x4 with read speed > 2700MB/s, super fast, if you need 4K encoding, you definitely need fast IO
• M.2 E key with WiFi 6/BT5.2 supports, the wifi card we recommend is RTL8852BE, with a performance and cost balance

We have contacted the Radxa developers privately and if you are a developer who had connection with us before will receive our invitation for the debug party. We have the package ready to ship. We encourage you play, hack with the ROCK 5B after you receive it and provides feedbacks or use cases report. Have fun!

[kangdei]

Congrats, can you tell me when it’s going to be released?

[kangdei]

老旧版本的对比

[spikerguy]

Mmmmm, tempting

Some more chips.

[stuartiannaylor]

Form factor is great, still not sure about mechanical switch than just plain old jumpers that give you choice of wired dupont switches.
Same with the fan connector as the RTC looks vertical also and for me preferential then all are the same way with MIPI DSI and CSI on ribbons that likely could loop over.
Same with HDMI in (riser cable) as maybe even vertical so everything can be wired to a single plane for everything even gpio but prob would be a criteria for more ‘industrial’ users.
I do love that Pico format and its great and not that I will use it that way but in a mini rack with everything on a single panel would be awesome, but not essential.

V1.3 already, guess you guys have been busy, so its looking like unless the dev party find fault or have major gripes if OK it could go for a full production run?

PS Hdmi USB C are they all just cables or are some adapters, as never used one?

Also that is not one of those cellotape push buttons is it just above the CPU? The gold colour same as hdmi in?

[bearpaw]

Hi @hipboi!
Will the cpu radiator mount hole interfere with the installation of an ssd drive?

[aghost]

Will the cpu radiator mount hole interfere with the installation of an ssd drive?

the height of ssd installed usually has at least 3mm

[bearpaw]

the height of ssd installed usually has at least 3mm

Did you mean to say that the heatsink mount won’t interfere with drive installation? I see that the heatsink mounting hole is under the drive mounting location and this causes concerns about the successful installation of the drive.

[aghost]

yeah. The height of the head of the general screw will not reach this value.

[dominik]

According to those pics most are getting 16GB version How many units will be shipped to developers?
More than those 9?
What is roadmap and what about that mysterious EU distributor?

[hipboi]

We have around 50 units that can be shipped to developers, assuming they all work well.

After July, you will get more info about the “mysterious EU distributor” by then they will end their contract with the other popular sbc.

[aghost]

daily reminder

[hmoraga]

Congrats! Good job with this new version. I has quite an impressive potential for the DIYers.

I’ve been quite impressed with the Radxa Zero, so I can’t wait to play with the Rock 5B Pi.

How can I sign up to become one of the Rock 5B Pi testers/developers?

Thanks,

[tkaiser]

Just a reminder: please consider Heiko Stübner, Peter Geis and Willy Tarreau if you’re up for quality feedback and software support…

[parthiban]

@hipboi Thanks for the exciting news. How do I sign up for a device for development testing? Thanks.

[Allen.Smithee]

Like you, I’m not sure that the Pi format is suitable for the RK3588 or the RK3399 anyway.
There are so many things that don’t make sense anymore that I cancelled my coupons.

Radxa before anything else do the thermal engineering, otherwise you will have a dev board that will only reduce the clock rate, and the anemic performance that goes with it.

Sadly, still no fan support with PWM. (when you have tasted this (Helios64 from Kobol) my ears can’t go back)

Wasting the one and only PCIe 3.0 x4 pipe of a SoC, in a Nvme termination is the evil of the century.

I wish you lots of good big debugging evenings, me it’s not really my thing.

[stuartiannaylor]

RK3588

RK3588 is PicoItx not Pi format, but agree about Pi format as it suck, really like the PicoItx and almost a single I/O backplane.
Someone at one point will start questioning the 40pin GPIO as higher density connectors rather than playing pin mux merry-go-round is another not so good Pi legacy.
Its a m.2 like most SBC boards what you use with it is up to you be it sata or whatever but many bios cards will not work not because of connector but due the need of dumb cards on a non bios arm based sbc so even if it was std pcie x4 many cards still would not work so its a bit pointless.
Hopefully the devs will get samples soon and start posting more info.
Thermal wise no-one has an idea yet as devs haven’t tested

[Allen.Smithee]

I don’t really have a problem with the M.2 interface my problem is the function it is given. fucking Nvme !

I read most people want to do amazing things and I really wish they could do it on this SoC,
but their desire will immediately solicit all the cores of the RK3588,
in 90 seconds the RK3588 will start to decrease at 408mhz.

the puerile questions of supplies if the card must be in 12V or 5V, with notions of electronics and soldering, with 25 dollars, make a box of supply 12v 3/5/10/15A and use the Step Up/Down Converters with LED voltage reading or not.

But the heat dissipation part if it is not taken into account from the design of the board, it’s problematic afterwards.

PWM management is not mandatory but highly recommended if the heatsink needs active ventilation.
external modules with probes exist but we forget the pocket size.

[stuartiannaylor]

Its not given a function its a M.2 and supports x4 pice via a m.2 you can put a sata card on it or any ‘dumb’ board that has kernel drivers.
Also I am pretty sure considering other RK3588 have approx similar cooling solutions it will be perfectly ok and one thing is for sure it will not ramp down to the lowest OPP table setting after 90 secs of all cores running.
Just because its a 2pin does not mean its not pwm the 3rd pin is tacho but if pwm or not or fixed speed its likely its been specced to work

[Allen.Smithee]

The tone is given but my frustrations should not pollute the experience or intentions of others.
Being no longer engaged, there is no need for me to intervene further on this forum.
I will be very happy to read your feedback from debugging evenings.
Have a nice day!