Am I the only one that finds Chris's videos to be some of the most informative (relative to topic) on youtube? Fair, objective, not trying to sell you anything. Just good information. Keep it up Chris!
They are amazingly informative. I've put computers together for cad systems and I am the computer guy at home and I've never come across a youtuber with such in depth info about the old technology and how it has develop till today. I think that's the most valuable information you get from Chris and these videos. And the video editing just gives it a nice feeling. It goes so well together. If your watching these videos, your here for the amazing information. Like someone said, this information is gold!
YT video playback only looked "better" to you because you didn't notice it drop to 720p at 11:34. There is a big difference between data usage and processing power required. Ooops!
But all these non-pi SBC all come down to the same thing, good hardware but limited software and long before the software ecosystem catches up the rasburry pi's hardware will have moved on anyway.
@@patdbean Exactly! RADXA simply copies RPi, just with more impressive HW specs. But, that's only half of a computer system. IOW, RADXA simply throws some impressive HW onto a board, then mostly depend upon their community to sort out the software issues. That may interest some bored Linux gurus, but it took them 3 generations of the ROCK Pi, just to get the HD video playback to an acceptable state. The heatsink still covers the eMMC module. The M.2 connector still points in the wrong direction and the ribbon cable still obstructs the microSD slot. The fragile M.2 'shim' adapter, flimsy ribbon, and expansion board are only remaining after thoughts from the 4B. Still no onboard DC power connector, which dedicates the USB-C to only power delivery. Still no on-board PWM fan connection. Still no case to house the static sensitive components. So, if you actually want to MAKE SOMETHING USEFUL, start with designing your own DIY case if you want to waste the extra time and money. But, admittedly, the ROCK Pi ships inside a nice plastic throwaway case. 🥴 Sorry for the rant, but I've already had the RADXA experience and I'm triggered every time I see one reviewed. Once burned, twice shy. Best regards. Stay safe, everyone!😎
@@TheOleHermit What's the issue with the eMMC being covered by the heat sink? I'd prefer my storage cool and it's not hard to take the heat sink off or have a small SD ready for rewriting it
Always your reviews cover the product fairly and clearly for SBC community. I greatly appreciate the time and care you take with your reviews and the clarity of your explanations. Keep up the excellent work you do for the SBC community.
I had my finger poised over the 'BUY NOW' button until I got to the bit about not booting from an M.2. There's always sommat! Excellent vid all the same. Thanks.
Hkey_ Root Philip Bedford not necessarily a bad thing, my main pc doesn’t support booting for Nvme although I’d rather keep the OS on its own SSD, I install all my apps and games to the nvme drive. There is no real speed increase to load times with nvme, only really visible when copying large files or running benchmarks.
After 3 days of tinkering and 3 weeks after I purchase this. This is definitely NOT an ARM SBC for the beginner or the average RPi4 user. It has become one of my favorite ARM SBC boards. I managed to solved 99% of the issues it initially had. It requires so much tinkering it kind of reminds me of the old days of linux 20 yeas ago. RockPi4c is a very flexible board with great documentation and support via official forum that require manual configuration for almost each component. I loved it. Best way to keep this board cool at all times, even under full load running less than 46 degrees is to use a 20mmx20mm 1.0mm copper shim between the radxa large heatsink and the CPU. Apply some quality thermal paste on Top and bottom of the Copper shim and you're golden. Do this and you will achieve From 20 to 30 degrees Celsius LESS now. With the Copper shim, There is no longer need to use an active fan with it. Currently, official Debian 9 is the best OS for this relatively new board, it has less than 3 month old. Keep in mind, RockPi4B images and documentation won't work on newer RockPi4C because of hardware differences with dual video output. Some other features like MIPI display serial interface won't work without modifications and currently there is No working version for 4C. You need to change and compile 4B overlay with dtc to create the dtbo file by disabling min DP port because RK3399 only supports two(2) video output engine. Built-in Bluetooth requires a manual patching in order to work on 4C. This powerful and customizable board does NOT work out of the box. Overall, I'm truly impressed with Radxa boards. I will be buying a RockPi N10 when becomes available and definitely the next RK3588 board from Radxa when get released in 2021 or 2022.
@CipherBytes I remember cutting myself while I was building my first computer. I mean no one told me the part that IO shield goes in might be sharp. I know now...
It’d be great to see more about setting up the Real Time Clock with that battery connector along with booting to NVmE and/or MMC. After that, it would be fabulous to see an example of USING the USB OTG feature. I think those features are a little more challenging but offer much more rewarding overall usage for turning this SBC into a project. For the OTG feature, an interesting starting point might be as a fake keyboard or as a keyboard translator, translating a keyboard’s key codes to another set of keycodes. (Such as taking a a PC keyboard and making it work for a Mac but the Pi being a smart configurable intermediary)
That youtube playback is impressive, I've been looking for one of the cheaper sbcs to use as a media device and this might just be it, although I might wait a bit until there's a bit more accessories & better documentation for it
The main reason I stuck with a Pi4 4gig is the large user base which will ensure device and software support. I have heard horror stories about unique SBC's being paperweights as none of the distro's supported the hardware and firmware requirements, and community interest and uptake was too low for anything to be tailored for them.
@@BlueBird-wb6kb How do you figure? IMHO, purchasing half baked products allows inferior products onto the market. Burned customers (self included) waste their money. I'm looking at my ROCK Pi 4B paperweight, only collecting dust on the shelf, after wasting ~$200 and several months on troubleshooting. Underdeveloped products only cause needless suffering. They should not be marketed until they can live up to their promises. HW is only 1/2 of a computer. Without a stable, fully functional distro specs are useless. Maybe I'll glue some impressive components onto a board, then sell it to naive customers. I'll even start a support forum, so that folks like you can figure out how to make it work. Works for Radxa.😒
And how many such SBC boards will the market support? Are the additional features of this 4C compelling? If so, will they appear RSN on the Raspberry Pi?
