A single board computer with a Ryzen Embedded starts shipping this week

[Skanky Sylveon]

8 hours ago, WereCatf said:

UDOO has already kickstarted several similar boards before, I see no reason to worry here. As for being late.... well, I always say that one should always prepare for at least a 6 month delay in any and every Kickstarter-project. Only a fool expects the originally-planned schedule to stick.

I knew that UDOO had other products, but I wasn't aware that they kickstarted before.  I suppose that does make them a safer option.

8 hours ago, justpoet said:

This would make a great linux personal server sitting at a relative's place for remote backups and the like on an attached HD.  I might even be able to find an older large HD case that I could put this and a couple 3.5's both in.  Please post back up when this is actually available to the public, not just kickstarter.

I'm personally interested in it myself, so I'm gonna keep an eye out for it.

8 hours ago, porina said:

Windows 10 has a compact mode which it picks by itself when it detects a small OS drive. So it is definitely possible to have a Win10 install on 32GB. I have an older generation nettop which also has 32GB internal storage with Win10 on it. Even major OS updates can be installed, although it requires you have a USB stick to work as temp space. Of course, that doesn't leave a lot of space for... anything else, but it is workable as a basic system. 

I would argue that for the vasr majority of people that's too small.  I suppose that you could put everything else on an external drive.

8 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

Ever since i heard of this thing ive wanted one. Only thing i would want from it is a couple of small PCIe connectors.

More robust PCIe connectivity would be nice, again, you can adapt the m.2 to a PCIe x4 slot, but designated PCIe slots would be nice.

3 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Yeah, they ship this week....but only to the first 300 backers on a certain tier (which I, sadly, am not a part of despite spending even more money than that tier required).  Still, I have high hopes for it and am really looking forward to playing with Linux and Proton on it.

You'll probably get yours rather soon then.  I tend to not participate in crowdfunding campaigns, but when it becomes a product that the masses can purchase, I will most likely get one.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

I would argue that for the vasr majority of people that's too small.  I suppose that you could put everything else on an external drive.

For the average LTT forum visitor maybe, but if you take the bigger picture it could be enough for a lot of basic use cases. Look at the cheapest laptops, they have similar.

[Skanky Sylveon]

6 minutes ago, porina said:

For the average LTT forum visitor maybe, but if you take the bigger picture it could be enough for a lot of basic use cases. Look at the cheapest laptops, they have similar.

And the biggest complaint of those laptops are that there isn't enough space to install anything, and that it's necessary to use the micro SD card slot if you want to store anything locally.  That's with the Windows laptops that use 32GB-64GB EMMC storage.  The chromebooks seem to fair better in reviews when it comes to available storage space.

[Skanky Sylveon]

3 minutes ago, ActuallyMediocreOC said:

I was thinking more for things like crazy projects, like fitting a fully functional desktop into a gumball machine with candy themed rgb

I wouldn't use an SBC as a desktop replacement due to the lack of expandability.  Mini ITX is plenty small enough if I wanted to go small form factor. 

 

The UDOO BOLT may make a good vehicle dash computer though, low voltage and whatnot.  The lattepanda alpha has a wide voltage power header meant for lead acid batteries, so that particular single board computer may be the best bet for that application though. 

 

I have my eyes on the odroid h2 due to it being able to emulate Gamecube games, a 3D printed Gamecube mini sounds like a fun project. 

 

So yeah, I have ideas other then a desktop replacement. 

[Jito463]

2 hours ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

I knew that UDOO had other products, but I wasn't aware that they kickstarted before.  I suppose that does make them a safer option.

That's the only reason I backed them, as I typically shy away from hardware crowd funding campaigns.  The last one I backed never came to fruition, and I was just out $47 (which is a shame, because I really liked the concept).  This one seemed a fairly safe bet given their track record.  Unfortunately, they also have a track record of going beyond the original delivery date and not maintaining proper communication with backers.  Still, it's closing in on the end now, so all that's left is to wait in eager anticipation.

29 minutes ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

And the biggest complaint of those laptops are that there isn't enough space to install anything, and that it's necessary to use the micro SD card slot if you want to store anything locally.  That's with the Windows laptops that use 32GB-64GB EMMC storage.  The chromebooks seem to fair better in reviews when it comes to available storage space.

We tried to get Udoo to increase the eMMC to 64GB, and they did seem to listen by adding it as a stretch goal, unfortunately the goal wasn't met so we're stuck with the 32GB.  Having said that, it does support SATA, M.2 SATA (2260) and M.2 NVMe (2280) for expansion, so there's plenty of options to add additional storage.

