Rock 3A: Dual M.2 ARM SBC with eMMC socket

[@JeffGeerling]

I loved Mr. Scissors' early action in this episode. Also all the PCI Express hardware goodness! Wish the software for Radxa's boards were a bit more refined though :(

[@ExplainingComputers]

Hi Jeff. I did wonder what you would connect to this board! :)

[@DrorF]

Too early, it seems. Looks like a resealable bag to me (1:36). BTW, hi jeff 👋😉. I like your channel.

[@Amorousstake4]

Hey Jeff, in your experiment of building a server with raspberry pi cm4s if you instead used usbs to do all storage it would have been faster as usbs have higher bandwidth than a pci gen 2x1 slot.

[@microlinux]

@@Amorousstake4 The rpi cm4 usb interfaces use that same pci 2.0 x1 interface

[@microlinux]

This soc it's new. It's expected to be not mature on mainline, for mature I/O stuff on mainline you choose rk3399. Anyway, 99% of the videos from EC are on legacy kernel, no idea why exactly. It performs worst on every single workflow. We have several people posting about mainline working properly with panfrost on mainline on this ROCK3 with both manjaro and armbian on K 5.16. Maybe not perfectly stable as today, but it does work.

[@nicolas9013]

They don't ever get it right. Some developer release a new Raspberry killer SBC with low price, a lot of accessories, great CPU and RAM, then abandon it, leave it with poor Linux support, no software update, no tutorial, nothing to upgrade the new release, then goes about to develop a new board. They choose to ignore that the Raspberry Pi success wasn't because of the price or the hardware, but about the community, people who make software, tutorials, help each other, find and correct problems within the Raspberry ecossistem. A example is the RK3399, lots of SBC releases with this processor, but it has been more than 3 years and no hardware acceleration has been achieved , in the meantime Raspberry got hardware acceleration, DRM compatibility, NVME boot, WiFi 6 and more.

[@fmlazar]

It's really hard to get yet another community going after one really takes off.

[@redtails]

what is there not to get? selling SBC is profit, developing software and giving it out for free is a money sink.

[@mrdali67]

@@redtails I am not an expert, but with the price these SBC's retails for, and even you can slap an SBC together really easy, there still is some time and money invested in doing so, so being able to sell enough units to get a good price per SoCs and other components, I really don't think many of the SBC makers can produce and sell enough units to make a big profit. And then also develope software and mature the product over time. I am beginning to think many people is just too fixated on gettting a board with more features and faster cpu for as cheap as possible.

[@trilight3597]

Good luck trying that. It's hard to get a community going. You have to entice developers to create software, then those people to start a snowball. But with a thought like this, nothing gets off the ground. It's both a time investment and a money one surprisingly.

[@elementbr]

Sunday evening and stressing about work tomorrow... Explaining Computers video pops up and I can relax for a bit.

[@ChrisShadowens]

Excellent to see another SBC as we close out 2021 (even if the software to run it isn't quiet ready to play.) However, the true stars of the episode were the ever-efficient Stanley the Knife and looking dapper as always Mr. Scissors.

[@daysiewaysie]

the paradox is that this marvel of modern technology ultimately gets to perform at the pleasure of Chris' trusty and ever reliable consorts, Mr. Scissors and Stanley the Knife. Were they to have been displeased, then i shudder to think how this expose of the Rock3a might (not) have panned out. Trusty companions, we salute you !

[@perrymcclusky4695]

Congratulations on yet another thorough review on a very impressive SBC. It is amazing just how far technology can push the limits of these affordable small form factor computer boards. Once the software support for this board gets sorted out, I'd be interested to see you do something interesting with it. Looking forward to your review of the Rock 3B. I'd also like to add, happy to see you shooting videos in your new studio! As always, looking forward to your next video!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Perry! :)

[@perrymcclusky4695]

@@ExplainingComputers You are creative and truly put out quality work.