AH! Now we're talking! With an NVME drive (once it's working properly) would be an excellent solution! Hopefully, we will see an 8Gb RockPi someday. Great video, Sir!
It’s amazing how much technology can be put into a board of that size. Although I find the larger SBC boards interesting, boards of this size or smaller just seem to be more fascinating to me. Probably because I got my start in computing with a Timex Sinclair 1000. Whatever the board size, we live in exciting computing times. Looking forward to your next video!
ExplainingComputers Hopefully your chest is continuing to heal well. I wish you and your channel a long successful life! Looking forward to next Sunday!
Interesting with the comparison between different SBC's. But I always ending choosing the Raspberry Pi series, mainly because of: 1) I want to support the pioneer developers at Raspberry Pi Foundation 2) The community 3) The stability, and (mostly) bugfree OS
kind of cool remembering your channel having 100k subs back when i first started watching back in the original pi days. Seems like your channel grows at the same rate as the pi does.
I enjoyed the video, Chris. I fret over buying a SBC to run Pi-Hole on though I wouldn't think twice about spending more for a decent dinner for Mrs. Dallas Mike and me. Weird how that works. We keep you and your health in our prayers.
Went to Seeed to place my order....the model B 4gig is $75 compared to the C 4gig's $59. I'm not waiting any longer, I want this Pi....Doing well with Wine on LM on my laptop, now for some ARM input...more INPUT! ( remember No5?) Finally coached me into SBC's Chris, can't wait for the package, thanx for the upload.
Hi Tony! Happy to see your excitement! :-) If I may provide a little input, SBCs are currently a WIP, especially if you tinker with different distributions. Some things may not work as expected. However if you are patient, they get better and teach you many things. P.S. Reach out if you need any assistance!
@@abchk22 Thanks, being on linux for a while might just soften that up a bit, and yes, I'm expecting a lot of hurdles, but that's exactly what makes tinkering exiting...All this coming from a 80's micro computer dinosaur...Sure, I've bookmarked this page,.. we can exchange some input 😉 👍
@@AnthonyElsom Yay! Thanks Tony! :-) I came from from a similar experience, and it was harder than I imagined. Hopefully it will go well for you. Take care!
@@abchk22 Getting started on linux was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but then I have a younger brother coached by myself way back keeping me up to date with linux and so forth..I intend to integrate a Pi into a small keyboard not unlike those early micro's except even smaller to optimize the Pi's dimensions..Old school micro's is back, with dual monitors and familiar 2020's media..No bulky pc crowding your desk or your feet underneath it. 🙄..You take care too..
Another expert video on a SBC! A pretty impressive one as well for the money. My suggestion to improve it: It comes packaged in a pretty good acrylic case - Surely it would not have been too difficult to design and construct this case as a housing in itself? Cutouts for the ports, heat sinks etc. A huge advantage over competitors, I would think?! Just an idea, where I think the packaging could form a part of the end product.
Nice idea; it would also be a good way to prevent plastic waste. If they could make the case stable when sitting on its side, that would improve the cooling.
I will look at all the SBC and then come here to check if its worth it with a proper in depth review. Thank you! Going with the Pi 4B 8G and Manjaro 64 bit.
You sold me on the 4C. It is a very fast SBC, but I chose to use the heavy heat sink in order to avoid having to use a fan. This choice of setup is unsuitable for what I had hoped would be a "tablet like" application. I'm going to try the Radxa Zero instead.
Another great video. You are a must see every time. Dual video was a hurdle that had me purchasing a RPi a few months ago. 8 megs of ram would be a slight stumbling block for me. A complete fail with the NVMe slot sticking out into nowhere. Such a great idea with poor execution.
Great video, i have to confess that this is the first of yours on pi or sbc that i have watched. as usual great presentation, i am amazed at the abilities of the very small devices, my god !! p.s. we have all worked at sometime in a coal mine with low light
What a great and informative video on another neat SBC. Might consider picking up a Rock Pi 4C instead of a RPi4 in the near future. As a sidenote, at about 4:35 you noted the board had 802.11 a/c WiFi. The slash implied that it supports a and c, and while 802.11a existed (it was the old old original standard), 802.11c did not.
This one is getting close to being my perfect project SBC. onboard RTC, OTG support and now NVME slot is really encouraging. If and when they get some better OS support I will definitely get one for some trials. It would be fantastic if one of the primo casemakers like Argon had a case that had the NVME extender built in.
"Hardware is useless without software". I often see videos titled "raspberry pi alternatives" or raspberry pi killer" like videos in my feed. What is common in every one of them is 1) lack of software support and 2) less community involvement. The first can be fixed with some updates here and there but the second one will, in my opinion, never equal raspberry pi. Raspberry pi has been here for 11 years now and in that time it has created a firm foothold in the SBC market, deserved too. It is in everything from 3d printers to space stations. It was wide software support and a huge community backing, tinkering and supporting it. It has many add ons for it, HATs, cameras and what not. That said, if raspberry pi foundation sits on their back and do not make new innovations to the SBC people will start to migrate to other SBCs. Right now, I do not see much reason to choose other SBCs over the pi.
The Rock Pi 4C looks to be one of those (unfortunately many) electronic and computer devices which are released regularly which don't have all the actual and potential bugs worked out upon sale to the public. In time this may prove to be a very good device, but to the SBC novice buying their first board, I cannot help but feel their discouragement upon trying to set this up wishing that maybe they had purchased a different device.
