Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop
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Hey Raspberry Pi / SBC desktop builders out there! Wondering what experience and advice people have. Looking at building a hopefully useful Linux based desktop on a newer SBC. RP4 with 4GB of RAM is powerful enough and has enough RAM that it seems really useful as a platform, the first RP that really seems to have the horsepower to truly be useful.
Any other SBCs worth looking at? Something with even more power than the RP4 would be nice. Don't need tons more, but the RP4 is still not super fast. And something with SATA or something other than USB connection for the hard drive would be extra nice.
Thoughts? Ideas? Concerns?
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Software for it is lacking atm, they made major change to SBC arch so i advice you try something else.
I knew the name for it, but you know i live in Canada and Canada made it legal and i work alot and its the end of the week so i will not remeber that name for the better SBC tonight
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Have you looked at Odroid? I have a buddy who just got an H² for some testing. Though that boards probably a bit pricy.
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@scottalanmiller Nothing comes close to the RPi boards at the same price/performance. They sell SO many more than any of the competition.
Orange Pi could be good if the EMMC main storage is fast enough. It's got to be better than an SD card, but how much better I don't know. 8GB ram model http://www.orangepi.org/Orange Pi 4/
Looks like the Orange Pi 3 has a PCI slot of some sort. Might be able to get one of those tinny m.3 drives on it.
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Problem with RPI4 is that when you want it to be as fast as possible, you are getting close to the Intel price range. So as an option it works best if you stick to a basic config.
And to get a useable desktop you also need a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Say $150 if you have modest needs.
So
- Desktop with RPI4 (4GB RAM & 32GB microSD) $250
- Desktop with NUC J3455 or similar (8GB RAM & 120GB SSD) $325
The desktop with the Intel CPU has probably double the performance for 30% higher overall price. So value for money is better - if you need the extra performance.
NUC are also SBCs and the Odroid H2 mentioned above is the same (Intel J4105).
Intel CPUs to look for that are low-end but still significantly faster - J3455 (older model), J4105 and J5005. These are 10W Celerons with 4 cores in the 1.5 to 2.5GHz range.
Obviously something like an i3 is much faster but it will bump up the price another notch.
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I'd love for Raspberri Pi to come out with something higher performance. Even a low-end phone has 8 cores and will beat the RPI-4.
If you think about it something like the Moto G7 play has 8 cores, 2GB RAM, 32 GB storage, a touch screen and a phone and is $129. The slower RPI4 is $99 with a case, power supply and a memory card.
Yes, two different things I know, but if you look at the hardware they are similar.
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Right now the storage and the GPU performance is what holds the RPI4 back the most.
Maybe Raspberry Pi 5 will be it. (But I've been thinking that since the first Rasberry Pi, 7 or 8 years ago)
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ROCK Pi 4
https://rockpi.org/ -
@jt1001001 said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
Have you looked at Odroid? I have a buddy who just got an H² for some testing. Though that boards probably a bit pricy.
Do they have a 4GB board?
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@Pete-S said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
So
Desktop with RPI4 (4GB RAM & 32GB microSD) $250
Desktop with NUC J3455 or similar (8GB RAM & 120GB SSD) $325That's a good point. That's a small price difference and even just the double RAM is big.
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@Emad-R said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
ROCK Pi 4
https://rockpi.org/This one was on my radar.
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@Pete-S said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
Right now the storage and the GPU performance is what holds the RPI4 back the most.
Maybe Raspberry Pi 5 will be it. (But I've been thinking that since the first Rasberry Pi, 7 or 8 years ago)
The GPU is plenty, I think, for me. Need extremely little. But the storage, that's a killer.
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@Pete-S The NUC8i3BEK is so nice, but the price starts to get way too high
Although all it would need is a small 120GB M.2 and an 8GB stick and voila. I like the short models so much better. -
The Khadas VIM3 looks really promising. It's quite a bit more powerful than the similar RockChip models. Sext core, 4GB, HDMI, M.2, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
@Pete-S said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
Right now the storage and the GPU performance is what holds the RPI4 back the most.
Maybe Raspberry Pi 5 will be it. (But I've been thinking that since the first Rasberry Pi, 7 or 8 years ago)
The GPU is plenty, I think, for me. Need extremely little. But the storage, that's a killer.
The GPU performance might not be a GPU performance problem itself but rather a lack of support in the GPU for decoding common video streams. For instance VP8/VP9 (WebM) are used in things like youtube, html5 video, video conferencing etc.
When the system encounters a video stream and it doesn't have hardware decoding support, it needs the power to decode it in real-time with the CPU or you end up with stuttering video. RPI 4 doesn't have that power on 1080p.
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@Pete-S said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
The GPU performance might not be a GPU performance problem itself but rather a lack of support in the GPU for decoding common video streams. For instance VP8/VP9 (WebM) are used in things like youtube, html5 video, video conferencing etc.
OIC, shouldn't be an issue here, won't be used for that. But very good to be aware of.
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@Emad-R said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
ROCK Pi 4
https://rockpi.org/So after more research, this one is bubbling up to the top over and over again. Low cost (found it for $75) with great specs (6 core, 4GB) and the connector that we need (M.2 and GigE.) Likely this is what we are going to start with.
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@scottalanmiller said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
The Khadas VIM3 looks really promising. It's quite a bit more powerful than the similar RockChip models. Sext core, 4GB, HDMI, M.2, etc.
So the issues here...
4GB model is $130 which is a little high. PoE and hard drive connectors are on an expansion board for another $30 or so. By the time all is said and done, it adds up a bit. The Rock Pi offers nearly the same CPU but from a bigger vendor, with the same RAM and the drive connector that we want all on a board for half the price and only a single board instead of two boards that have to be mounted together.
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@scottalanmiller said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
@Emad-R said in Making a Raspberry Pi 4 or Similar SBC Desktop:
ROCK Pi 4
https://rockpi.org/So after more research, this one is bubbling up to the top over and over again. Low cost (found it for $75) with great specs (6 core, 4GB) and the connector that we need (M.2 and GigE.) Likely this is what we are going to start with.
I'm sensing YT Video review idea
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I've been thinking about this too, to turn a smart TV into a genius TV. Something permanently attached would be convenient.
