Post

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

I was curious to figure out what the beefiest single board computer under $30 is (AKA C$40). The first real standout is the Radxa Cubie A7Z. The model with 1 GB DDR4 meets that. Features an Allwinner A733 SOC: 8 CPU cores, PCIe 3.0, WiFi6+BT5.4, RISC-V coprocessor. 🤯 Also available with 2/4/8 GB.

1 repost9 likes

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

Radxa Rock 2F with 2 GB DDR4 is another sub $30 SBC. Features a Rockchip RK3538A SOC: Quad core, PCIe 2.0, WiFi6+BT5.4. Not as impressive as the Cubie A7Z, but I'd bet software support is more mature. Also available with 4 GB DDR4 and eMMC storage.

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

WalnutPi 1B and Zero W with 1 GB DDR4 is another sub $30 SBC (~$25). From the product shots it seems they use Rayson brand memory. 🤨 Based on the Allwinner H616 SOC: quad core, WiFi5+BT5, USB 2. Ethernet and IR on the 1B. 🤷

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

Orange Pi Zero 2 W with 1 GB DDR4 is another sub $30 SBC. Basically the same as the Walnut Pi Zero W, based on the Allwinner H618 SOC: quad core, WiFi5+BT5, USB2, 16MB SPI Flash.

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

Low power stuff. Like if you only needed the "good" hardware occasionally, you could effectively sleep and still do simple things (check for input, packets, broadcast a signal, etc).

Mike Sux 🍁
@distraction.engineer

Nice! I ran out of characters to mention it had a Vulkan capable Imagination (PowerVR) GPU, which made me smile. 😋 My concern is software support. I did find an entry for the A770 on the SunXi wiki (and a datasheet), but no mention of 6.x Linux Kernel support (just 5.x). 🤷

James Brown
@ancient.bsky.social

My last foray into non-Raspberry SBCs, the software support consisted of a forum where people would be told to stop asking stupid questions by a guy named Igor.