This. It's much more work to get things working and with that I mean nearly everything. I remember I wanted to get something working, which in the end was a futile task due to the 4.4 kernel. Overall a huge hassle if you don't know what you're doing or just want things to work like they do on the raspi.
Hi Chris , nice SBC / powerful and feature full but not ready to be pushed out of the nest! Hope to see a follow up video when it has received the missing parts. See you in the future, stay safe!
I imagine they're working on a heatsink since that could be an explanation for the NVMe facing outward. Honestly any heatsink would be obstructed by the NVMe. Seems like the Pi and Odroid have the right idea of having the CPU's IHS on the top side . Anyways, great video as always Chris.
Samsung EVO Plus 970 m.2 NVMe gets 940MB/s average transfer speeds for I/O reading and writing on RockPi4C. That's is roughly 3X faster than USB3 SSD boot speeds on Raspberry Pi 4.
Trickiest part I found is to configure/setup a m.2 NVMe drive. If you want to boot from NVMe on RockPi4C, only use approved Radxa Acer m.2 NVME drives: shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-pi-4-accessories/products/acer-m-2-nvme-ssd-for-rock-pi-4 Don't forget the heatsink to keep it cool: shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-pi-4-accessories/products/heat-sink-for-nvme-ssd-2280 Currently the fastest drive for RockPi4C is Samsung Evo Plus 970 NVMe. Unfortunately it doesn't boot from yet, Currently only five(5) m.2 NVMe drives are booting from RockPi4C: wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/FAQs#Which_M.2_SSD_are_supported.3F
Nice video as always. Looking at the board I can not help but think that a little bit of shuffling in the circuitry will enable the NVME to be mounted inward like in many mini ITX boards. Would love to see another video on it with a firmware update and a proper heatsink.
The Debian Desktop looks a bit pieced together with the audio icon in the bottom right at 10:46 all black on a dark taskbar and the Bluetooth icon with a white background as well. Also the program tabs have the same problem. 8-/ Guess it can't be perfect when it is free...
Wholly moley...things are getting fascinating...and cheap....I would like to build a three device ceph filesystem storage cluster from them....some assembly required, but I think well worth the effort. Thank you for you wise comparisons and analysis.
Stanley The Knife displays his exceedingly powerful unboxing abilities once more but still fails to release his own merch line... waiting... thx for the review Sir 👍
Great Video - Thanks so much for this Prof. Chris! Just a couple comments on this board. Overall I really really like it, and in time, I will buy one for a certain spot where I need a light-duty Linux desktop here for home. But - The two main issues you correctly point out need to be fixed first. They have to get the large heatsink issue worked out and provide a large aluminum block heatsink for the Rock Pi 4C.. Also, not being able to boot properly from SSD is just a blunder. It seems that their marketing guys or the bean-counters forced the technical guys to rush this to market before these issues were worked out.. BAD! As a workaround for the SSD booting issue, you can always boot from SD-Card or eMMC (or whatever) and just put the bootloader and grub on the initial boot medium and then point grub to the SSD to boot the operating system.. You can do that with *any* Linux/Unix/BSD variant, you just need to boot SOMEthing and then grub takes it from there and points to your desired mass storage.. But you have to know how to set that up.. Some Assembly Required... Thanks Again for the great video on this new and very capable SBC!!
Fantastic video Chris. What a beast of a SBC this is! Regarding your knife cutting skills, maybe I should create a new channel for you "Explaining Stanley".
They make a large heat sink for the 4c, I bought mine a month ago with the heat sink specifically for the 4c. Maybe your vendor doesn’t carry it or you were looking in the wrong place. I have mine booting off eMMC and it’s very quick. I bought this over the PI 4 because of all the storage and video connection options
It's wonderful that Chris keeps us up to date on SBC, but since when RPI 4 has been USB bootable, I look at Rock 4C with skepticism at first. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It would be interesting to know how fast is NVME SSD through M.2 connector. (It can also be connected to USB 3 via an adapter).
It depends on the m.2 drive. Samsung EVO 970 plus NVMe does 940MB/s on RockPi4C for reading and writing speeds. That's is almost 3x times as fast as USB3 SSD speeds on the Raspberry pi 4.
Coal mine, reminded me of the bengal tiger guarded City Council basement where one could (or probably couldn’t) view the plans for the bypass running through Arthur’s house ...
I wish one of the SBC manufacturers would release a board with the latest ARM processors like an A76 or the new A77, of course, the price would be increased somewhat but I believe there is a need for faster SBC's with more memory, just look at the success of the RPi4 8Gb and the multitude of OS's that have taken advantage of this boards abilities.
I would really appreciate if you could include testing camera and video encoding with these SBCs. Most of them have impressive specs but suck, when it comes to hardware acceleration support. In this regards, RasPi still is ahead of the crowd.
I find it interesting when I run a sharpen extension on a video it increases bandwidth tremendously where a video didn't drop frames prior to many and struggling with sharpness at high rez settings.
Great video, Chris! Makes me wonder how these SBC's compare to the Mainframes of the '70's (you know, those things, where a whole building had to be designed for it). Seems to me they've already surpassed those Million Dollar Babies...
Good to see some healthy competition keeping the SBC market going. I just wish the manufacturers could come up with a smarter solution for nvme drives than having them either sticking out the edge or requiring a large addon plate, significantly increasing the height.
