4 ms·
RK3588 SBCs are widely available for a fraction of the price.
by kcb 3y ago
RK3588 SBCs are widely available for a fraction of the price.
- adrian_b 3y agoYes, e.g. a motherboard with 16 GB DRAM and 256 GB of eMMC can be found at $150. Adding a case and a WiFi card for a complete computer increases the cost to $190. If one is content with much less memory, e.g. with 4 GB, a complete computer can be bought for slightly more than $100. RK3588 has about the same speed as the previous generation of Intel Atom CPUs, i.e. Jasper Lake and Elkhart Lake. When one is willing to spend more than $200 on a complete computer, then there are no ARM computers that can compete in price with the very cheap computers that use the current generation of Atom CPUs, i.e. the Intel Alder Lake N CPUs, e.g. N100 or i3-N305. All the ARM computers which match or exceed the performance or features of the Alder Lake N computers (e.g. those with NVIDIA, Qualcomm or MediaTek CPUs) are several times more expensive than the computers with Intel CPUs. When one is willing to spend more than $400 for a small computer, the best deals are those with AMD CPUs.
- fmajid 3y agoM1 Mac Minis. Give Asahi Linux another year or so to stabilize, or OpenBSD.
- adrian_b 3y agoMac Minis are nice, but they do not compete in performance per dollar with the computers using AMD, Intel or cheaper ARM CPUs. They also do not compete in dimensions for the applications where a small computer is desired, e.g. for being easy to carry. I consider 16 GB of DRAM as the right amount of memory for a computer with the price between $100 and $400. For a computer whose price is $1000 or more, I consider mandatory 64 GB DRAM and at least one 2 TB SSD. The amounts of memory provided in a Mac Mini of reasonable price are pathetic.
- fmajid 3y agoDon’t forget to factor the power brick when assessing portability. Totally agree on the puny RAM.