Agreed. They could be a good replacement for using a laptop in flexible work spaces. All you need is a screen or two, a mouse and a keyboard, supplied through 1 or 2 usb cables (that also supply power), and you're up and running. And if you also want to game on it at home, you could add an external GPU docking station to it, which you can leave at home, since you most likely won't need it at work. It beats a laptop, since those are more expensive due to the inclusion of a screen (that's at the wrong height, ergonomically speaking), keyboard (that usually is also has ergonomic problems and a weird layout around the arrow keys/numpad) and trackpad (which you don't need if a mouse is available).
@BingBingWahoo I've seen the rumors! Same for AMD's Strix Halo, I mean, it definitely makes sense for OEMs to want AMD/Intel to make better integrated gfx systems to they can advertise the massive boosts in battery life as well as not have to pay the Nvidia tax. I forsee this trend getting far greater as time goes on as Nvidia loses its grip on pricing reality. RDNA3 and ARC's encoders are damn good now too, so you won't even need an Nvidia chip for multimedia work once they bring more products to market. Can't come soon enough, I say.
It's honestly astounding how small and portable powerful solutions are getting. It's been my dream since I was a kid playing with my GBP that I'd have something in my pocket that could watch movies, play 3D games and such. We're in the future as far as I'm concerned.
A bit off-topic, but with what's being done today in AI and space exploration, I'm convinced that we're well into the future. I'm so far past having my mind blown by our capabilities
@@jimbotron70 ACKSHUALLY, we're always in the past. Latency between the actual universe, our I/O and processing of it means we're perpetually behind the times of real life. Kinda like I'm way behind all of your months-old comments!
We need an audiobook version of that book, Dave. I know you're a busy man, and you may not have time to record it. But I would absolutely buy it if you released an audiobook version.
Yes please. In fact if you could record it yourself then I'm sure you would do a splendid job. Failing that use your fame and prestige to ask Wil Wheaton or R C Bray to do the honors for you 😉
Looks like the perfect little home server. Dual NIC, 12cores (16 Therads), dual NVME, intel GPU and low wattage Now if all the devices are recognized by linux - slap some proxmox on there and install all the "CPU intensive" stuff there...
Don't forget that you will have to add duty to the price when imported from China. As i already got earlier pandas devices... more expensive the devices are more you must add to the the price at custom... The price for this device is OK, however adding duty....all depends on the location you are at...
I've had nothing but problems with these in the past. I've spent a small fortune on this company. I was always very happy with what they provided and how they performed, but they always had way too many deal breaker problems, like power management and worst of all, sudden death syndrome. I did extensive research and heard nothing but good things. But every time I ran into a problem, I did the research and found just as much negative feedback about the very problems I was having. I'll never buy another. I don't care if they can fly. I've since moved to a hardened industrial solution by compulab. They are half the price, and have an extended voltage and temperature range.. Every one I've ever purchased is still running. And I have a load of them in the field. And even in the wild, I mean literally in the wild. They don't have to be super fast for my application. They have to be reliable, period...
Facts, I’ve had my RPi running literally 24/7 since 2016 and it’s given ZERO issues, knock on wood. I already got the latest baddest one as a replacement in case the old one dies, but this thing just refuses to die…. Incredible reliability, wonder if pine64’s rock pro is as reliable. Been using a pinebook pro for years now and it’s been just as reliable.
@@BPTtech The one I referred to in my comment is the fitlet3 from Compulab (C-Lab). My main "home" server runs one as well. Designed for a yacht to consume low power 24/7. 4 cores, 32GB, 2x GBE, 5G Cellular, GPS, WiFi, ModBus, all internal. Consumes 12W average running proxmox with lots of CT's and a few VM's.
I so agree, I have had so many problems with Latte Panda SBC and their support really crap. Their support and ecosystem is very poor and don’t be fooled into buying a powerful SBC with crap software. Sorry Latte Panda but your past is catching up with you. All those people that wasted £350 + on a SBC with many design problems and not supporting customers. They Khadas Edge, this is my go to SBC and I have just ordered the Khadas Mind as well.