Great Video again. Bit strange releasing a new device that takes super fast drives but cannot boot from them yet were they in a rush or something? By the way I couldn't not help noticing that Mr Stanley "the knife" nearly stabbed your left Mr Index Finger :-)
Hi Christopher. It is a nice board indeed. Now I got the Odroid N2+. Very fast CPU, but not as well supported yet in Linux, bad I/O and bad working USB3. So the RK3399's are still my favorite. I wonder how well it works with multi dislpay. I guess good GPU drivers will be needed to make it a good experience. Good the RK3399 has Panfrost. I've got a video showing how to install it on RK3399. Finished my N2+ Linux review this week. It's good to be able to review something new again. I can't wait for the RockPiX. x86 and a bit higher clocked than the Atomic Pi (1.9Ghz vs 1.7Ghz) while same SoC and 4GB vs 2GB. The same form factor as RockPi4. I like the Atomic Pi, but it's a bit too big and could use a bit more performance. Have a great evening. Greetings. NicoD
🤯 Good to see you here, my friend. Been missing your reviews. Wondered whether you had fallen victim to COVID-19. Been up to my ears with RPi HQ cameras, stereoscopic vision, OpenCV, AI robotics, Jetson NX, & RPi CM3. Looking forward to RPi dropping the CM4 along with the inevitable variety of 3rd party carrier boards. Been eyeballing the Odroid N2 lately, so I'm looking forward to watching your review. 😎💨
@@TheOleHermit Hi, the N2+ review is online on my channel. I indeed had a sabbath. Didn't have new toys to play with and didn't feel good when locked down. I'm a bird that needs freedom. Greetings.
Am I the only one that finds Chris's videos to be some of the most informative (relative to topic) on youtube? Fair, objective, not trying to sell you anything. Just good information. Keep it up Chris!
Thanks. :)
They are amazingly informative. I've put computers together for cad systems and I am the computer guy at home and I've never come across a youtuber with such in depth info about the old technology and how it has develop till today. I think that's the most valuable information you get from Chris and these videos. And the video editing just gives it a nice feeling. It goes so well together. If your watching these videos, your here for the amazing information. Like someone said, this information is gold!
And he doesn't go on yammering about politics like another computer guy on YT does.
Chris is my dream boo
Your videos are warm, welcoming and informing Chris. They put me in the mind of the BBC's old "Tomorrow's World" science progs in tone.
Yes and the BBC's Micro Live...You should do more coding videos Chris!
Absolutely. He comes across as a good friend you would enjoy hanging out with. A really smart good friend.
YES!
@@stephenelliott7071 a"₩0)
Channel feels like old-school but,
Old is gold.
Channel feels like old-school, but old is gold.
YT video playback only looked "better" to you because you didn't notice it drop to 720p at 11:34. There is a big difference between data usage and processing power required. Ooops!
Ah, a very good spot! This said, I have used this board to watch a lot of TH-cam now, and performance has been very good.
Enjoying the SBC industry trying to out do each other, bringing wider choice to tinkerers 👍
Indeed. Competition encourages these companies to really push their limits and in the end the consumer wins.
But all these non-pi SBC all come down to the same thing, good hardware but limited software and long before the software ecosystem catches up the rasburry pi's hardware will have moved on anyway.
Literally, got to love competition in a free market.
@@patdbean Exactly! RADXA simply copies RPi, just with more impressive HW specs. But, that's only half of a computer system. IOW, RADXA simply throws some impressive HW onto a board, then mostly depend upon their community to sort out the software issues. That may interest some bored Linux gurus, but it took them 3 generations of the ROCK Pi, just to get the HD video playback to an acceptable state.
The heatsink still covers the eMMC module. The M.2 connector still points in the wrong direction and the ribbon cable still obstructs the microSD slot. The fragile M.2 'shim' adapter, flimsy ribbon, and expansion board are only remaining after thoughts from the 4B.
Still no onboard DC power connector, which dedicates the USB-C to only power delivery. Still no on-board PWM fan connection. Still no case to house the static sensitive components. So, if you actually want to MAKE SOMETHING USEFUL, start with designing your own DIY case if you want to waste the extra time and money. But, admittedly, the ROCK Pi ships inside a nice plastic throwaway case. 🥴
Sorry for the rant, but I've already had the RADXA experience and I'm triggered every time I see one reviewed. Once burned, twice shy.
Best regards. Stay safe, everyone!😎
@@TheOleHermit What's the issue with the eMMC being covered by the heat sink? I'd prefer my storage cool and it's not hard to take the heat sink off or have a small SD ready for rewriting it
Always your reviews cover the product fairly and clearly for SBC community. I greatly appreciate the time and care you take with your reviews and the clarity of your explanations. Keep up the excellent work you do for the SBC community.
Thnks for your kind feedback.
I had my finger poised over the 'BUY NOW' button until I got to the bit about not booting from an M.2. There's always sommat!
Excellent vid all the same. Thanks.
It does boot, but is a bit picky on the controller chip. That is why we only offer Acer nvme drives which have proven to work flawlessly.
Hkey_ Root Philip Bedford not necessarily a bad thing, my main pc doesn’t support booting for Nvme although I’d rather keep the OS on its own SSD, I install all my apps and games to the nvme drive. There is no real speed increase to load times with nvme, only really visible when copying large files or running benchmarks.
@@jonjohnson2844 I boot a Pi4B from an M.2 drive therefore it is necessarily a bad thing.
@@NB-sw1op I might be interested when it'll boot flawlessly from a WD (or any other drive).
After 3 days of tinkering and 3 weeks after I purchase this. This is definitely NOT an ARM SBC for the beginner or the average RPi4 user. It has become one of my favorite ARM SBC boards. I managed to solved 99% of the issues it initially had.
It requires so much tinkering it kind of reminds me of the old days of linux 20 yeas ago. RockPi4c is a very flexible board with great documentation and support via official forum that require manual configuration for almost each component. I loved it.