[@coldsalt6678]

"lets go and take a closer look" is always satistifing 😃

[@rv6amark]

Another great board review! It surprises me that Wi-Fi support has not been ironed out yet. My printer, all of my many pi zero W's, and yes, even my refrigerator and washing machine came with Wi-Fi that works perfectly out of the box!

[@unvergebeneid]

What exactly is wifi good for on a refrigerator? Does it have an API to tell you that its inside is indeed cold? ;)

[@crazy8sdrums]

Excellent review, as always! It is good to see M.2/PCI-bus extendibility being added to ARM SOC and at such a low price!

[@florabee9283]

Wonderful to see this and get that giddy feeling, thinking “what could I make with that!?”.

[@gheffz]

Chris... Mr. Scissors didn't get a formal mention?... Stanley The Knife did and he wasn't even used live on the show to unbox (except for a quick slash later on). You did eventually mention Mr. Scissors in passing. However, that was later but the horse had already bolted. Hey, fantastic unboxing, assembly and software performance testing. I am now looking forward to the improvements in the Rock 3B will bring when you will do its review early next year. We get just as excited watching you open them as you do. I was surprised the video playback for the 3A was well bad, given the hardware ... the GPU must not be that good -- probably addressed in the 3B version. Thanks again, Chris, for another stable diet Explaining Computers bread and butter type show... the best subject material cover! _(That said, I do enjoy the other material you cover, too.)_

[@32_bits]

The fast boot time brings it closer to an instant on type device and helps bridges the gap with mcu devices. The LCD port also looks very interesting. Great video BTW.

[@ElmerFuddGun]

Interesting that I am "early" since the KZbin server I connect to always makes me wait 10+ minutes for your videos! BC, Canada.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Maybe they've had a December upgrade! :)

[@ElmerFuddGun]

@@ExplainingComputers - I don't know... YT normally only has *_downgrades._* ie. removing Dislikes! But ya even if I click refresh a bunch of times your latest video is never shows until after about 6:10AM PST. I can never be "first"... so sad. ;-)

[@ElmerFuddGun]

I really like the SoC (CPU) mounted on the "bottom" of SBCs like the Rock Pi 4C. Wish Raspberry Pi did that so you could actually mount a "HAT" without affecting cooling or blocking a fan, etc. - 4:09

[@ExplainingComputers]

I do agree. Radxa have been criticized for it in the past, but I really like their Rock Pi 4A/B/C and Rock Pi X SBCs with the underside SoC and a large passive heat sink. Similarly for the Friendly ELEC Nano Pi models.

[@ElmerFuddGun]

@@ExplainingComputers - If people don't like the bottom mount for heat dissipation you can mount it vertical or even upside down. Vertical would likely be best for passive cooling of "HATs" also.

[@skyak4493]

I would add my lament that HATs have gone out of fashion. I wonder if that could be changed by having a good HAT store or HAT collection. I think the thrill is gone from breadboarding IO circuits but I still love little computer that trump big ones by getting their own data or controlling things in the real world. Has anyone done a "Sexy HAT" video?

[@alexhudspeth1213]

@@ElmerFuddGun but then the electrons will need to flow uphill ;)

[@unvergebeneid]

@@skyak4493 Have they? Gone out of fashion I mean? Why didn't anyone tell me! I used one on my Beaglebone just the other week! Now I risk looking like a fool if I show anyone!

[@chromerims]

Another benefit of your dually engaging and pacific presentation style is the refining, molding and shaping of your loyal and best behaved YT commentariat community. (Like the inverse of an AI engine being trained by the input data of 823,000 subs. Rather you're training us!) EC/CB video comment section -- mainly polite, informative and useful -- is a bonus dividend to me. Soldier on! Your videos are a delight!

[@lukeerik2752]

“Because they’re the ones that currently work”! I’ll be applying this rationale to my own accounts from now on.

[@taidee]

It's just amazing what they are able to squeeze into these SBCs at the price, thanks Prof for another great presentation.

