HiFive Premier P550: Powerful SiFive RISC-V Development Board

[@JeffGeerling]

Glad you've gotten time with this board. I would very much like to test one next year! It's great to see the Linux development for RISC-V over the past couple years.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Hi, Jeff! :)

[@OmarDoc1000]

Please put a GPU in this 😅

[@DrunkDelilahBrewery]

Hope you are well sir !

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Jeff! :) It's a nice board, and it's really nice to have up-to-date regular Ubuntu on a RISC-V board.

[@seguramlk]

Absolutely 🐧👍

[@EmmaTheDearest]

"This is the most powerful RISC-V hardware i've reviewed so far" is my favorite sentence to hear from your channel :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. And the great thing is, I will hopefully get to say it again in a future video!

[@PC4USE1]

I like the fact that Chris does not accept remuneration for any of his reviews. That doesn't mean that others are biased but it does ensure that his is NOT a biased review.

[@rdhunkins]

I most admire he has not submitted to putting out shorts. Those are the most useless things ever.

[@sbrazenor2]

It can still be biased. In order to keep a positive relationship with manufacturers, access itself is sometimes as important as compensation. (Not saying Chris is corrupted by this, but you see this kind of thing all the time in PC parts and audiophile channels.)

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

I'm afraid he has the bias of an enthusiast, as we all do

[@laurencefraser]

@@sbrazenor2 indeed, though it's still a step down in terms of bias from actually being paid to advertise the thing (in cash or product). If nothing else, it's the line between being a paid advertisement or not in many cases.

[@shawnvines2514]

Having creators that can be trusted is the greatest thing ever.

[@dougr.8653]

It’s always good to see new platforms in the market. Merry Christmas 🎄.

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Ah good old risc-v board i love them so much thanks for doing videos about them

[@ianhaylock7409]

8:47 I don't think I've ever seen the grub boot screen load so slowly. Reminds me of the old DEC VT100 terminals from the 90's.

[@ypat90]

What? A RISC-V SBC is an early Christmas for Chris! Merry Christmas to all the EC community and beyond.

[@wanyman]

Fabulous video. Being at the pioneering stage of RISC 5 is pretty exciting.

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@horseradishpower9947]

RISC-V is getting very exciting in terms of its development. I reckon in a couple of years, we will joke about whether a RISC-V board can play Crysis, while secretly hoping it can. This is going to shake things up, in a much needed way. Competition breeds innovation and creativity, which the computing world desperately needs. I am really excited for the day I can try one out as a desktop computer, because I reckon we are on that tipping point for usability. A little more time, and it will be feasible, by my reckoning.

[@LivingLinux]

The developer of Box64 (ptitSeb) has a Milk-V Pioneer (64-core RISC-V system) with AMD RX5500 GFX-card. The original Crysis should be no problem. I saw a video with a first test of the Witcher 3 on RISC-V.

[@jandrews377]

Could come faster than we are expecting. Let's see how ugly the 'Qualcomm vs ARM' legal saga gets. We could see the market pivot if ARM appears to be unreasonable and throws their weight around.

[@johncundiff7075]

WOW, nothing but faster RISC-V coming up, it truly will be exciting watching this platform fully blossom and mature!! Is this the way of all future computers?? Who knows!!! Great video Mr. Barnatt!!!

[@izzieb]

A full size PCI-E slot 👀? Perfect for a GPU, though I imagine there's no drivers. Perhaps a certain Jeff would he interested.

[@JeffGeerling]

Milk-V has already demonstrated some older AMD cards on RISC-V, so I'm hopeful for this board.

[@niceride]

RX550 / RX580 / RX590 are well-known to work

[@montecorbit8280]

I think it'd be a hoot to watch Chris opening Christmas presents!

[@legojenn]

It's Stanley the knife and Mr Scissors time to shine.

[@PeteVanDemark]

Pricey, partially complete, with promising performance improvements. I think I will continue to watch this pioneering, free, and open source architecture from a distance. Pioneers generally have an expensive, difficult journey.