Best way to keep this board cool at all times, even under full load running less than 46 degrees is to use a 20mmx20mm 1.0mm copper shim between the radxa large heatsink and the CPU. Apply some quality thermal paste on Top and bottom of the Copper shim and you're golden. Do this and you will achieve From 20 to 30 degrees Celsius LESS now. With the Copper shim, There is no longer need to use an active fan with it.
Currently, official Debian 9 is the best OS for this relatively new board, it has less than 3 month old. Keep in mind, RockPi4B images and documentation won't work on newer RockPi4C because of hardware differences with dual video output.
Some other features like MIPI display serial interface won't work without modifications and currently there is No working version for 4C. You need to change and compile 4B overlay with dtc to create the dtbo file by disabling min DP port because RK3399 only supports two(2) video output engine.
Built-in Bluetooth requires a manual patching in order to work on 4C.
This powerful and customizable board does NOT work out of the box. Overall, I'm truly impressed with Radxa boards. I will be buying a RockPi N10 when becomes available and definitely the next RK3588 board from Radxa when get released in 2021 or 2022.
Thank you for your contribution Chris! I always come to your channel for reviews.
This SBC has input mic. Great news for audio projects!. Thanks for the video Chris.
Yet another feature considering I've already ordered one, and I'm using Frooty Loops among other audio apps..👍
Indeed, got me confused on buying a raspberry now
That's not the way to cut the tape - Stanley the knife almost slashed your fingers!
Plus, Stanley could've done a neater job !
@CipherBytes I remember cutting myself while I was building my first computer. I mean no one told me the part that IO shield goes in might be sharp. I know now...
Yeah scared the shit out of me!
New blade for Stanley
Agreed. Stanley is not your friend, no matter what he says. And that reminds me of the rule: "Always cut towards your buddy, _not_ your body."
It’d be great to see more about setting up the Real Time Clock with that battery connector along with booting to NVmE and/or MMC. After that, it would be fabulous to see an example of USING the USB OTG feature. I think those features are a little more challenging but offer much more rewarding overall usage for turning this SBC into a project. For the OTG feature, an interesting starting point might be as a fake keyboard or as a keyboard translator, translating a keyboard’s key codes to another set of keycodes. (Such as taking a a PC keyboard and making it work for a Mac but the Pi being a smart configurable intermediary)
That youtube playback is impressive, I've been looking for one of the cheaper sbcs to use as a media device and this might just be it, although I might wait a bit until there's a bit more accessories & better documentation for it
Your videos has taught me many things about the Computers Thank you for that ☺️
Happy to hear that!
Well... provided you're mostly interested in an endless parade of single board computers.
The main reason I stuck with a Pi4 4gig is the large user base which will ensure device and software support. I have heard horror stories about unique SBC's being paperweights as none of the distro's supported the hardware and firmware requirements, and community interest and uptake was too low for anything to be tailored for them.
Pick the superior product and the community will come as well, so your way of thinking allows inferior products to succeed.
@@BlueBird-wb6kb Only one is willing to tinker and be patient I feel. ARM SBCs are a very different experience than x86 PCs currently.
You must have read some of my comments. 😎
@@BlueBird-wb6kb How do you figure? IMHO, purchasing half baked products allows inferior products onto the market. Burned customers (self included) waste their money. I'm looking at my ROCK Pi 4B paperweight, only collecting dust on the shelf, after wasting ~$200 and several months on troubleshooting.
Underdeveloped products only cause needless suffering. They should not be marketed until they can live up to their promises. HW is only 1/2 of a computer. Without a stable, fully functional distro specs are useless.
Maybe I'll glue some impressive components onto a board, then sell it to naive customers. I'll even start a support forum, so that folks like you can figure out how to make it work.
Works for Radxa.😒
And how many such SBC boards will the market support? Are the additional features of this 4C compelling? If so, will they appear RSN on the Raspberry Pi?
AH! Now we're talking! With an NVME drive (once it's working properly) would be an excellent solution! Hopefully, we will see an 8Gb RockPi someday. Great video, Sir!
I had to flinch when you opened the tape with the knife. Almost a trip to Annie the A and E hospital.
Is Annie's surname "Mergency"?
Very nice SBC. I’m waiting for the day that a manufacturer figures out how to turn the m.2 socket around!
Greetings Chris.
It’s amazing how much technology can be put into a board of that size. Although I find the larger SBC boards interesting, boards of this size or smaller just seem to be more fascinating to me. Probably because I got my start in computing with a Timex Sinclair 1000. Whatever the board size, we live in exciting computing times. Looking forward to your next video!
Thanks for this Perry. I too favour the small, cheaper boards and how much they have packed into them these days.
ExplainingComputers Hopefully your chest is continuing to heal well. I wish you and your channel a long successful life! Looking forward to next Sunday!
Interesting with the comparison between different SBC's. But I always ending choosing the Raspberry Pi series, mainly because of:
1) I want to support the pioneer developers at Raspberry Pi Foundation
2) The community
3) The stability, and (mostly) bugfree OS
Pioneers? Rpi is not the first sbc around at all (by far)
kind of cool remembering your channel having 100k subs back when i first started watching back in the original pi days. Seems like your channel grows at the same rate as the pi does.
Thanks for watching all these years! :) 100K subs seems so long ago now.
Its always nice to see new single board computer.. Great video as always.
Thanks!
This is the second time I have been seeing you upload videos recently, this is quite nice.
Thanks, I upload every Sunday.
This man never ages
The original Chris retired years ago and is living like a king in Patagonia with his friend the Dread Pirate Roberts :)
Omkar Talkar I suspect that for every SBC a person has they become a year younger.
I enjoyed the video, Chris. I fret over buying a SBC to run Pi-Hole on though I wouldn't think twice about spending more for a decent dinner for Mrs. Dallas Mike and me. Weird how that works. We keep you and your health in our prayers.