[@skyak4493]

Thrilled to see dual M2s on a low power ARM board. Completely scared away when Chris can't get the M2 working in Debian. If I had purchased this I certainly would have lost too much self-esteem in 4 hours of failure to continue.

[@SuperDavidEF]

If I'd bought this and the NVME didn't work, I'd be demanding a refund after probably less than an hour of fiddling. And I'm not one to take refunds. I believe in buying what you mean to buy and then keeping it, even if you change your mind. But that is a huge manufacturer issue, AFAIC, and should NOT ship that way!

[@gregholloway2656]

Great review, Chris. Since you were speaking of software letdowns, I had a thought for a future video. How about revisiting a non RPi SBC from a year ago, and do a comparison on the state of the software then, to the software now (essentially repeat the tests you originally did). 👍

[@ExplainingComputers]

Very interesting video idea -- noted! :)

[@sp0el]

Always glad to experience the magic of filmmaking on Sunday!

[@MarkTheMorose]

As ever with single board computers, it's the software / OS support that makes or breaks it, and here the Raspberry Pi models stand head and shoulders above all else. That said, there's no harm in having options to choose from.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

Hopefully the overkill amount of IO on this board attracts some attention, seriously impressive for what's about the same size as the Raspberry Pi 4B.

[@microlinux]

I doubt that. Rpi4 isn't as good supported as people suggest. Rpi bullseye is much better than the elder one, but still 32 bits. All my other non pi4 boards can work much better than rpi4 on aarch64 desktops.

[@microlinux]

This boards packs a new soc that is on dev to get everything working on mainline. It's already working tho, but on manjaro.

[@gustavrsh]

@@microlinux There are 64 bit versions as well

[@microlinux]

@@gustavrsh yeah, not the recommended ones. And as I said, most of my other boards can do desktop aarch64 far better than rpi4. Ubuntu gnome wayland was the best on rpi4, but you loose vpu. We don't have vpu on other sbcs on aarch64 neither, I mean, not good vpu drivers, but that's the same on rpi4 aarch64 for now. And for the rest, the others perform way better. To get a decent arm linux desktop on rpi4 you have to stick on rpi os 32 bits.

[@plica06]

The Pi 5 better add M2 support! Even better with the connector under the board and facing in a direction so an NVME card will also lie UNDER the board.

[@TheJacklwilliams]

Agreed and seriously I think we've grown up and don't need "sd card" anymore. The other thing? It's a 64 bit chip, it needs the primary os to be 64 bit. It's beyond time to retire the 32bit OS and also, move forward.

[@outofahat9363]

@@TheJacklwilliams it bogles my mind that they still have not released a 64bit version of raspi os given that the first pi to have a 64bit CPU was the raspberry pi 3 in 2016. It's been almost 6 years and they barely have a beta.

[@TheJacklwilliams]

@@outofahat9363 Agreed. What’s the point? I get it if you are doing embedded, hardware stuff, etc…. But once it became powerful enough to do desktop, server tasks, etc… and 64 bit? Doesn’t make sense. Now, I ‘ve been running the beta 64 for about 8 months now and it’s awesome. Why they’d hang on and continue dev work on the 32 bit, when they could just translate over, makes ZERO SENSE.

[@mattmichael2441]

@@outofahat9363 ikr - you can drive 2 4k monitors but 64 nah we good… like wat it’s not like they don’t have dev community to do it. I wonder if there’s some other detractor like a licensing hurdle

[@egbront1506]

@@TheJacklwilliams Why? Because most Pis out in the wild have less than 4GB of RAM onboard and haven't suddenly become useless just because Pi4 4GB came out. Once you start shovelling in all sorts of hardware goodies and RAM, with the additional costs that will be added to the basic Pi price point of $35/£30 you might as well just get a cheap used computer with a lower power CPU to run desktop/server tasks, like an older Lenovo Tiny PC. There is a purpose to the RPi and it isn't to be the cheapest or smallest desktop replacement.

