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I am trying to find cheaper device between NUC and Pi. Lot fewer choices are available. NUC is expensive. I wonder when will 8core ARM based NUC will arrive i

I am trying to find cheaper device between NUC and Pi. Lot fewer choices are available. NUC is expensive. I wonder when will 8core ARM based NUC will arrive in the market. No idea is NUC can be powered by Xiomi Mi 2i powerbank but a Raspberry Pi can be Priorities: 1. Gigabyte ethernet 2. Small form factor NUC or smaller. 3. 8+ cores 4. Very low power consumption

adrian_b 8y ago
The 3rd and 4th are mutually exclusive. If you want the power consumption of a smartphone, you also have the computational speed of a smartphone, but that should be enough for many applications. I have experimented with a very large number of devices between NUC and Pi. While the best processors for such devices would be ARM processors (with Cortex-A76 or Cortex-A75), nobody offers adequate devices. You can find only devices with obsolete slow ARM processors, e.g. RK3399, which are much faster than Pi but much slower than x86, or you can find development systems or modules with modern smartphone ARM processors, but those are much more expensive than a faster Intel NUC. Therefore, for the moment the only sensible choices are devices with either Intel Gemini Lake processors or with Intel Y-Series processors. The devices with Intel Y-Series processors are much faster, but they are also more expensive. While Zotac has presented at CES one such device, its price and time of availability are unknown. For now, the only device available with Y-Series is "LattePanda Alpha". Considering that its price includes 8 GB RAM, 64 GB flash and the Windows licence (even if I wiped it and I installed Linux) it is cheaper than an i3 NUC where at the same price you have no memory. It has everything a NUC has, except that it has one less USB port (it has 1 C + 3 A, while some NUCs have 1 C + 4 A). I have installed in its 2 M.2 connectors a NVMe SSD and a second Ethernet interface. The speed was excellent, because the Kaby Lake CPU was configured for 7 W TDP with 15 W TDP for the first 28 seconds. The included fan does not start unless you run a heavy workload and even then it is silent. The size is smaller than a NUC but larger than a pico-ITX board. If you want something cheaper, or if you want, like me, both full-size DisplayPort & HDMI connectors (not DisplayPort on USB C), then you must choose a Gemini Lake device, i.e. either Zotac ZBOX PI335 Gemini Lake (with N4100, not to be confused with the obsolete ZBOX PI335 with N3350) or an ODROID H2. The ODROID H2 is faster and possibly cheaper (depending on the memory you buy or you already have; ZBOX has soldered memory), but it is larger. ODROID H2 is NUC-sized while PI335 Gemini Lake is pico-ITX sized. ODROID H2 has 2 Ethernet, but PI335 Gemini Lake includes WiFi & BT and it comes in a closed case which will protect it in dusty environments (both have passive cooling). PI335-GK uses a 5 V power supply, so it should be easy to be powered from a power bank. The CPU TDP is configured for steady state 6 W and 15 W for the first 28 seconds. The idle CPU power is less than 2 W. I have not measured the total idle power of the computer. With the CPU halted, the power consumption should be much less, but I have not measured it. Gemini Lake has a speed just a little less than a Snapdragon 845, but it is much faster than older ARM processors and than older Atom processors.
snovv_crash 8y ago
There's the Intel Up board. 4 Atom cores, gigabit ethernet, 2xUSB3, 2xUSB2, HDMI and the same form factor as a Pi. You can get expansion boards that break out more USB ports (not on a hub, independent bandwidth), native UART and I2C. I've been playing with them for onboard computing on a drone, so far it is working really well. Price is about $100 for the low spec ones.
8fingerlouie 8y ago
You should give the Odroid HC2 (or HC1) a look (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/) It's an 8 core ARM SBC, with 2GB Ram, Gigabit ethernet on one USB3 bus, and a SATA connector on another USB3 bus. It can fully saturate spinning rush, though it might have problems with SSD drives. In any case, it will fully saturate your GigE link with even a slow harddrive. It runs a standard Linux kernel, with the "driver" for the hardware added, which is why it requires a special build. Latest kernel version is 4.18. There is also an OMV build for it. Mine uses around 4-8W, depending on how much the harddrive is being used. I've got a couple of them running as backup targets (Arq, Borg, etc) with a 4TB WD Red and Btrfs, and they've been rock solid. If you need hardware AES, you should probably be looking elsewhere.