[@SchoolforHackers]

It’s for developers.

[@PeteVanDemark]

@@SchoolforHackersOkay.

[@iandron7119]

Brilliant Chris, RISC-V and Egyptian geese in the same video. Have a great Christmas!

[@MeinDeutschkurs]

Dear Chris, thx for your endless efforts and patience! Love from Austria! Merry Christmas and receive some virtual hugs!! 🤗

[@ExplainingComputers]

Merry Christmas!

[@no-one3795]

RISC-V chips are getting more and more powerful as time went on. Now we just need better software support and RISC-V should be as capable as the x86 counterpart.

[@rj7250a]

Yep. This board have the first out of order CPU in risc-v space, wich is a hige step. Now just need to add vector instructions to match ARM.

[@blablamannetje]

I've got a Banana Pi F3 with Spacemit K1/M1, and Bianbu OS on it (based on Ubuntu) is perfect & complete.

[@rdhunkins]

It's good to watch your videos. I always get something, even if it's just keeping up the technology, and even newer terms. I never encountered SOM before, so I looked it up, and hopefully I've kept myself from falling further behind in computer tech knowledge.

[@Brinslade]

Great comparison. Merry Christmas

[@RoboNuggie]

Merry Christmas Chris 🎅 Hope Santa gives you what you wished for 🙂

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings my friend, and thanks for your support.

[@legojenn]

It is impressive at how quickly RISC-V is developing. I look forward to the day where software support approaches the level of x86, so we can open up a new front in the distro wars. Seriously though, I prefer Mint, so it would be nifty to install Mint on ARM/x86/RISC-V and abstract the interface to the hardware away so that hardware choices are down to the best fit. Thanks again for another review. While I use legacy x86 computers or Raspberry PIs for projects like my Pi Hole, file server, media centre or chicken coop streamer, it's good to have the back pocket idea to move uses away from power intensive devices that just idle a majority of the time to more efficient platforms.

[@SchoolforHackers]

Chicken coop streamer! Brilliant - I’m using this.

[@alanturner1184]

Interesting topic as always thank you Chris. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all

[@Geenimetsuri]

Merry Christmas Chris! Excellent job at keeping us up to date with the RISC V development. That board...just add functional GPU acceleration & a fast M2 connection, and I could see it as a living room comp. Especially if it had emulation capabilities.

[@squelchstuff]

This looks very promising indeed. The IO on the carrier seems like it has some odd omissions, but overall, the whole platform outlook is exciting. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Christopher.

[@d.barnette2687]

Greetings from across the pond near Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Merry Christmas to you and yours and all your super-groovy supporters. Dang, that's another max-groovy video -- well done, sir! I'm starting to get VERY excited about RISC-V as it seems to be progressing faster than expected. Keep going, SiFive -- we are all behind you! Still a ways to go before I personally jump in. As some have already mentioned, needs NVME slot, ZIF socket for processor, ability to upgrade RAM. Can CPU be overclocked? Great that it has DDR5 memory, and not DDR4 like many (not all) mini-PCs. Ethernet ports need to be increased to at least 2.5 Gbps. DSI and CSI ports need software support muy pronto. Looking forward to an SBC in the near future so I can cluster several of these together and do some more parallel computing with Computational Fluid Dynamics and OpenMPI. That would be groundbreaking in the domain of computational science. Heavens to Betsy, it's a great time to be into computer science!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Love your last sentence. I very much agree!

[@sbc_tinkerer]

Ooooo, RISC-V! Will need to watch this later after the family leaves. Blessed Sunday greetings all!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@alanthornton3530]

Thanks Chris for an interesting RISC-V video. I’m looking forward to seeing future developments & solid software support from SiFive, hopefully!

[@ChipGuy]

4:07: I wish you would have mentioned if the mounting hole distances of a Mini-DTX board are the same as those on Mini-ITX board. Anyway, Wikipedia tells that the board would fit.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, the mounting holes are identical to Mini-ITX. The board is just wider on the PCIe card slot side (so that it can have a second PCIe slot).