[@jhonedoe3734]

Your reviews always answer ALL of my questions! I just admire your work. Keep it up!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks, will do!

Unfortunately the same sad outcome as always: very promising hardware, with a software package which is a let down. I wouldn't be that picky if the past has proven these boards will get the same software treatment as the Raspberry lineup, but it's usually not the case. Anyway, thanks for the video, the same detailed review as you always do!

[@adamf663]

I got burned last time I bought a similar sbc, a pine H64-B. Nice looking hardware that was mostly useless due to broken or unavailable drivers. I'm sticking with raspberry pi's or odroids for the foreseeable future.

[@microlinux]

@@adamf663 yeah, that specific soc was really bad. In fact, there are no good specs on it.

​@@adamf663 Allwinner SoC based boards are notoriously bad in this regard with their closed binary blobs. I have a Cubieboard 1 which got kind of usable with the support of Armbian, but at that point it was pretty much obsolete hardware wise.

[@gepwxaqdfsidsesg1548]

I have been playing with a Quartz64 board which has a very similar SoC and up until now it has been limited by the hacked about 4.19 kernel that Rockchip released for them. However just this week a mainline 5.16 has come out with working HDMI output which means that the community is less dependent on Rockchip. I am more hopeful for the future.

[@adamf663]

@ They could have at least got the board working before they put it on the market. :-p Fool me once....

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

This SBC looks quite cool to own. Again awesome to see another EC video to be on my recommended. Video looks great in the new studio!

[@kupokinzyt]

I love your channel! I used to call you Austin PowerPC when I was younger and comment it on every video. I feel so bad now! You encouraged me to get my first raspberry pi

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching. :)

[@keithp6689]

Another excellent video from Christopher. I really do like his channel. He has got such an admirable grasp of his subject, and he is able to explain things so clearly and succinctly. Add in great video production values, excellent graphics, and Christopher's very own quirky way of presenting his subject, and you have an all-round winner. I am less than impressed by the Rock 3A, however. $75 for the 8 GB version doesn't sound too bad, but once you add in all of the other bits and pieces you need, then the cost starts to creep up to less than acceptable levels. You'd obviously have to adopt the same mounting solution for the NVMe that Christopher did, as trying to mount it directly to the SBC is a waste of time. And when you've done that, you find that Debian 10 won't acknowledge its presence. What? The WiFi aspect needs more work, as well, and I think that overall I would far rather go to one of the Raspberry Pi products than to choose this one.

[@tylerk444]

Wonderful Video Chris! I just backed the latte panda 3 delta on kickstarter and can’t wait to see your video on it when it drops march next year.

[@ExplainingComputers]

That looks a powerful new SBC.

[@donnanorth7324]

They designed the Rock 3B for us movie viewers - all the I/O is on the backside and the switches and IR receiver on the front. It's about time!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Agreed! It looks a very sensible form factor.

[@WXSEDY]

I suspect Microsoft may have had a hand in this little boards software development. The historical timing with Windows 11, Microsoft's seat on the Linux Foundation & all, and Microsoft's history of adapt, incorporate and extinguish are very hard to ignore -- especially now. So of course, it works better as a "server" -- we can't have any good usable "desktop" SBC's out there potentially eating into Microsoft's profits [sarcasm]. That said, I find Chris's difficulty in giving this SBC a negative review mildly humorous. Brits can be so polite almost to a fault -- love it.

[@jm036]

Nope, Rockchip development is just slow. I think Pine64 still hasn't gotten video out on the RK3566.

[@sunilkulkarni4426]

Always satisfying to see tech unboxing and review!!!

[@marksterling8286]

Great video, perfect Sunday afternoon viewing. Thank you.

[@none941]

With shortages everywhere and Pi 4s being rare as hen's teeth, I ordered the 8GB version of t he Rock Pi 3A to takeover file and media serving duties from my old AMD A10 PC. At the very least, I hope to cut power consumption by half while getting equal or better service from the machine. Your comments at the end of the video, plus the demonstrated viability of Ubuntu Server 20.04, convinced me to try-out the Rock Pi 3A. I'll let you know how my adventure goes in a little bit. It will be a week or so before it arrives. Cheers!

