An other CPU discussion. Rockchip RK3399 sounds good

[Askarus]

I'm curious to hear your opinion about the Rockchip RK3399.
Rockchip now has open source SOCs and officially support Linux and support it.

There is a lot information here

The RK3399 will be in a lot of Single board computers like the Rockpro64, OrangePi 64 and Ordoid N1.

It's dualcore A72 and quadcore A53 and has nice peripherals.

The only drawback would be that it's A72 and not A73 or later, as the A73 is designed to be much more energy efficient.
However I expect that chip to use less power than the OMAP5.

I wonder whether it's possible for us to buy that SoC.
If so it sounds good to me because.

 

[TrashyMG]

Would need to dig deeper into it, but just on pictures of it I noticed the SoC appears a bit larger and encapsulated with a metal lid. I'm not entirely concerned about the width and length of it, but curious if the thickness would make it prohibitive with the removable CPU board design the Pyra has.

 

[levi]

Yes, the A72 supposedly gets a lot more done per clock tick than the A15, and even the A53 does for that matter, although all that is comparing 64-bit mode against the A15's 32-bit mode, so they may not be strictly comparable.

This thing runs Mali graphics I understand. I think that'll still need a binary blob in this day and age. I wonder what other binary blobs you'll need.

 

[Grench]

Would need to dig deeper into it, but just on pictures of it I noticed the SoC appears a bit larger and encapsulated with a metal lid. I'm not entirely concerned about the width and length of it, but curious if the thickness would make it prohibitive with the removable CPU board design the Pyra has.

That brings up an interesting point in these types of, "lets consider using X chip," discussions. What are the physical constraints of the Pyra's SoC daughter board?

Max physical dimensions in X,Y and Z axis?
Max current draw?
Max thermal output?

 

[NetBLOKS]

Well, the A72 is inside the Gemini (2x A72, 4x A53 fast and 4x A53 slow) I'm using and it runs really fast and battery runtimes are ok for android.
Most important is the open source aspect, we can't always get the newest stuff, open source and linux support is more important.

 

[EvilDragon]

Sure looks interesting. Thickness could be a bit of an issue, as the OMAP5 is 1,29mm thick whereas the Rockchip is between 1,41 and 1,61mm thick... that would mean we'd need a bit thinner PCB.

 

[Grench]

Well, the A72 is inside the Gemini (2x A72, 4x A53 fast and 4x A53 slow) I'm using and it runs really fast and battery runtimes are ok for android.
Most important is the open source aspect, we can't always get the newest stuff, open source and linux support is more important.

I looked a bit and couldn't fine it. Would you have a package dimensions for the Mediatek X27 in the Gemini? With Debian up and running (mostly) on the Gemini, a common code base might be useful?

 

[Askarus]

Can't we simply cut a hole into the Mainboard if we need to?

 

[levi]

Can't we simply cut a hole into the Mainboard if we need to?

I think so, IIRC on the mainboard there's just a copper square there designed presumably to interface the heat from the CPU to the ground plane, when that was the sole idea for cooling. But asking end users to dremel out a square from the mainboard without going through and destroying the keyboard doesn't sound like an easy user upgrade to me.

 

[Askarus]

Well, that was not a serious idea.
There's the Keyboard on the other side and I'm sure there are wires as well.

 

[Grench]

Can't we simply cut a hole into the Mainboard if we need to?

Or instead mount the SoC on the other side of the daughter board and cut a hole in the battery?

 

[gpsqueeek]

Or instead mount the SoC on the other side of the daughter board and cut a hole in the battery?

Or we could cut the hole in the keyboard and have the cooling system to through the screen while closed. We could even attach a fan for sweaty hands to this new protrusion...

 

[Caine]

Let's just drill a hole in the back of the case, run some wires out and tape the daughter-board to the lid.

 

[sebt3]

Since I have that chip at home I can tell you that I like it, nice and fast. it's not a compatible architecture with the pyra (arm64 vs armhf), but still nice.
The problem is it heat a lot under pressure. Probably more than the pyra (maybe I should test this )
So, there's no way we could side it to the bettery, and if it's too thick to fit between the mainboard and the daughter board, we're out of luck

 

[Askarus]

Since I have that chip at home I can tell you that I like it, nice and fast. it's not a compatible architecture with the pyra (arm64 vs armhf), but still nice.
The problem is it heat a lot under pressure. Probably more than the pyra (maybe I should test this )
So, there's no way we could side it to the bettery, and if it's too thick to fit between the mainboard and the daughter board, we're out of luck

What device do you have that uses the RK3399?
I plan to get the Odroid N1 when it comes out.

Do you think heat might be a problem?
According th EvilDragon the OMAP will overheat after some seconds under full load. If I remember correctly.

At least the A72 should produce less heat than the A72 AFAIK.
[doublepost=1528481351,1528481286][/doublepost]The size would be the problem then.
But our great engineers will find a way to fit it inside

 

[NetBLOKS]

Aaaaaaaaaah, the overheating stuff again.
Neither the A15 nor the A72 "overheat" espescially much, but both are in small, confined, not ventilated environments with only so much heat-energy to absorb.
In the same environment at 100% CPU load, the A15 will even last longer at full speed.
And no, it will not throttle after some seconds.
ED mentioned that it takes quite some time before the A15 throttles and that was without the copper heatsink.
Shure, it will not have done as much in the same time, but it will run longer, as it has the smaller heat footprint.
If the A72 is throttled down to A15 level, it will run longer.

 

[pyrat]

Since I have that chip at home I can tell you that I like it, nice and fast. it's not a compatible architecture with the pyra (arm64 vs armhf), but still nice.
The problem is it heat a lot under pressure. Probably more than the pyra (maybe I should test this )
So, there's no way we could side it to the bettery, and if it's too thick to fit between the mainboard and the daughter board, we're out of luck

What do you use for bootloader? I'm interested in RK3399 but I don't know much about it.
I've heard the bootloader needs BL1. Its source should be here
but there is at least this blob
. If this is only for HDCP then maybe one can live without it and just don't play DRMed content.

About MALI, yes, 3D accel is proprietary, but there's people working about a free driver (thanks Alyssa Rosenzwig) .
And for RK3399 SBCs, what about NanoPC T-4 ?

I wish I could buy it from an EU reseller.

 

[sebt3]

What device do you have that uses the RK3399?

A rock64 (which I bought a little before the pro version came out ...)

What do you use for bootloader? I'm interested in RK3399 but I don't know much about it.

The rock64 boot chain is :
- rkbin : https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/rkbin
- uboot : https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-u-boot
- linux

 

[pyrat]

The rock64 boot chain is :
- rkbin : https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/rkbin

Thank you. It seems I can't use that. I don't like the license, and I wouldn't know how to "DISTINUE[sic] USING THE SOFTWARE"

- uboot : https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-u-boot
- linux

these seem saner although they might contain blobs too.

Thanks again.

 

[comradekingu]

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ayufan-rock64/rkbin/master/LICENSE.TXT actual link

There are many jurisdictions where these things are legal, but it shows where their heads are.