[@Colin_Ames]

Great video, as always. Merry Christmas 🎄

[@Jonathannew-cp7fj]

Very exciting and even had Duckies ❤can't wait for future products to come down in price and be more compatible it is all looking very promising... Happy Christmas Chris, keep up the excellent work!! ❤

[@eglintonflats]

I did not see any duckies although I have seen geese and goslings.

[@perrymcclusky4695]

Another impressive RISC-V board with impressive performance. Definitely exciting developmental hardware. I have Ubuntu running on a couple of my older laptops. The board that you’ve tested runs Ubuntu pretty well in comparison. Not bad at all. Looking forward to your next RISC-V video, whatever the content is! Nice to see your test rig in use. Hopefully, after you’ve used it several times, you’ll give us your thoughts on how well you like it.

[@cjh0751]

Getting a new computer is like Christmas morning. You can't wait to get into the wrapping to expose your new love. 💕

[@ExplainingComputers]

So true!

[@cjh0751]

@ExplainingComputers I'm so happy you feel the same. Wonderful videos Chris. I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[@jpmyers6950]

This time next year we'll probably have a RISC-V board that could be a daily driver. Great video Chris.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I agree.

[@Marceloalvesgodinho]

I am a programmer. I use VS Code, VS2022, Android Studio with Kotlin, and MongoDB as my database. Machines with regular SSDs don't last long with me because the programs I develop write heavily to the disk. When I switched to using ARM mini PCs with external hard drives solely for storing source code, I stopped having to replace SSDs every six months... haha!

[@SchoolforHackers]

Interesting!

[@Marceloalvesgodinho]

@@SchoolforHackers Yes, depending on the amount of writes to the disk, regular SSDs can fail quickly. Modern browsers are also heading in the same direction. However, to address this, you can simply move the browser cache to a traditional hard drive. In summary, sometimes it's worth sacrificing a bit of performance for financial savings.

[@marie-noellebaechler1433]

Thank you very much, this was fascinating

[@PS_Tube]

Greetings. Glad to have watched this video.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! Thanks for watching.

[@Remigrator]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn Bro 😱😱😱😃

[@Remigrator]

This merits a High-V 😏

[@Darkk6969]

It's great to see active development on the RISC-V platform. Software support is getting there. Still some ways to go but it's definitely an improvement over two years ago.

[@gregholloway2656]

Cool new board, Chris! When running your zip test, if you start the command line with “time” ($ time zip test.zip), Linux will time how long the command takes to run. Merry Christmas!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Very useful, thanks. I will remember this -- it will save me time!

[@rickharold7884]

Love alternatives!! So juicy!!!

[@SchoolforHackers]

Oh fun- a perfect board to try out on your 20x20 open rig.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Agreed! :)

[@darssmare915]

In future episodes, could you say more about who designed and who manufactured each SoC?

[@blablamannetje]

ESWIN EIC7700X SoC, made by ESWIN Computing, from Beijing, China.

[@YouT-DJ]

Very good - Would like to see the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super. Happy holidays.

[@alfredosalza6328]

Nice video champ! Love your channel!

[@Fl4ppers]

When you say development board, is this for coders and co the develop support for software, GPUs etc? Or for tech like musical keyboards, smart TVs etc?

[@SchoolforHackers]

Option A.

[@volvo09]

16GB of RAM on 2 chips, wow memory densities have increased quite a bit!

[@ExplainingComputers]

I find it staggering how much RAM is now packed into such a small space.

[@blablamannetje]

but why no SO-DIMM sockets? +100 USD for +16GB is quite a lot. SO-DIMM costs 25-30 euro per 16GB.

[@davocc2405]

I want to see you get your mitts on the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit - see if it can handle video recompression and also how it really does perform with smaller LLMs.

[@franrhymes]

Nice! No foam packaging!