[@nathancharnas]

Your SBC videos are my favourite :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Happy to hear that!

[@fjl05]

Thanks. Always look forward to your videos. I like that you present things in a calm manner and not all over hyped on coffee like some of the other youtubers. lol On a side note, I dont think I will be buying this seeing as how their naming convention is backwards and confusing. Although that full size HDMI output is rather nice.

[@2009numan]

your videos remind me of the 70's

[@szymongrabarczyk3561]

Wow! Almost a milion subs! Haven't been here for a while. Man, you have grown... Congrats!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks! :)

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

Good to have options in general, especially if they come with actually useful edges over the Pi in terms of I/O. Now, just to get the software to sort out for these other boards!

[@theglowcloud2215]

None of them will ever reach support or compatibility parity with Raspberry Pi, and that's really all that matters.

[@nddulac]

Hi Chris. I would love to see more hardware testing on reviews like this. For example, how easy is it to set up a simple LED blinker using the GPIOs? Maybe that would make for a neat little video for your previously reviewed SBCs?

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Nice a new Video I had an power outages so yeah I can watch it right now

[@aboudi0507]

The amount of storage solutions is impressive for such device

[@SuperDavidEF]

More so if you can get the NVME working.🤔

[@vadermasktruth]

I concur.

[@smartassist9700]

There will be a small quantum computer that will be distributed worldwide starting next year. However, I will always make room for SBCs. They are so wonderful.

[@PS_Tube]

Just got the notification. Turns out KZbin is messing with me. Another pi video. Yay !!! Love it.

[@kurnma3776]

The Achilles’ heel of those third-party SBC boards is software support.

[@sbc_tinkerer]

Blessed Sunday Sir Chris! Another fine videooooo! Love the SBC options available and THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for NOT comparing it to the Raspberry Pis. I am so sick of hearing about the RPis blah, blah, blah.... I love them but there are options out there. Tons of them and this one looks quite promising. Odd that they cannot get the M.2 socket flipped around though. Be well! BTW, I saw no typos either. ???

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :) I keep looking at that place in the video, but can see no errors -- for a change!

[@Uniblab8]

"paper and scissors"...a good one Chris. Very entertaining.

[@jorgebelo6958]

I enjoy your videos very much. You do have a talent to convey information clearly. Gould like to see a video of the ROCK 5 Model B - ARM Desktop level SBC (and probably comparison with the other ROCK SBCs) that was announced on January 2022.

[@keithmiller9665]

Hi Chris, another nice SBC video. Thank You ! As with other commentators I agree that the OS support simply isn’t good enough, along with the rough edges such as WIFI. Definitely needed another 3 months of polishing before it was released. Great hardware let down by poor OS. Not surprised Ubuntu worked better than Debian, as the latter does seem to lag Ubuntu in my experience.

[@Colin_Ames]

Another excellent review. Some nice hardware for the price, but once again the software lags behind. I can’t understand why the official distro makes the user jump through hoops to get WiFi working. In this day and age WiFi is essential.

[@waynestewart1919]

Absolutely love the quip about rock , paper, scissors! You make me laugh every video. That was also quite an SBC.

[@alexlandherr]

I see Christmas came early for Mr. Scissors.

[@wasitacatisaw83]

Just what the doctor ordered, an SBC video 👍

[@AnCapGamer]

WOW! SBC have come a LONG way in the past 5 years! Great to see competition in the SBC space, vs Raspberry being the only SBC maker.