Sir, your presentation is so attractive that I could not stop watching your video midway. Fantastic informative overview.
Thanks.
Went to Seeed to place my order....the model B 4gig is $75 compared to the C 4gig's $59. I'm not waiting any longer, I want this Pi....Doing well with Wine on LM on my laptop, now for some ARM input...more INPUT! ( remember No5?) Finally coached me into SBC's Chris, can't wait for the package, thanx for the upload.
Hi Tony! Happy to see your excitement! :-)
If I may provide a little input, SBCs are currently a WIP, especially if you tinker with different distributions. Some things may not work as expected. However if you are patient, they get better and teach you many things.
P.S. Reach out if you need any assistance!
@@abchk22 Thanks, being on linux for a while might just soften that up a bit, and yes, I'm expecting a lot of hurdles, but that's exactly what makes tinkering exiting...All this coming from a 80's micro computer dinosaur...Sure, I've bookmarked this page,.. we can exchange some input 😉 👍
@@AnthonyElsom Yay! Thanks Tony! :-)
I came from from a similar experience, and it was harder than I imagined. Hopefully it will go well for you.
Take care!
@@abchk22 Getting started on linux was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but then I have a younger brother coached by myself way back keeping me up to date with linux and so forth..I intend to integrate a Pi into a small keyboard not unlike those early micro's except even smaller to optimize the Pi's dimensions..Old school micro's is back, with dual monitors and familiar 2020's media..No bulky pc crowding your desk or your feet underneath it. 🙄..You take care too..
Another expert video on a SBC! A pretty impressive one as well for the money.
My suggestion to improve it:
It comes packaged in a pretty good acrylic case - Surely it would not have been too difficult to design and construct this case as a housing in itself? Cutouts for the ports, heat sinks etc. A huge advantage over competitors, I would think?!
Just an idea, where I think the packaging could form a part of the end product.
Nice idea; it would also be a good way to prevent plastic waste. If they could make the case stable when sitting on its side, that would improve the cooling.
This was the perfect review for those pondering the differences and or whether to move forward. Well rounded sir! 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Thank you kindly!
I will look at all the SBC and then come here to check if its worth it with a proper in depth review. Thank you! Going with the Pi 4B 8G and Manjaro 64 bit.
You sold me on the 4C. It is a very fast SBC, but I chose to use the heavy heat sink in order to avoid having to use a fan. This choice of setup is unsuitable for what I had hoped would be a "tablet like" application. I'm going to try the Radxa Zero instead.
Thanks for the review, Chris. Very informative.
My pleasure!
Another great video. You are a must see every time.
Dual video was a hurdle that had me purchasing a RPi a few months ago.
8 megs of ram would be a slight stumbling block for me.
A complete fail with the NVMe slot sticking out into nowhere. Such a great idea with poor execution.
I had to close my eyes when you cut that tape please be careful.
Always cut towards yourself.
@@sewrough6449 always cut WITH YOUR HANDS NOT IN THE WAY.
@ Alright. Make sure your fingers are between the board and the knife to make sure it doesn't get damaged. Got it
Always love the videos , thanks for the effort!
Much appreciated!
Great video, i have to confess that this is the first of yours on pi or sbc that i have watched. as usual great presentation, i am amazed at the abilities of the very small devices, my god !! p.s. we have all worked at sometime in a coal mine with low light
Chris 'Explains' very well. I once saw a video of him as a guest lecturer at a college computer (math?) class - so he cortex runs on high octane(!)
What a great and informative video on another neat SBC. Might consider picking up a Rock Pi 4C instead of a RPi4 in the near future.
As a sidenote, at about 4:35 you noted the board had 802.11 a/c WiFi. The slash implied that it supports a and c, and while 802.11a existed (it was the old old original standard), 802.11c did not.
My apologies on the WiFi spec -- I reproduced what the spec for the board says! :) It should be 802.11 ac WiFi (no slash) which does exist!
Thanks for posting another quality video.
No problem!
Sounds cool, it's great to see more choice of SCBs to select from. This board, like others, has promise, once the issues are resolved.
Presentation has a classic approach and I like it very much.
At least there is one distro which can run on the Rock Pi 4C. I am still amazed why they often release these boards without a working OS.
This one is getting close to being my perfect project SBC. onboard RTC, OTG support and now NVME slot is really encouraging. If and when they get some better OS support I will definitely get one for some trials. It would be fantastic if one of the primo casemakers like Argon had a case that had the NVME extender built in.
"Hardware is useless without software". I often see videos titled "raspberry pi alternatives" or raspberry pi killer" like videos in my feed. What is common in every one of them is 1) lack of software support and 2) less community involvement. The first can be fixed with some updates here and there but the second one will, in my opinion, never equal raspberry pi. Raspberry pi has been here for 11 years now and in that time it has created a firm foothold in the SBC market, deserved too. It is in everything from 3d printers to space stations. It was wide software support and a huge community backing, tinkering and supporting it. It has many add ons for it, HATs, cameras and what not. That said, if raspberry pi foundation sits on their back and do not make new innovations to the SBC people will start to migrate to other SBCs. Right now, I do not see much reason to choose other SBCs over the pi.
The Rock Pi 4C looks to be one of those (unfortunately many) electronic and computer devices which are released regularly which don't have all the actual and potential bugs worked out upon sale to the public. In time this may prove to be a very good device, but to the SBC novice buying their first board, I cannot help but feel their discouragement upon trying to set this up wishing that maybe they had purchased a different device.
This. It's much more work to get things working and with that I mean nearly everything. I remember I wanted to get something working, which in the end was a futile task due to the 4.4 kernel. Overall a huge hassle if you don't know what you're doing or just want things to work like they do on the raspi.