You echo my experience. Latte Panda has little or no support and the hardware is buggy. Don’t fall for all the hype re the performance. It is an expensive brick and I hope people don’t waste their money and time on this platform. Khadas also have some really good SBC and their support is really good and their hardware very stable. I have just ordered an I7 Khadas mind, Khadas do other ARM based SBC that are really top performers.
This is an excellent opportunity for you to spin off a second channel that I would be incredibly interested in. Independant, unbiased reviews from an expert are difficult to find. Paid reviews that are more an education of a product or product tours would be perfectly fine as well as long as they are very clearly labeled and presented as such. You are my new favorite channel, keep up the amazing work!!
I love this little computer and all of its stupidly overpowered customizable functionality. I would say this would make the ultimate micro home server (and probably still would) if it was not for its $700 price tag... Actually that is a cool idea for a video project, turn this thing into the ultimate home server! Just throw everything you can at it and see what it can do.
Absolutely love the presentation here Dave … I have an ‘old’ Lattepanda Alpha from when they did the original kickstarter and it has been absolutely fantastic - I’ve used it in a 3D printed enclosure that I knocked up on TinkerCAD and can just throw it in my bag with a 12v wall wart and it’s my portable PC that I can just plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor wherever I am. I’d seen that the Sigma was out - it’s a fairly ‘robust’ price but I suspect I’ll end up getting one at some point … I am still waiting for my Hackboard2 from their Indegogo project and that will end up strapped to the back of my 27” touchscreen which I use as an oversized UI to Roon (that currently runs on an HP 800 Desktop Mini). Anyway - great review Dave, I really like the presentation. Hope you’ll do more … :-)
These small PC's are getting more popular and more will come, like already posted it is surprising how powerful they are, reminds me of when the first transistor radios came on the scene years ago, how could a radio be that small, well now the PC's are going the same way, soon have a pocket size version lol.
WiFi antennas are tricky. You don't realize how tiny those things are until you see them in front of you. The pictures on the internet deceivingly make them look bigger. We also need to remember that they are fragile and are not meant to be removed and reattached a lot. They are reliable enough if you only mess with them when you need to and don't do it frequently. They were made for you to set them and forget them. Some laptops come with brackets that not only hold the card down but the connectors for the antennas. I have no idea if they work well but none of my laptops ever had that and I never once had a faulty antenna connection. Of course I don't mess with the antennas unless I am installing a new WiFi card. I have the AX200NGW in my laptops and couldn't be happier with it. I am sure there may be better cards out there but I bought the AX200NGW since it is a good popular card. Is it the best? I can't tell, I never had other ones except for the mediocre ones I replaced with it. I also like that one since you can get them cheaply enough if you do some searching for prices. If your laptop has just one antenna cable buy a second one or a card that comes with them. I have a laptop that has just one antenna from the factory but what I did was just route the cable to an empty part of the case where it will not touch other electrical parts. I taped the excess cable down. Do not bend or cut the cable, it is a thin coaxial cable and you will ruin it. I just made a one loop coil of the excess cable and attached the antenna. Then I used some good electrical tape to tape the excess in place. It has been working well ever since and I now have better WiFi speed than I did with that mediocre Realtek card. Why do they even use those mediocre things? Is it cost or to make you want to upgrade? When I installed the second cable I did not mess with the screen bezel to do it. That is the key reason it is in the case itself. I just also used the already installed one that is in the screen bezel. I just don't think that we should have to tear apart the display to do these things, it seems like a lot of risk and work and a deliberate attempt to make us want a new laptop instead of upgrading it.
It's so refreshing to watch your channel, Dave. It's the most comprehensive, well research and clearly explained collection of videos that I've come across. Absolutely love it! Keep them coming 😊
2:28 I remember when the Lattepanda Alpha came out, and it too was feature rich, but then it was also HYPER expensive, so I'd expect nothing less. In fact, because these boards are so expensive, I would have felt ripped off if they didn't include enough. (IMO they still don't, basically the bare minimum to charge a premium)
I found this very compelling since I own one of the first gen Latapanda SBC's and let's just say it wasn't a good purchase. Because of that experience I wouldn't even consider the Sigma when it came out. Now I'm considering it again.