[@one_step_sideways]

Just you wait, the Rockchip RK3588 is coming very soon (finally) and there will be new SBCs like Rock 5 and a board from Pine64 announced probably by the end of the year. This is alarming for the Raspberry Pi fanatics that are still stuck on 40-28nm, because this SoC will be made on a Samsung 8nm process, will feature 4xA76 cores at 2.4-2.6GHz, 4xA55 cores at 1.8GHz, which will be around 2.5x more powerful than the RK3399 that's found in Rock Pi 4 and other RPi 4 competitors in single core and especially multi core applications, a much more powerful Mali GPU (almost 10 times more powerful than the one in RK3399), an NPU 3.0 with 6 TOPS performance and other great features, like support up to 32GB LPDDR5.

[@pavan13]

Good to see that this sbc have so much expandability but there is fairly less support for this SBC and I wish if this sbc had a much powerfull SoC it would have been awesome

[@ed.puckett]

Thank you once again! I enjoy, and moreover appreciate, your thorough and entertaining reviews. Best wishes to you and the menagerie for the coming year!!

[@Capitaine.Albator]

Nice video again, love the faq that you can upgrade / change the wifi module. And configure it the way you want. Thanks for the share 👍🏻✌🏻🇨🇦

[@jimlynch9390]

It would be interesting if you could do a video revisiting the various products that had less than perfect software support initially to see if they improved over time. In any case, thanks for a great review, as always.

[@sharwinshreds]

Wowwww. An SBC video. Always love those 😀

[@c0rnd0g_19]

Very interested in this one. With the Pi4 being basically unavailable, I've been looking for a replacement for a product we produce. This one seems to fit the bill; Pi Compatible CSI interface as well as GPIO. Worst part is I'll have to redesign the case for the ports and get the software compiled. Thanks for the great review!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Good luck! :)

[@c0rnd0g_19]

@@ExplainingComputers Thank you!!

[@one_step_sideways]

Just you wait, the Rockchip RK3588 is coming very soon (finally) and there will be new SBCs like Rock 5 and a board from Pine64 announced probably by the end of the year. This is alarming for the Raspberry Pi fanatics that are still stuck on 40-28nm, because this SoC will be made on a Samsung 8nm process, will feature 4xA76 cores at 2.4-2.6GHz, 4xA55 cores at 1.8GHz, which will be around 2.5x more powerful than the RK3399 that's found in Rock Pi 4 and other RPi 4 competitors in single core and especially multi core applications, a much more powerful Mali GPU (almost 10 times more powerful than the one in RK3399), an NPU 3.0 with 6 TOPS performance and other great features, like support up to 32GB LPDDR5.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, we should see some very good RK3588 SBCs in 2022 I hope -- software permitting . . .

[@vencdee]

Awesome... I hope these devices will be available soon for decent prices. Because the RPi devices cpu&gpu power improved only slightly for some 10 years or so (of course there's certain progress within each new line, but it's only in tenths of percent, slightly above the increase of frequency).

[@Urosaurus]

Great to see this new board reviewed by you!

[@haydenc2742]

Loving the XFCE desktop on Debian...such a lightweight and snappy desktop

[@lorderectus1849]

The return of the SBC!

[@srtcsb]

I'd like to see the RPi foundation make some of these hardware improvements (maybe on the RPi 5 or 6?). Thanks for another great video Chris.

[@philspencelayh5464]

I'd agree I have still an original pi but there is very little it can usefully do mainly due to lack of speed.

[@joeg3950]

Great content. Like you said in the video, let’s wait and see what the community develops for this SBC.

[@donaldmarks8707]

Very informative Chris. Look forward to more soon :-)

[@rpavlik1]

Thanks as always for the updates on the latest sbcs! (The naming of these is always a mystery.) Hopefully software support gets better and mainline. (Annoying they didn't install a gui for network manager out of the box) I know my colleagues are busy working on the Panfrost GPU code.

[@rclarkstube]

"By Jingo!" Nice reminder of my Pops. 🙂

[@NathanChisholm041]

Looks like another winner! And cheers from OZ mate...

[@philspencelayh5464]

Great video, a lot of interesting aspects to this but unless you have an application that needs, for instance the ssd performance the pi 4 seems to be overall a more useable package. Keep the sbc stuff coming please.