[@vincei4252]

No M.2 on the board? I would have loved to have used this with an M.2 on the board and a development board in the PCI slot 😞

[@dant5464]

During the outro, there's a accidental optical illusion between your glasses and some of your hair which makes it look like the arms are vertical when you're looking straight down the camera :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Oh! :O

[@jeffreyjoshuarollin9554]

It’s funny, I was just thinking that whereas in the x86 space the processor options are comparatively limited (though at one point, many moons ago , there were apparently as many as seven different companies producing x86-compatible processors simultaneously), and even in the ARM market there aren’t all that many processor companies to choose from, there’s now a bewildering variety of RISC-V processors, and companies using them, to choose from. I suppose it gives an old Linux hand like me an insight into what it’s like for Linux newbies choosing a distribution, though in the case of both RISC-V and Linux the “bewildering variety” is the point, even though in the latter case it mostly seems to have happened “on accident” as they say across the pond. Still very happy with my Lichee Pi4A, though it would be nice if it ran KZbin, but glad more choice - and more powerful options - are now becoming available. Good review, too!

[@airjuri]

10:52 cat /proc/cpuinfo may show more info than lscpu ;)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks.

[@DrKnow65]

The M.2 adapter could be x2 (two lane PCIe), may want to check that before we are firm on the M.2 speeds.

[@ExplainingComputers]

The M.2 adapter is most certainly 4 lane -- I used it in this video on such adapters here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaXUkmRni7lkrqs

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

I imagine Chris has an evil twin brother building an army of micro-drones like the ones in Star Trek. Maybe I shouldn't associate with you. I didn't get old by being collateral damage.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

I always thought that Chris' theorical evil twin brother would be the kind of person who heats up water for tea in the microwave.

[@SchoolforHackers]

@@Praxibetel-Ix 😂😂😂

[@esra_erimez]

12:36 There they are!!! 🦆🦆🦆

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Duckies!!!!! 🦆❤

[@ExplainingComputers]

Hi Esra. :)

[@Jorge-ws2ze]

At last! Some piece of equipment you didn't have to pay for... I hope the "RISC-V people" recognizesthe effort you put in advocating for this ISA. Best rregards.

[@CocolinoFan]

This is so exciting! Can't wait to put a RISC-V CPU in my machine!

[@LockonKubi]

It might be worth noting that the SOM approach looks to be a first from these guys, casual browsing of their website shows the other/older offerings they have had everything soldered to the board. But assuming that SOM connector is as open as the rest of the spec that'll open some interesting opportunities down the line.

[@Pallidus_Rider]

I like the old school microphone and headset/speaker jack. I can dust off some older components and reuse them. 😅

[@opvolger]

I hope the PCI-e drivers are better than the Milk-V Jupiter is now a day. AMDGPU is crashing if you really use it (start Firefox for example). Maybe I will buy one in 2025

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

This is a powerful RISC-V board indeed. Very nice. :) Also, I bet it was great to not have to deal with the I/O shield for a change. And finally, yaaaaay, duckies!!! This is the best Christmas ever. 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

[@alanthornton3530]

Hi Ford no I/O shields were harmed or cursed at in the making of this video. And we got to see lots of duckies, nice! Only three sleeps to go!

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@alanthornton3530 Hi, Alan! Yup, no I/O shields getting called swines and lots of ducks to go around. And alas, one or two more sleeps until I start slaving in the kitchen. 🥹😆

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, I avoided the I/O shield challenge!

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@ExplainingComputers I bet that made things less stressful. :)

[@TheOleHermit]

Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho!

[@erlinglorentsen4262]

I must admit to some concern about soldered flash storage in general. Would the board work on a std. sata or pci drive if the soldered flash was shot?

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, you could use a SATA SSD, or an SSD in the PCIe card as I tested. We are (sadly) in a world of non-replaceable storage -- eg soldered eMMC in tablets and smartphones.