You are a VERY good presenter. You keep the relevent info flowing and you're very knowledgable of computer tech, benchmarking, and of the products you are reviewing 🙂
So basically, like a laptop board with 3 M.2 slots, 2x2.5G ports and GPIO. Pretty nice if you need it, considering the price is just $130 more than the Framework’s 13th gen i5 board (which uses the same CPU).
For people that hates laptop like me, I think this SBC is a good one. Imagine you can bring your work back and forth without a very heavy bag. You only have few options with a laptop, like having a small and light laptop, but you can't stand the very small keyboard and screen, or, like bring a very big laptop with large screen and keyboard, but the downside is it is too heavy. We can always bring portable monitor and full-size keyboard/mouse along with the small laptop, but that defeats the purpose of the laptop, with just added bulk. So why not have this pocket size PC and then you have options to bring portable monitor and keyboard (and they are not that heavy alone!). And once you reached your destination, you can simply plug it on your existing workstation, keeping your other portables in the bag. Plus, laptop battery will only take few hours, and so once you work or game, you'll probably going to plug it most of the time like a normal computer. Plus, permanently plugging your laptop as a workstation will definitely kill its battery overtime. Unplugging it might help, but it's more of a hassle when you can just plug it and leave it without worries. Though yes, laptop is very good for people who likes to work in a middle of travel as you don't need to assemble something. I have tried that, but I couldn't work on that kind of setup, I always stop-by to a hotel if I really need to work, for the reasons of guaranteed power source and internet, security, and focus. Which brings me back to this SBC, I can just plug it in once I'm in the hotel!! Can't wait other variants of this SBC!! The 32gb!
@@roguemx You don't need to get a Framework laptop. They'll sell you just the board, so you're in good shape (and there are plenty of designs for little cases & the like). I think the fact that you can dump 64G of RAM on the framework board is a good upside...
@@kevinfrei Yeah, been eyeing on that framework laptop as well. With its board, it's almost similar to building a NUC PC, but you'lre building way more than a NUC. But with this SBC, I have nothing to build and just plug in my storage and put it on my pocket. Don't get me wrong, I love custom build PC and been doing that (variants of SFF, my smallest is 3.3L GPU included). But for travel, I would rather have a complete but powerful pocket size PC without a need extra effort to build, just like a phone. It's basically just like laptop performance. Then I can do all heavy lifting once I'm on my workstation, or attachment to eGPU. Like you're bringing your NAS and few apps, and data with you.
@@KiraSlith It would also be easy to power the board using the power supply of the eGPU enclosure with a boost converter I expect. Edit: Nvm, it looks like it will run from the thunderbolt port.
I wish we had computers like these when I was a kid. I remember having so many ideas for all sorts of mechanisms, gadgets or robots but didn't have a clue how to make a computer control anything in the real world. Schools would sometimes have simple control boxes that connected over serial but I never had any idea how to get such a thing, and nothing like the arduino IDE existed. I wonder what kind of hardware hacking I might be capable of now if I'd been able to play and experiment with GPIOs back then .
good addition for the mobile radio van or a 9 axis CNC milling machine (auto load unload, tool change and that does a visual inspection using multiple cameras and stores the raw data)..
The cable in your right hand at 2:49 is a power cable for UK and Ireland sockets, maybe a handful of others too. You're right about the European Schuko plug.
This is an excellent development. I really hope they put some future development focus on the GPU. Gaming is the primary reason I have a PC, and it'd be nice to downsize from the massive ATX tower to a super compact device. And I love the low power draw of the system they have now!
Oh that desk warms my heart. A scope and an Imsai? But wasn't that before your time.? I have a Sol Technology micro in my garage. It was the first micro I got to have total control over. All the other engineers fiddled with the Imsai. This was 77 or 78.
Might be good as a render farm for people with limited space and electrical. Twenty of these at full render would be 1,200W, not heating your room or small apartment and well within the breaker-box limits. In fact that's about the amount of power consumed by a single top of the line overclocked gaming PC - except this gives you 240 cores and 320 threads. Sweet! It would be a little pricey at $12,580 (for 20 of the 32Gig - no drive units) but not *_all that bad_* . We could boot them over the net and run them off a partitioned NAS as well - so wouldn't even need SSDs. Although 64GB or 128GB units are far more desirable for distributed rendering, 32GB is enough for the majority of jobs. It's a shame this unit costs over $600 and not down around the $250 to $300 mark where I believe it belongs but still quite interesting!
