Linaro has revealed a new ARM-based single board computer.
The HiKey 960, developed in partnership with 96Boards, provides the individual 4 ARM Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.4GHz, 4 ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, a Mali GPU (ugh), 32GB of Flash storage, 3GB of LPDDR4, HDMI 1.2, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB 3.0 type A, PCIe on an M.2 connector, as well as a familiar 40-pin GPIO connector whose configuration is not published yet however is one we can make a extremely informed assumption about. This is a powerful ARM-based single-board computer that’s the exact same size as a credit score card.
This single board computer draws a lot more power than a Raspberry Pi (but less than 24 W with a 12V supply), however that’s what you get when you requirement a powerful ARM chip. Interestingly, the HiKey 960 locations all the connectors on one side of the board. This is a function extremely commonly overlooked in ARM-based single board computers; all the ports on your desktop are on the back, as well as it only makes sense to constrain the cords as well as dongles to one side of a Nintendo-shaped 3D printed enclosure.
This is not the very first ARM-based single board computer that markets itself as a a lot more powerful Pi. The Pine64 was meant to be substantially a lot more powerful, manage 4K HDMI, as well as bring Android to the desktop. The very first versions of the Pine64 really, truly sucked. However, a lot of of the kinks have been worked out as well as the people behind the Pine64 are now shipping a somewhat affordable low-end Chromebookesque laptop for $89. This is a laptop for under a Benjamin, whereas the HiKey 960 will offer for $239. That’s the exact same cost as an Intel NUC or other tiny PC running an x86 CPU. Of course, the HiKey 960 will have higher performance compared to the current Pi, or other Pi killer such as the Asus Tinker board, however there need to be a point of diminishing returns. Either way, we look ahead to getting our hands on one of these powerful single board computers.