[@obr2021]

Thx! Great video! Just need to wait for the GPU and NPU support! ❤👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@terryashley4674]

Very good, Chris! 😃

[@FrancoisBothaZA]

Thank you for pronouncing Ubuntu correctly 🙏🏼

[@cobanzoso1472]

Love the Linux and Risc V content ❤. 2025 will be a great year for Risc V !!

[@RupertBruce]

Looking at the date, is that how long we have to wait for this to come to market? 😉

[@frostheave1960]

Hi Chris, I asked in a previous video if you could suggest camera and lens combos you use to get such great resolution and depth of field, especially in the overhead shots. If not, sorry for asking, I understand. Thanks so much for such informative videos!

[@archivalcopy]

very neat and strange board, but I guess that's what makes it a dev board. thanks for showing it to us!

[@desktorp]

I've installed Linux on some pretty low end machines in my day and I've never seen GRUB visibly draw on the screen like that.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Me neither!

[@korchevatel]

I wonder if it can work with an external GPU, considering it has a physical x16 slot.

[@ExplainingComputers]

It should be possible.

[@lawrenceallwright7041]

Christopher! Where's your Christmas shirt? Oh, apologies, my mistake. That IS your Christmas shirt.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Lawrence! :)

[@Justin-Case-2.0]

I don't believe your new password is 'set' as it clearly consists of more than three characters ;-) Merry xmas anyway :-)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Brilliant -- Merry Xmas!

[@trevorford8332]

It's a bit slow to boot up tho. Merry Christmas to you and your family, Chris.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Boot time is indeed slow. But once there, performance is pretty good.

[@flemtone]

Not being GPU accelerated and using Gnome will affect results as well, should try something lighter like openbox or IceWM which is only 2D for better performance.

[@abzhuofficial]

Q: What happens when RISCs are taken to ensure that breaking the ARM-x86 dichotomy is one step closer to reality? A: The RISC-V folks will be giving each other HiFives! I'll see myself out!

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@evilspoon6833]

15 Watt++ is quite a lot, in comparison my lenovo m75q idles at around 6-7W in mate desktop/mint. My other test machine a n100 idles at around 4W without gui. All measurements are taking from a wattmeter plugged in.

[@user-zn1db9fe5w]

Where is GPU decoder ???

[@sid_gm1949]

Merry Christmas and Happy New year in advance 🎈💐💐🎈❤❤🎉🎉🎉 Greetings on an exciting Sunday.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@inamulbhuyan]

wow ❤️ ❤️

[@sid_gm1949]

This video is going to my custom pc building guide 🎉

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@etjason1]

Chris Why don't they make single board computers with either a socket for laptop or desktop ram instead off buying the board with a fixed memory size?

[@joels7605]

Most powerful? I would not have expected a quad core machine to match boards based on the 8 core SpacemiT K1. Very interesting.

[@williamp6800]

Most powerful that he has used…

[@rj7250a]

The P550 have a out of order CPU, wich is way faster than the in order cores from the K1, even innthe same clock speed. It is like going from a Pentium (1993) to Pentium II (1996).

[@parrotraiser6541]

Not cheap, but at this stage, professional developers are obviously the less price conscious market. Part of the cost is likely due to the generous complement of interfaces, which allows for development research on all sorts of peripherals. The connectors are probably also responsible for the size of the board. For these boards, an interesting test statistic might be the time to compile a kernel, (with an x86 cross-compilation as a baseline). It would have to be a standard configuration, to eliminate complications from unusual code. (My neighbour in the comments list would probably concur.) :-)*

[@d.barnette2687]

Thanks!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support, most appreciated. :)

[@johnwright8814]

How come more faster cores is slower? What's the bottleneck?

[@ExplainingComputers]

Not all cores are the same -- so you can never judge CPU performance by core speed. The P550 cores here are more powerful than the X60 cores, even though the latter are clocked faster.

[@mlonster]

..how is this not sponsored content? Because it clearly is if they send you the goods. That doesn't detract though from the appreciation for the video.