Hello Dave from Costa Rica. This amazing. truly amazing. on top of that the way you approach explained its amazines is the great way you approach.. beautiful and clear introduction, passed to hardware, the performance... great and clear explanation. each p word were putting me deeper and deeper in the curiosity. great work !!!!!
Now this is an extremely impressive device.. It checks a lot if not every box.. Intel NIC, fast RAM, decent GPU, extensibility, thunderbolt and as you benchmarked does very well.... Very tempting and pretty much beats the Intel 13th gen Pro NUC as far as I can see and then some.... Pricing is still on the very steep end I suppose but then again, that is the market these days
In the realm of circuits and electronic lore, Dave strides into the tech galore. A single board marvel, the Sigma unfolds, In Dave's Garage, where innovation molds. Twelve cores humming, a digital choir, Sixteen threads weaving, a tech desire. Sixteen gigs of RAM, a memory cascade, In the world of Sigma, where wonders are made. Storage, a kingdom of five hundred gigs, A digital realm that endlessly digs. Dual NICs with 2.5Gn might, In the Sigma's circuits, data takes flight. USBs and Thunderbolt, a symphony grand, In Dave's skilled hands, where wonders are planned. Ten gigs of USB speed, Forty gigs of Thunderbolt indeed. Dave demos, benchmarks, a tech ballet, In Sigma's prowess, where minds find a way. A single board marvel, Windows at its core, In the digital saga, the Sigma does implore. So here's to Dave, in his digital garage, A poet of circuits, a tech sage. Sigma, the powerhouse in Windows decree, In Dave's skilled hands, a tech jubilee.
Dave, love this and these type of videos! Please keep them coming. LattePanda Sigma: Hmmmmm well the hardware says, "firewall," but the pricing at $648USD is $300 overpriced. So no. Just no. I WANT to like their brand, and they have some (other) good SBCs, but I can get a Beelink or other knockoff mini with two network prots (or a MOGINSOK clone of a Protectli fan-less fw) for less than $200 less. If this was in the $300 - $400 range, rack mounting these would make a decent cluster. :) I miss Threadrippers. :(
Generally speaking, I like your presentation style. Sometimes you lose me on the higher complexity topics, but I’m sure you reach many people. Thank you for keeping it classy. Some channels I used to be able to watch with my young daughter have for whatever reason decided to increase or start cursing, That’s generally not a skill our young ones need to develop too early. Lol.
£550 with 500gb ssd + wifi 6e? not bad. This does show that a rather powerful device should be put in a vr headset very soon. This is a lot of power packed into a tiny board!
Hey Dave, I realise I am a little late to the party and this may have been said already. The first plug you returned to the box is the British plug design. Lastly, I love your content (and task manager lol) please keep doing what you do.
Real hero here is the Mac Mini. M1 is almost 3 years old, the base model mini (a 700 tops usd computer so only 100-150 more than the panda) still comes within 10% of a latest gen i5 (it was launched along side 10th gen) and it does that on a 15W chip (so over 3x the power efficiency). Sure the Panda is way more flexible and way better for a DIY scenario, but the mac is going to be a more polished product with probably a better warranty/reliability prospect, plus you get macOS if thats your thing. For home server use, The mac mini is still a no brainer. I guess the only downside to the mini is compatibility because arm
As someone who lives and Depends entirely on solar power, I'm always watching computer operations per second versus watts. My current server uses about 10 to 15 watts of power and it is one of those single board computers. I wonder how much power this one uses?
I'm looking forward to the PC I can stick on the back of my monitor and use for gaming. A setup I could move about the house easily and play cross platform with my sons XBox would be perfect!
I was going to go down the LattePanda path then decided to go with a Erying Mini ITX solution with an Intel 12700H cpu built in. The whole build with a dedicated low profile GPU for me came out about the same price as just one LattePanda board.
i love how this mini computer era coming, do we have mini gpu already? "i forgot bring my laptop, but that's ok, i have my flagship pc with gpu right here in my pocket" it's gonna be perfect
Terrific, well-detailed review. Would be nice if you could've included fan noise (which drives my wife crazy) under the heaviest of loads, and then at normal.
