HardRock64 Is an Upcoming Raspberry Pi Rival Starting from $35
HardROCK64 SBC
Pine64 company unveiled in their official company website a new single-board computer with a similar small form factor as the Raspberry PI 4 called the HardRock64.
This new SBC uses an RK3399 SoC, It has 2 Arm Cortex-A72 main processor cores with clock speed up to 1.8GHz, plus 4 co-processor cores with Arm Cortex-A53, with Arm Mali-T864 4-core graphics processor.
These days Chinese Single board computer brands are becoming very popular and also competitive in price. The new HardROCK64 SBC not an exception in this category. Rockchip based SBCs offer great specs value for the buck, but they do need extensive cooling to operate optimally, and PINE64 didn’t provide any detailed information exactly about how the processor would be cooled.
HardRock64 with previously introduced RockPro64 also equipped RK3399 SoC, and previously introduced RockPro64 compatible operating system image, while HardRock64 removed USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C terminal and a PCIe slot, but the US $ 25 may be depressed, if those features are not used, HardRock64 is a relatively cost-effective choice.
The HardROCK64 provides two sets of USB 3.2 Gen1 and USB 2.0 Host ports, as well as HDMI, GbE Ethernet, infrared receiver, GPIO, CSI, DSI, fan, RTC clock battery, and other terminals, and support I / O and transmission functions like Wi-Fi 5 (IEEE 802.11 ac) and Bluetooth 5.0.
After reviewing the latest SBC launched by FriendlyElec called the NanoPi M4V2 you can expect the same level of hardware performance with a powerful Hexa-core processor (6 cores) that is considered to be superior to that of the raspberry pi 4 board series, that is equipped with a Broadcom BCM2711 Quad-core (4 cores) Cortex-A72 processor. Besides the powerful processor, with the Mali-T864 GPU, you can expect 4K video playback and better 3D graphics performance. The HardRock64 board will ship in 3 LPDDR4 RAM configurations (tentative $ pricing):
- 1GB ~ $35
- 2GB ~ $45
- 4GB ~ $55
HardROCK64 | Preview Photos
HardRock64 01
HardRock64 vs. Raspberry Pi 4 Specs
Spec | HardROCK64 | Raspberry Pi 4 B |
CPU | 2x Arm Cortex A-72 cores + 4x Cortex-A53 cores (Rockchip RK3399) | 4x Arm Cortex A-72 cores (Broadcom BCM2711B0) @ 1.5 GHz |
GPU | Arm Mali-T860 MP4 | VideoCore VI @ 500 MHz |
USB Ports | 2x USB 3.0; 2x USB 2.0 | 2x USB 3.0; 2x USB 2.0 |
Connectivity | WiFi 802.11ac; Bluetooth 5.0 | 1x Ethernet; WiFi 802.11ac; Bluetooth 5.0 |
Storage | MicroSD card slot | MicroSD card slot |
RAM | 1 - 4GB LPDDR4 | 1 - 4GB LPDDR4 |
HardROCK64 specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3399 Hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding
- System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4
- Storage – SPI flash, eMMC flash socket, MicroSD card slot
- Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV port, MIPI DSI connector
- Audio – Analog stereo audio via AV port, digital audio via HDMI
- Camera – MIPI CSI connector
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports
- Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header
- Misc – Fan & RTC headers, heatsink mount, IR receiver
- Power Supply – 5V via barrel jack
- Dimensions – ~85×56 mm