[@GaryBeltz]

How much is not including the RTC battery saving these manufacturers on costs? The battery can't be that much. If they don't want to put it on the board then put it in a small bag or put it on the board and put one of those tabs under it to prevent it from draining during shipping and storage.

[@Plons0Nard]

It simply has to do with shipping and postal regulations

[@ExplainingComputers]

The paperwork and constraints for shipping anything with a battery are complex.

[@fredwupkensoppel8949]

I hope there's gonna be an affordable RISC-V board that supports ECC RAM soon - that would be my dream machine.

[@Remigrator]

We dream different things 😏😏

[@williamp6800]

This isn’t for end users yet.

[@radek_X]

HiFive Premier supposedly only works with power supplies from the recommended list. Can you confirm this? The price is prohibitive. The recommended power supply makes it even more expensive. You have to add tax and high shipping costs. And all this in exchange for the performance of ala cortex-a75 4 cores. Milk -V Megaz is cheaper...

[@ExplainingComputers]

I used a PSU from the recommended list (a Corsair CX550), just to be on the safe side in this review. But I find it very hard to believe that one of the five PSUs on the compatibility list has to be used: www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-premier-p550/psu-compatibility-list ATX PSUs are a very well trodden standard, so I would be staggered if any decent ATX PSU could not be used. Maybe the board is more sensitive than other motherboards to (eg) the precise voltage delivered on the 3.3 and 5V rails range on the 5V rail. But I doubt it. I've never before had to use a specific PSU with any board with an ATX power connector, other than ensuring it had an appropriate rating and connectivity. As I noted at the end of the video, we will see many boards with an ESWIN EIC7700X in 2025 . . .

[@scopestacker9787]

4 x 1,4 GHz powerful?

[@ExplainingComputers]

This is a powerful **RISC-V development board**. :)

[@centy64]

Can you install another distro on this? Does it have to be Ubuntu or will Kubuntu run? Is it difficult to install? For a testing it's probably fine but for personal purposes I would never use a preinstalled OS.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Theoretically, yes. But an image needs to be available, as I am sure they will be in time. There isn't a Kubuntu image for this board -- remember this is RISC-V hardware! :) Most computer purchasers use the pre-installed OS (eg Windows or MacOS). :)

[@haydarjohn]

I dont know why we cant use gpu for browser videos. Can somebody enlighten me ?

[@SchoolforHackers]

Lack of hardware acceleration support.

[@tedoyle61]

Love the review, love the video, what I don't like is the lack of a zif socket to replace the cpu. this is getting to be disappointing. That board has more than enough room for a zif socket and upgradeable ram. Let's see them address that.... Merry Christmas and Happy New YEAR!!!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. We do have the SoC, RAM and eMMC on a SoM, so this could be replaced (the same way that a Sipeed do with their RISC-V SoMs and carrier boards).

[@gamingharddriveretro5725]

Is it just me or time flies way WAY too fast these days? Already got 3 EC vids lined up I didn't watched yet!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Time indeed flies. I hope that you enjoy the videos!

[@sharonwolff1]

So with the same ISA, a 1.4 GHz cored cpu handily beats a 1.8 GHz one. What does clock frequency mean any more?

[@giornikitop5373]

it still means a lot, no matter how much better the cores are getting, they still need a higher clockspeed to be competitive. besides, a 1.4ghz newer core beating a 1.8ghz older one is not that impressive.

[@AdrianBoyko]

Did his battery die at the very end of this video?

[@inamulbhuyan]

risc v❤️❤️

[@DoctorOnkelap]

ah, the new open case gets a use!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Indeed! There was a plan.

[@bmqww223]

Can anyone explain why there aren't any big cores like we see in intel and amd x86 offers or the mainstream desktop cpu cores they offer?

[@blahblahblahblah2933]

It'd cost a huge amount of money to develop a 'desktop' class core and there's not enough demand for one.

[@Pippo.Langstrumpf]

I will try RISC-V on the RP2350