The current trend where SBC are now boasting of powerful CPU and heavy RAM is good, but it will also come with hefty price that might be out of the reach of most DIYs. Not sure if I want to spend $600 to operate my home automation or run my CNC router when a decent RPi 4 or their multiple clones (yeah, I know those are costly too nowadays) can do the same thing.
I think if you swap those SSD's over then the 980 Pro being PCIe 4 will be a lot faster once you place it into a PCIe 4.0 x 4 port rather than PCIe 3.0
@@DavesGarage I also noticed - at least in the video - you didn't attach/use the heat transfer sticky pad for your 980, but I also am not sure you really ran enough disk activity to heat the SSDs up all that much... just something I noticed is all :)
@Dave's Garage Please try some FFmpeg encoding testing. That Iris Xe with 80EU's is a transcoding beast, this could make a great Proxmox node with all the ARR's in docker along Plex or Jellyfin fed from a separate NAS. I have a 1235u with the same GPU running Blue Iris/CPAI with 24/7 no substream recording on a dozen 5mp 1440P cameras @5fps and the CPU is ~40% with the GPU ~30% all while only using ~26w at the wall with a 14TB WD Purple drive. I run Frigate along with a Coral in another 1235U that is running bare metal HA using the substreams for notification's and automations and it sit's ~20w all while dealing with ~130 devices split between the Zwave, Zigbee, wifi, 433mhz, and BLE protocol's. I am very happy with the efficiency as I get everything in place but I already see some places where I can squeeze out a fare bit more. This rebuild all started as part of a desire to go solar this year and part of that was gauging usage and trimming the fat so the dual socket servers had to go.
I'm not gonna lie, I love these videos, but I hate them as well because I know that as soon as more people find out, people will start mass ordering and scalping them, and then I probably wont ever get one. Very cool video though, and very relaxing atmosphere!
I have discovered some desktop computers that are single board computers. Dell Micros and equivalents. The micro I own supports 32 GB RAM, 1x M.2 SSD, 1x M.2 WLAN. ethernet, one SATA, 4 USB3 on the back, 1 x Dp. It's quite old, Optiplex 7050. No header though. I can grip the case across its length, but it's too heavy for me to pick up. This has an i5, it supports i7 too. Although it is a SBC, it is intended to be use in its case.
The first and probably biggest use case I can think of is Cyberdeck building. Since the majority of the computer stuff is in a small self-contained package, it makes it easier to focus on stuff like peripherals and durability.
It's crazy how powerful singleboard and micro form factors are getting. Its a really exciting time for processing power.
Agreed. They could be a good replacement for using a laptop in flexible work spaces. All you need is a screen or two, a mouse and a keyboard, supplied through 1 or 2 usb cables (that also supply power), and you're up and running.
And if you also want to game on it at home, you could add an external GPU docking station to it, which you can leave at home, since you most likely won't need it at work.
It beats a laptop, since those are more expensive due to the inclusion of a screen (that's at the wrong height, ergonomically speaking), keyboard (that usually is also has ergonomic problems and a weird layout around the arrow keys/numpad) and trackpad (which you don't need if a mouse is available).
It really is! I know Intel Arrow Lake CPU's are going to have an iGP as powerful as a GTX 1080!!
@BingBingWahoo I've seen the rumors! Same for AMD's Strix Halo, I mean, it definitely makes sense for OEMs to want AMD/Intel to make better integrated gfx systems to they can advertise the massive boosts in battery life as well as not have to pay the Nvidia tax. I forsee this trend getting far greater as time goes on as Nvidia loses its grip on pricing reality. RDNA3 and ARC's encoders are damn good now too, so you won't even need an Nvidia chip for multimedia work once they bring more products to market. Can't come soon enough, I say.
AMD APUs were always way stronger than what intel puts out like typically 2x or more.
@@Cypeq true, but Intel has gotten a lot better with their integrated gpu since they released Alchemist
It's honestly astounding how small and portable powerful solutions are getting. It's been my dream since I was a kid playing with my GBP that I'd have something in my pocket that could watch movies, play 3D games and such. We're in the future as far as I'm concerned.
We're always in the future.
A bit off-topic, but with what's being done today in AI and space exploration, I'm convinced that we're well into the future.