Yep. Just another Chinese knock-off board with none of the support, documentation, or userbase of the Raspberry Pi.
An sbc is for tinkering. And even then, setup this board or any rk3399 is really easy with armbian.
Finally, that day come.
I see you now, M.2 NVME.
Hi Chris , nice SBC / powerful and feature full but not ready to be pushed out of the nest! Hope to see a follow up video when it has received the missing parts.
See you in the future, stay safe!
Oh my God! I've seen 3 of your videos in a row and you keep amazing me! The amount of information is insane!!!
Thanks for watching!
I imagine they're working on a heatsink since that could be an explanation for the NVMe facing outward. Honestly any heatsink would be obstructed by the NVMe. Seems like the Pi and Odroid have the right idea of having the CPU's IHS on the top side . Anyways, great video as always Chris.
Great video, I was hoping to see the video rendering test; like from your "SBC video editing" video. Keep up the great work.
Great video with valuable information, now I want to buy one!
Hope next version of Raspberry Pi will include NVMe.
Thanks for another informative stuff. 👍
I had to flinch when you opened the tape with Stanley the Knife. You came close to visiting Horace the Hospital.
I agree it looked shocking on camera! Scared me in the edit. Didn't seem that bad when I recorded it (upside down as usual).
I love your content! I really like the style! I have an Idea for your next video, WSL!
Samsung EVO Plus 970 m.2 NVMe gets 940MB/s average transfer speeds for I/O reading and writing on RockPi4C.
That's is roughly 3X faster than USB3 SSD boot speeds on Raspberry Pi 4.
Trickiest part I found is to configure/setup a m.2 NVMe drive. If you want to boot from NVMe on RockPi4C, only use approved Radxa Acer m.2 NVME drives:
shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-pi-4-accessories/products/acer-m-2-nvme-ssd-for-rock-pi-4
Don't forget the heatsink to keep it cool:
shop.allnetchina.cn/collections/rock-pi-4-accessories/products/heat-sink-for-nvme-ssd-2280
Currently the fastest drive for RockPi4C is Samsung Evo Plus 970 NVMe. Unfortunately it doesn't boot from yet, Currently only five(5) m.2 NVMe drives are booting from RockPi4C:
wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/FAQs#Which_M.2_SSD_are_supported.3F
Rock pi is really rocking computer world
Oh dear Chris, Stanley the Knife has got you into a lot of trouble this week.
He has indeed! :( I remember being shocked at the the shot in the edit. All seemed fine when I recorded this (upside down as usual).
Nice video as always. Looking at the board I can not help but think that a little bit of shuffling in the circuitry will enable the NVME to be mounted inward like in many mini ITX boards.
Would love to see another video on it with a firmware update and a proper heatsink.
I live for the woosh and nostalgia of school presentations of the 90s and early 2000s
:)
They're really loving the diagonal components. Don't see those very often.
Shame it's on the bottom of the board, as it adds to the look. Also, it's a shame its not compatible with that massive heatsink.
Diagonal components make trace routing quite easy
The Debian Desktop looks a bit pieced together with the audio icon in the bottom right at 10:46 all black on a dark taskbar and the Bluetooth icon with a white background as well. Also the program tabs have the same problem. 8-/
Guess it can't be perfect when it is free...
That's the case with almost any Linux desktop, but then again you can easily customize those to fit your needs.
same sound since 10 years ago (inbetween cut scenes) amazing
I stick to the format! :) Only the resolution and screen aspect has changed.
Wholly moley...things are getting fascinating...and cheap....I would like to build a three device ceph filesystem storage cluster from them....some assembly required, but I think well worth the effort.
Thank you for you wise comparisons and analysis.
A really like very much yours explanation of this computers.
Interesting and well presented thanks from Orlando Florida
Stanley The Knife displays his exceedingly powerful unboxing abilities once more but still fails to release his own merch line... waiting... thx for the review Sir 👍
I will try to action this!
Great update video as always 👍
Thanks for sharing 👍😀
Marvelous work sir!
Thank you kindly!
Another great Sunday!
Thanks again!
Woah! M.2 slot on a SBC. Holy moly
Khadas, NVIDIA, and Odroid also offer M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs.
Hooray, it's Stanley!
Hello from Tokyo! Great channel! We’ve partnered with seeed they’re a great company.
Greetings from the UK!
Great Video - Thanks so much for this Prof. Chris!
Just a couple comments on this board.
Overall I really really like it, and in time, I will buy one for a certain spot where I need a light-duty Linux desktop here for home.
But - The two main issues you correctly point out need to be fixed first. They have to get the large heatsink issue worked out and provide a large aluminum block heatsink for the Rock Pi 4C.. Also, not being able to boot properly from SSD is just a blunder.
It seems that their marketing guys or the bean-counters forced the technical guys to rush this to market before these issues were worked out.. BAD!
As a workaround for the SSD booting issue, you can always boot from SD-Card or eMMC (or whatever) and just put the bootloader and grub on the initial boot medium and then point grub to the SSD to boot the operating system..
You can do that with *any* Linux/Unix/BSD variant, you just need to boot SOMEthing and then grub takes it from there and points to your desired mass storage.. But you have to know how to set that up.. Some Assembly Required...
Thanks Again for the great video on this new and very capable SBC!!
AS A CODER AND IT SPECIALIST , FROM YEMEN , I WANT TO SAY I LIKE YOUR CHANNEL MR.
Thanks.
Fantastic video Chris. What a beast of a SBC this is! Regarding your knife cutting skills, maybe I should create a new channel for you "Explaining Stanley".