[@Nobe_Oddy]

So I recently got into SBC's and picked up a Raspberry Pi 4 CM and a Waveshare board to plug it into. This has an nvme built onto it, but it doesn't have USB 3.0 (I found that you don't really see ANY CM4 with PCI and USB3 or nvme and USB3 - maybe it's a limitation) Unfortunately my CM4 module doesn't have WiFi or BT or an MMC so I HAVE to put my boot onto the SD until I decide to a NON-TAILORED linux install so I can put it on my nvme and get those great boot times you were able to show us. I haven't had ANY issues with distro seeing my nvme drive, I just use the ones for the Rasp Pi 4 and it's always there, but I haven't gone very deep into building much - I just wanted a small retro gaming machine to have some fun on the side. I also wanted to mention that I was able to get about 3,000MB/s I am glad to see that new systems are still being made and improved upon. Thank you for the video :)

[@philipprudhomme6967]

Thank you for your videos and your reviews. This one was particularly interesting and begs the question what developments will be included in the next Raspberry pi.

[@Geodash-uh7io]

FINALLY SOMEONE MADE A VIDEO ABOUT THIS

[@Paddy_Roche]

Great video thank you, I was not aware of these boards. I especially like the storage choices

[@NicoDsSBCs]

Hi Christopher. Another great video of a nice board. I'm waiting for the 3B to be released. I like that design a bit more. For good Armbian support for it we'll have to wait a bit longer. The first test images are available, but nothing official. My guess would be the naming is because the SoC is lower performing than RK3399 of RockPi4. The Rock5 should be RK3588. I hope there'll be news on that soon. That's the board and SoC I've been waiting on for years. I've now bought the RPi400 since Armbian now supports it. I must admit I hadn't watched any video about it since I had not much interest in it. But I'm a bit surprised about it. The keyboard isn't good as I expected. But the SoC stays cool at all times even with overclock at 2Ghz. It doesn't suffer from undervoltage issue's with non RPi PSU as other RPi's. It seems more stable in my tests than my RPi4 with overclocks. Seems their best product since the RPi2B in my opinion. I've been waiting for many months on the RadxaZero. I hope it'll be send to me this month. Availability is just so bad these days. Enjoy your evening. Greetings. NiicoD

[@KowboyUSA]

Sweet little box full of goodies.

[@brianthorburn4957]

Another great review of a SBC.. Looks like software is not keeping up with the hardware. Many thanks Chris

[@pavan13]

I love SBC's they are tiny and amazing

[@wayneholzer4694]

A SBC with a tonne of potential definately good to tinker with and good to code with I wonder how well it would compile code. It was a shame it has a 4k HDMI output socket but it couldn't play a 1080p video. None the less I think this is showing that SBC's may be a thing that most people will have in the future. If they came up with a SBC x86_64 it could be a game changer but the ARM processors are a new generation of CPU that I think we might see soon driving supercomputers one day.

[@dmckrk]

Hello, this board have 1x pcie lane for m.2 E slot (wifi or tpu) and 2x pcie lanes for m.2 M slot nvme). Also one lane is used for USB3. Each pcie lane can do about 500MB/s, so here nvme with 2 lanes has this speed. If You would like to sbc with 4x pcie lanes for nvme You obviously missed nano pc t4 (its on rk3399), it also has good side for nvme drive ;) also You can get such speed with rock pro 64 and its pcie 4x port (using oposite adapter as the one from this video).

[@rikprince8414]

Very nice video, Sir! I do wish that that they could break through and start offering 8 core boards with 16gb of RAM. I am sure it's coming eventually..... :)

[@rogerkoh1979]

The m. 2 slots look interesting. Software need to be improve but good development in term of hardware. Looking forward to the 3B board.

[@wasitacatisaw83]

Prospective competitors to the Raspberry Pi 4 really need to up their game software-wise now Raspian Bullseye is out. 1080p30 KZbin without dropping frames is the new gold standard.