I'm so far past having my mind blown by our capabilities
@@brandonakey6616 *We're always in the present
I think it's faster than my Xeon Silver 4216 storinator! No PCIe slots though... but I could daisy-chain eGPUs and put the HBAs in there!
@@jimbotron70 ACKSHUALLY, we're always in the past. Latency between the actual universe, our I/O and processing of it means we're perpetually behind the times of real life. Kinda like I'm way behind all of your months-old comments!
We need an audiobook version of that book, Dave. I know you're a busy man, and you may not have time to record it. But I would absolutely buy it if you released an audiobook version.
Yes please. In fact if you could record it yourself then I'm sure you would do a splendid job. Failing that use your fame and prestige to ask Wil Wheaton or R C Bray to do the honors for you 😉
I was just thinking the exact same thing. Dave would be a phenomenal narrator of his own book.
Could we get AI with a Dave personality module to 'read' it?
@Sam ??
@@teckman02 Dave has a great voice, true.
Looks like the perfect little home server. Dual NIC, 12cores (16 Therads), dual NVME, intel GPU and low wattage
Now if all the devices are recognized by linux - slap some proxmox on there and install all the "CPU intensive" stuff there...
It should also make a pretty powerful firewall for some specific usage situations.
@@ehsnils … especially if you team it with an m.2 Ethernet card to give you a couple more Ethernet ports…
@@philharris9631 For corporate internal use it's enough with running multiple VLANs on one of the ports.
Don't forget that you will have to add duty to the price when imported from China. As i already got earlier pandas devices... more expensive the devices are more you must add to the the price at custom... The price for this device is OK, however adding duty....all depends on the location you are at...
Be perfect for pfsense Firewall
I ordered one and it came in a few days ago. Everything works pretty much the same way it did in the video. Amazing little machine.
I've had nothing but problems with these in the past. I've spent a small fortune on this company. I was always very happy with what they provided and how they performed, but they always had way too many deal breaker problems, like power management and worst of all, sudden death syndrome. I did extensive research and heard nothing but good things. But every time I ran into a problem, I did the research and found just as much negative feedback about the very problems I was having. I'll never buy another. I don't care if they can fly. I've since moved to a hardened industrial solution by compulab. They are half the price, and have an extended voltage and temperature range.. Every one I've ever purchased is still running. And I have a load of them in the field. And even in the wild, I mean literally in the wild. They don't have to be super fast for my application. They have to be reliable, period...
Facts, I’ve had my RPi running literally 24/7 since 2016 and it’s given ZERO issues, knock on wood. I already got the latest baddest one as a replacement in case the old one dies, but this thing just refuses to die…. Incredible reliability, wonder if pine64’s rock pro is as reliable. Been using a pinebook pro for years now and it’s been just as reliable.
What’s the industrial solution?
@@BPTtech The one I referred to in my comment is the fitlet3 from Compulab (C-Lab). My main "home" server runs one as well. Designed for a yacht to consume low power 24/7. 4 cores, 32GB, 2x GBE, 5G Cellular, GPS, WiFi, ModBus, all internal. Consumes 12W average running proxmox with lots of CT's and a few VM's.
I so agree, I have had so many problems with Latte Panda SBC and their support really crap. Their support and ecosystem is very poor and don’t be fooled into buying a powerful SBC with crap software. Sorry Latte Panda but your past is catching up with you. All those people that wasted £350 + on a SBC with many design problems and not supporting customers.
They Khadas Edge, this is my go to SBC and I have just ordered the Khadas Mind as well.
You echo my experience. Latte Panda has little or no support and the hardware is buggy. Don’t fall for all the hype re the performance. It is an expensive brick and I hope people don’t waste their money and time on this platform. Khadas also have some really good SBC and their support is really good and their hardware very stable. I have just ordered an I7 Khadas mind, Khadas do other ARM based SBC that are really top performers.
This is an excellent opportunity for you to spin off a second channel that I would be incredibly interested in. Independant, unbiased reviews from an expert are difficult to find. Paid reviews that are more an education of a product or product tours would be perfectly fine as well as long as they are very clearly labeled and presented as such.
You are my new favorite channel, keep up the amazing work!!