[Skanky Sylveon]

43 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

We tried to get Udoo to increase the eMMC to 64GB, and they did seem to listen by adding it as a stretch goal, unfortunately the goal wasn't met so we're stuck with the 32GB.  Having said that, it does support SATA, M.2 SATA (2260) and M.2 NVMe (2280) for expansion, so there's plenty of options to add additional storage.

I would have preferred if they took hardkernel's approach with their odroid lineup.

An EMMC slot that allows you to put however much EMMC storage that you want.

 

That would also reduce the base cost of the UDOO BOLT by not nessacarlly needing EMMC storage with the bare bones board.

46 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

That's the only reason I backed them, as I typically shy away from hardware crowd funding campaigns.  The last one I backed never came to fruition, and I was just out $47 (which is a shame, because I really liked the concept).  This one seemed a fairly safe bet given their track record.  Unfortunately, they also have a track record of going beyond the original delivery date and not maintaining proper communication with backers.  Still, it's closing in on the end now, so all that's left is to wait in eager anticipation.

That's why I don't participate in kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaigns, there is always a chance that you will never see the product, and you will probably not get a refund. 

31 minutes ago, ActuallyMediocreOC said:

Maybe jsut as a PC for a younger sibling or something but its solid enough I wouldnt mind doin some wacky things with it

It would probably do very well as a light PC for a younger sibling, no proper way to add a GPU down the line though, again, you could perhaps install a GPU through the m.2 slot, but that's hardly optimal.

 

The arduino compatable GPIO means that it should be able to do everything that an arduino can do, but hopefully with a much more powerful CPU backing it.  It may be a good board for CNC milling.

[Jito463]

3 minutes ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

That's why I don't participate in kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaigns, there is always a chance that you will never see the product, and you will probably not get a refund. 

It's definitely not for everyone, and one certainly needs to go into it understanding the risks.  Having said that, I generally avoid risky campaigns, opting instead for ones that seem more certain.  If I'm on the fence about it, I'll typically pledge at a low amount, so I don't risk losing much if it all goes wrong.  Even in cases where the product releases, it's not always as envisioned from the campaign marketing.  To date, I've only had one KS that delivered both on time and exactly as promised, Battle Worlds: Kronos by King Art Games (a very underrated studio in my opinion, I recommend checking them out).

[Skanky Sylveon]

5 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

It's definitely not for everyone, and one certainly needs to go into it understanding the risks.  Having said that, I generally avoid risky campaigns, opting instead for ones that seem more certain.  If I'm on the fence about it, I'll typically pledge at a low amount, so I don't risk losing much if it all goes wrong.  Even in cases where the product releases, it's not always as envisioned from the campaign marketing.  To date, I've only had one KS that delivered both on time and exactly as promised, Battle Worlds: Kronos by King Art Games (a very underrated studio in my opinion, I recommend checking them out).

If I had a bit more disposable income then I would probably do it, but I just can't justify it with my current income. 

[Trippik]

On 3/26/2019 at 1:41 AM, Skanky Sylveon said:

Single board computers come in all shapes and sizes, from the Raspberry pi, to the odroid h2.  While there are several differences between all of them, they usually have all of the nessacary components, or at least the essential components to operate all in a single PCB, thus the term "single board computer".

 

A new addition to the rather large (and loosely defined) family is the UDOO BOLT, which is a single board computer that will have an embedded Ryzen CPU.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/liliputing.com/2019/03/udoo-bolt-single-board-pc-with-ryzen-embedded-starts-shipping-this-week-crowdfunding.html/amp

So don't expect the same level of performance as the desktop CPUs, but this may be one of the most powerful single board computers on the market. 

First off, let's talk about the form factor.  While I could talk about how small that is, I think that showing would be better. 

4.7 inches equates to roughly 120mm.

So if you have a 120mm fan lying around, you can roughly judge the size, which needless to say, is quite tiny.

 

Now let's talk about the CPU options.

Both of those are low power, both of them having a 15w TDP.

The V1605B is the same exact CPU that the upcoming Smach Z is using, which seems to play most modern titles at around 720p at 30-60FPS, which for such a low powered CPU, is rather impressive. 

While this won't be a proper desktop replacement for gamers, it could serve that purpose for general use, the Arduino compatible pins are what's going to interest tinkerers though.

32 GB of EMMC is too small for a Windows installation, but it should work with most linux distros.  There are SATA ports for HDDs/SSDs though, as well as an m.2 PCIe slot, while you would traditionally think to put an SSD there, you are able to hook up an external GPU to the lattepanda alpha (another powerful single board computer) with an adapter, and I wonder if the same thing could be done here.  Strapping on an external GPU and PSU (since the GPU needs to be powered) kinda defeats the purpose of the small form factor though. 