:)
Thx for the video. Yet another good one
They make a large heat sink for the 4c, I bought mine a month ago with the heat sink specifically for the 4c. Maybe your vendor doesn’t carry it or you were looking in the wrong place. I have mine booting off eMMC and it’s very quick. I bought this over the PI 4 because of all the storage and video connection options
This is great to hear. Not sold by Seeed Studio at present, which is where I got the board from.
Sounds like a nice alternative to the Pi 4. Nice review.
It's wonderful that Chris keeps us up to date on SBC, but since when RPI 4 has been USB bootable, I look at Rock 4C with skepticism at first. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It would be interesting to know how fast is NVME SSD through M.2 connector.
(It can also be connected to USB 3 via an adapter).
It depends on the m.2 drive. Samsung EVO 970 plus NVMe does 940MB/s on RockPi4C for reading and writing speeds. That's is almost 3x times as fast as USB3 SSD speeds on the Raspberry pi 4.
Coal mine, reminded me of the bengal tiger guarded City Council basement where one could (or probably couldn’t) view the plans for the bypass running through Arthur’s house ...
Wasn't the signage "Beware of the Leopard", old bean?
GreenRecon I think you might be right! Memory, it seems, is a reconstruction at best! I don’t think I have the first book anymore to look it up ....
Yes, a leopard was on the sign!
I miss Douglas. And he used a Mac lol.
I am ready to get one of these units as soon as they fix the nvme and a proper HS becomes available. This will work well for my remote WS.
Nvme does work, only a bit picky on the controller chip. Acer nvne drives do work with the boot option.
at 11:34, the resolution suddenly drops to 720p, according to the stats for nerds. Why ?
Good spot! I had not noticed this.
I wish one of the SBC manufacturers would release a board with the latest ARM processors like an A76 or the new A77, of course, the price would be increased somewhat but I believe there is a need for faster SBC's with more memory, just look at the success of the RPi4 8Gb and the multitude of OS's that have taken advantage of this boards abilities.
Hopefully when RK3588 releases, we can have a more powerful SBC with 8Gb+ RAM. :-)
Edit - not before next year likely.
Respects Sir.. Very friendly and informative!!!!
Thank you kindly
Nice SBC and a great video about it thanks
Hi Susan.
@@ExplainingComputers Hi Christopher
The RTC battery connector at 3:17 and the 4R7 at 4:11 look a bit wonky. 8-/
Indeed!
Great video ! Wanna see a speed test nvme.
I would really appreciate if you could include testing camera and video encoding with these SBCs. Most of them have impressive specs but suck, when it comes to hardware acceleration support. In this regards, RasPi still is ahead of the crowd.
I find it interesting when I run a sharpen extension on a video it increases bandwidth tremendously where a video didn't drop frames prior to many and struggling with sharpness at high rez settings.
Hi I again from Thailand, Sir Chris!
Greetings Don!
@@ExplainingComputers Great to see you again!
Don't forget Sir Mr. Scissors and Sir Stanley the Knife as well.
Great video, Chris! Makes me wonder how these SBC's compare to the Mainframes of the '70's (you know, those things, where a whole building had to be designed for it). Seems to me they've already surpassed those Million Dollar Babies...
Great thought. It is amazing what computer power sits in a credit-card form factor these days.
It should be possible to put a bootloader on the SD card which then can let you boot from the NVMe...possibly. Great review!
I was thiking the same, could be done with GRUB on the SD.
@@SuperiorModel More likely U-boot than Grub.
waiting for tests with NVMe ssd speeds and firmware update for boot (of course, when an update occurs)
Thats a nice sbc now i want one real bad :)
Good to see some healthy competition keeping the SBC market going. I just wish the manufacturers could come up with a smarter solution for nvme drives than having them either sticking out the edge or requiring a large addon plate, significantly increasing the height.
Thank you. I hope things are going well.
Thanks. Things are going much better for me right now :)
Great Video again. Bit strange releasing a new device that takes super fast drives but cannot boot from them yet were they in a rush or something? By the way I couldn't not help noticing that Mr Stanley "the knife" nearly stabbed your left Mr Index Finger :-)
Ronnie Rush The channel would not be the same if Mr. Left Index Finger was cut from the videos.
Hi Christopher. It is a nice board indeed.
Now I got the Odroid N2+. Very fast CPU, but not as well supported yet in Linux, bad I/O and bad working USB3.
So the RK3399's are still my favorite. I wonder how well it works with multi dislpay. I guess good GPU drivers will be needed to make it a good experience.
Good the RK3399 has Panfrost. I've got a video showing how to install it on RK3399.
Finished my N2+ Linux review this week. It's good to be able to review something new again.
I can't wait for the RockPiX. x86 and a bit higher clocked than the Atomic Pi (1.9Ghz vs 1.7Ghz) while same SoC and 4GB vs 2GB. The same form factor as RockPi4. I like the Atomic Pi, but it's a bit too big and could use a bit more performance. Have a great evening. Greetings. NicoD
🤯 Good to see you here, my friend. Been missing your reviews. Wondered whether you had fallen victim to COVID-19.
Been up to my ears with RPi HQ cameras, stereoscopic vision, OpenCV, AI robotics, Jetson NX, & RPi CM3. Looking forward to RPi dropping the CM4 along with the inevitable variety of 3rd party carrier boards. Been eyeballing the Odroid N2 lately, so I'm looking forward to watching your review. 😎💨
@@TheOleHermit Hi, the N2+ review is online on my channel. I indeed had a sabbath. Didn't have new toys to play with and didn't feel good when locked down. I'm a bird that needs freedom. Greetings.
Hi Nico. It all comes down to software support, doesn't it? Always.
liked this video thinking to order one.