[@TheUglyGnome]

Specs looked great! 4 x 2 GHz cores, 8GB, M.2, etc ... and then ... no solid 1080p YT playback. I was already hoping to find something with which I could replace my RV's Intel NUC. But no.

[@chriholt]

Nice SBC, and as usual, the software isn't quite ready for prime time. I do really like the new background on your opening and closing shots!

[@robertomaximilianosilveira8768]

Love this form factor and i like them all

[@sirnukesalot24]

Maybe it'd be good to see what a checklist for modern kernel development should look like?

[@GertBoers]

A tip on resizing windows on XFCE: hold the ALT key and position you mouse pointer on the window, near the edge you want to resize (it doesn't even have to be very close). Now use your right (!) mouse button and drag to resize the window.

[@pvc988]

Thanks, I didn't know about that. Now I can use no border themes.

[@robertbuffalo8287]

I have had my Radxa 3A board running Android 11 for 2 months now. Wifi is working good over TMobile to the home. I am getting with speedtest 132Mbps down and 49Mbps up. In Android 1440p is the highest resolution I can run smoothly with KZbin. I have not tried to boot from the NVMe drive yet.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Ah, good to know. I must try out Android.

[@gst69man]

good one! like your new intro graphics

[@MrCzeslaw88]

I love the way Rock3a is packed in plastix box. Raspberry Pi Foundation could take an example.

[@markharrisllb]

Another brilliant video, thank you.

[@PeasantPlayer]

Wow that sbc has a lot of connectivity!

[@ExplainingComputers]

It does!

[@andic6676]

If a sata connection bank and a way of selecting boot devices via a boot menu was provided, this SBC could fit many PC user's needs.

[@Reziac]

Sunday brunch with Chris, a good start to my day :) [has odd thought] Yes, reinventing the wheel, but roll with it... Wondering if one could find a way to hook up an old cellphone to an SBC like this one (why this one gave me the idea, I don't know, insanity perhaps) and use that as both monitor and keyboard input. The advantage might be that it would be very power-efficient and could run a long time on an external battery.

[@kencreten7308]

Great video. Thanks for the hard work on this one. I'm waiting for the first SBC that doesn't skip with 1080p. KZbin playback through a browser. I'm never sure what "4K at 60 frames per second," for the GPU means, when KZbin skips at 1080p

[@ExplainingComputers]

"4K at 60fps" for a GPU has nothing to do with video playback, let alone streaming media video playback. Rather, it refers to the maximum screen resolution and video frame rate that the board can output. So this board -- and many other ARM SBCs --can certainly feed a 4K monitor at 60fps. But the board's streaming media video decompression capabilities are another matter entirely.

[@kencreten7308]

@@ExplainingComputers I did not know that. Thanks for the explanation.

[@dazryan3463]

Great review of a new product. Very interesting and of course unbiased. Obviously the Debian OS needs work but the SBC has potential as a server. This video really helped with the decision for my next addition

[@beauregardslim1914]

The outward-facing m.2 slot is actually a reasonable compromise solution. Users are probably going to need a riser card anyway with all the thick double-sided and different length m.2 cards.

[@fattomandeibu]

Well, I guess it's like with micros back in the day. Not everything can be a Spectrum or C64, but with these "outsiders" pushing the big guns by making more powerful machines, the big guns have to make their next machine even better.

[@nicholasroberts6954]

Not withstanding my comment below, the hardware that this SBC supports is phenomenal. I would say more than adequate for the average user. I understand that this generation of ARM-Cortex can be run using Windows and by VMware. It looks like the days of spending four and a half times the cost on a main stream off-the-shelf or home build Windows machine, together with the spatial inconvenience of a stonking great system unit and power supply are shortly coming to a close for standard home users.

[@azatecas]

the pi 4 are just bearly becoming available through the official distributot. after months of waiting i just purchased a 4gb pi for the retail price