And now the elephant in the room.  This is a kickstarted product, that's not nessacarlly bad, but kickstarted projects tend to have a rather bad reputation of not delivering, this product was already supposed to be shipped out last year, and it's almost April. 

However in the grand scheme of things, 1/4th of a year isn't the end of the world, and it seems like the early bird backers will get the first batch.

 

So not available to the general public yet, but that will hopefully change in the coming months. 

 

And now for an opinion piece from me.  I have recently gotten into single board computers, and this interests me for several reasons. 

First off, I don't think that I have ever seen a Ryzen single board computer, and second, this is a lot of power in a small form factor.  The most powerful single board computer currently is the lattepanda alpha, which I already mentioned briefly, but that board has some limitations, soldered in RAM, no SATA ports, etc.  It's a great board, but it's limited in expansion, while that makes it very thin (as well as smaller then the UDOO BOLT footprint wise) it limits what you can do with it. 

Furthermore, the GPIO on the lattepanda alpha can only be controlled by the on board ATMega32u4 microcontroller, which connects to the CPU via serial interface, further limiting what you can do with the board. 

 

So my hope with the UDOO BOLT is if it gives similar, if not greater CPU performance without the shortcomings of the lattepanda alpha. 

I'm glad there are more x86 SBC's starting to hit the market, I think something like this would be great for a low power small form factor storage server or media server, particularly with the inclusion of M.2 and SATA

[TheDankKoosh]

Ring me up when these are using zen 2/navi/ddr4 3000 and then we'll talk.

[Jito463]

48 minutes ago, TheDankKoosh said:

Ring me up when these are using zen 2/navi/ddr4 3000 and then we'll talk.

The new tech is always used for high performance computing first, then it trickles down to the lower end.  It'll likely be a couple years before we see Zen2 available in something such as this form factor.

[Arika]

going to guess this is to compete with the Intel NUC line? needs to come with a case though

[Jito463]

5 minutes ago, Arika S said:

going to guess this is to compete with the Intel NUC line? needs to come with a case though

There is a case, just not every tier includes it.  Once they start selling retail, it will be available as an optional purchase.

[Skanky Sylveon]

2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

going to guess this is to compete with the Intel NUC line? needs to come with a case though

Not really, while it could be used in a similar fashion, the arduino compatable pinout makes this board suitable for robotiics, cnc, automotive, and other hardware integration. 

[Guest]

A nice little video about the Bolt was uploaded today.

 

 

[Zodiark1593]

Yay, yay, yay, and yay. If the CPU can crack an excess of 3.0 GHz (possibly with additional cooling), I can probably run PCSX2 with this, Dolphin should be pretty easy. While the Pi 4 is good for PS1 emulation, the lackluster GPU kind of kills aspirations for high quality CRT shaders, requiring specially optimized shaders, though this thing should make mincemeat out of said shaders.

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Yay, yay, yay, and yay. If the CPU can crack an excess of 3.0 GHz (possibly with additional cooling), I can probably run PCSX2 with this, Dolphin should be pretty easy. While the Pi 4 is good for PS1 emulation, the lackluster GPU kind of kills aspirations for high quality CRT shaders, requiring specially optimized shaders, though this thing should make mincemeat out of said shaders.

If I can run Wii games on this, I'm buying one as soon as I can. Might even try integrating a sensor bar into the case or something, as well as Bluetooth.

[Zodiark1593]

40 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

If I can run Wii games on this, I'm buying one as soon as I can. Might even try integrating a sensor bar into the case or something, as well as Bluetooth.

Modestly clocked Haswell doesn't have too much of an issue running Dolphin, at least where GameCube games are concerned. The Nvidia Shield (with Tegra X1) can do it too, so I'm quite confident that a moderately clocked Ryzen achieve near-flawless emulation in most titles.

[vanished]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Modestly clocked Haswell doesn't have too much of an issue running Dolphin, at least where GameCube games are concerned. The Nvidia Shield (with Tegra X1) can do it too, so I'm quite confident that a moderately clocked Ryzen achieve near-flawless emulation in most titles.

Speaking from experience, a 4690/4770k (stock) can run mario kart and smash (Wii not GC) perfectly

[Zodiark1593]

Ha, very funny joke here...

 

Raspberry Pi 4 for me then...

 

..

 

[rcmaehl]

SmachZ confirmed?

[Jito463]

Finally got mine in Thursday.  Took them forever to get mine to me (despite being an early backer at a high tier), but that's in the past now.  Had to fight a bit in order to get Linux Mint installed, so I can play with Proton.  I almost gave up on it, due to driver issues, but fortunately a former coworker helped me out and got me up and running.  I can't wait to put this through its paces.

[Donut417]

Could use this as a small Plex server. Though not sure how well it would transcode.