adrian_b 8y ago

The 3rd and 4th are mutually exclusive. If you want the power consumption of a smartphone, you also have the computational speed of a smartphone, but that should be enough for many applications. I have experimented with a very large number of devices between NUC and Pi. While the best processors for such devices would be ARM processors (with Cortex-A76 or Cortex-A75), nobody offers adequate devices. You can find only devices with obsolete slow ARM processors, e.g. RK3399, which are much faster than Pi but much slower than x86, or you can find development systems or modules with modern smartphone ARM processors, but those are much more expensive than a faster Intel NUC. Therefore, for the moment the only sensible choices are devices with either Intel Gemini Lake processors or with Intel Y-Series processors. The devices with Intel Y-Series processors are much faster, but they are also more expensive. While Zotac has presented at CES one such device, its price and time of availability are unknown. For now, the only device available with Y-Series is "LattePanda Alpha". Considering that its price includes 8 GB RAM, 64 GB flash and the Windows licence (even if I wiped it and I installed Linux) it is cheaper than an i3 NUC where at the same price you have no memory. It has everything a NUC has, except that it has one less USB port (it has 1 C + 3 A, while some NUCs have 1 C + 4 A). I have installed in its 2 M.2 connectors a NVMe SSD and a second Ethernet interface. The speed was excellent, because the Kaby Lake CPU was configured for 7 W TDP with 15 W TDP for the first 28 seconds. The included fan does not start unless you run a heavy workload and even then it is silent. The size is smaller than a NUC but larger than a pico-ITX board. If you want something cheaper, or if you want, like me, both full-size DisplayPort & HDMI connectors (not DisplayPort on USB C), then you must choose a Gemini Lake device, i.e. either Zotac ZBOX PI335 Gemini Lake (with N4100, not to be confused with the obsolete ZBOX PI335 with N3350) or an ODROID H2. The ODROID H2 is faster and possibly cheaper (depending on the memory you buy or you already have; ZBOX has soldered memory), but it is larger. ODROID H2 is NUC-sized while PI335 Gemini Lake is pico-ITX sized. ODROID H2 has 2 Ethernet, but PI335 Gemini Lake includes WiFi & BT and it comes in a closed case which will protect it in dusty environments (both have passive cooling). PI335-GK uses a 5 V power supply, so it should be easy to be powered from a power bank. The CPU TDP is configured for steady state 6 W and 15 W for the first 28 seconds. The idle CPU power is less than 2 W. I have not measured the total idle power of the computer. With the CPU halted, the power consumption should be much less, but I have not measured it. Gemini Lake has a speed just a little less than a Snapdragon 845, but it is much faster than older ARM processors and than older Atom processors.

snovv_crash 8y ago

There's the Intel Up board. 4 Atom cores, gigabit ethernet, 2xUSB3, 2xUSB2, HDMI and the same form factor as a Pi. You can get expansion boards that break out more USB ports (not on a hub, independent bandwidth), native UART and I2C. I've been playing with them for onboard computing on a drone, so far it is working really well. Price is about $100 for the low spec ones.

8fingerlouie 8y ago

You should give the Odroid HC2 (or HC1) a look (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/) It's an 8 core ARM SBC, with 2GB Ram, Gigabit ethernet on one USB3 bus, and a SATA connector on another USB3 bus. It can fully saturate spinning rush, though it might have problems with SSD drives. In any case, it will fully saturate your GigE link with even a slow harddrive. It runs a standard Linux kernel, with the "driver" for the hardware added, which is why it requires a special build. Latest kernel version is 4.18. There is also an OMV build for it. Mine uses around 4-8W, depending on how much the harddrive is being used. I've got a couple of them running as backup targets (Arq, Borg, etc) with a 4TB WD Red and Btrfs, and they've been rock solid. If you need hardware AES, you should probably be looking elsewhere.