I love this little computer and all of its stupidly overpowered customizable functionality. I would say this would make the ultimate micro home server (and probably still would) if it was not for its $700 price tag... Actually that is a cool idea for a video project, turn this thing into the ultimate home server! Just throw everything you can at it and see what it can do.
Absolutely love the presentation here Dave …
I have an ‘old’ Lattepanda Alpha from when they did the original kickstarter and it has been absolutely fantastic - I’ve used it in a 3D printed enclosure that I knocked up on TinkerCAD and can just throw it in my bag with a 12v wall wart and it’s my portable PC that I can just plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor wherever I am.
I’d seen that the Sigma was out - it’s a fairly ‘robust’ price but I suspect I’ll end up getting one at some point …
I am still waiting for my Hackboard2 from their Indegogo project and that will end up strapped to the back of my 27” touchscreen which I use as an oversized UI to Roon (that currently runs on an HP 800 Desktop Mini).
Anyway - great review Dave, I really like the presentation. Hope you’ll do more … :-)
The Delta 3 isn't so bad either. Close to the power of Alpha but a lot cheaper and you can use an external GPU almost as well.
These small PC's are getting more popular and more will come, like already posted it is surprising how powerful they are, reminds me of when the first transistor radios came on the scene years ago, how could a radio be that small, well now the PC's are going the same way, soon have a pocket size version lol.
@RaverWave Sorry not on Whatsapp.
Most of us have been carrying around mini PC's in our pockets since the early 00's. Smartphones are basically SBC's.
Fantastically done, sir! Great review of so many facets. Only found your channel a month or two ago and am totally enjoying it.
Thanks! Glad to have you aboard!
WiFi antennas are tricky. You don't realize how tiny those things are until you see them in front of you. The pictures on the internet deceivingly make them look bigger. We also need to remember that they are fragile and are not meant to be removed and reattached a lot. They are reliable enough if you only mess with them when you need to and don't do it frequently. They were made for you to set them and forget them. Some laptops come with brackets that not only hold the card down but the connectors for the antennas. I have no idea if they work well but none of my laptops ever had that and I never once had a faulty antenna connection. Of course I don't mess with the antennas unless I am installing a new WiFi card. I have the AX200NGW in my laptops and couldn't be happier with it. I am sure there may be better cards out there but I bought the AX200NGW since it is a good popular card. Is it the best? I can't tell, I never had other ones except for the mediocre ones I replaced with it. I also like that one since you can get them cheaply enough if you do some searching for prices. If your laptop has just one antenna cable buy a second one or a card that comes with them.
I have a laptop that has just one antenna from the factory but what I did was just route the cable to an empty part of the case where it will not touch other electrical parts. I taped the excess cable down. Do not bend or cut the cable, it is a thin coaxial cable and you will ruin it. I just made a one loop coil of the excess cable and attached the antenna. Then I used some good electrical tape to tape the excess in place. It has been working well ever since and I now have better WiFi speed than I did with that mediocre Realtek card. Why do they even use those mediocre things? Is it cost or to make you want to upgrade? When I installed the second cable I did not mess with the screen bezel to do it. That is the key reason it is in the case itself. I just also used the already installed one that is in the screen bezel. I just don't think that we should have to tear apart the display to do these things, it seems like a lot of risk and work and a deliberate attempt to make us want a new laptop instead of upgrading it.
It's so refreshing to watch your channel, Dave. It's the most comprehensive, well research and clearly explained collection of videos that I've come across. Absolutely love it! Keep them coming 😊
Dave, please consider doing a follow up to the FPGA video. The subject is really really interesting and your way of explaining thing is unmatched 😊
2:28 I remember when the Lattepanda Alpha came out, and it too was feature rich, but then it was also HYPER expensive, so I'd expect nothing less. In fact, because these boards are so expensive, I would have felt ripped off if they didn't include enough. (IMO they still don't, basically the bare minimum to charge a premium)
I found this very compelling since I own one of the first gen Latapanda SBC's and let's just say it wasn't a good purchase. Because of that experience I wouldn't even consider the Sigma when it came out. Now I'm considering it again.
Khadas 👍
You are the first person on YT that I fully believe the review is unbiased. 😀 Good stuff
You are a VERY good presenter. You keep the relevent info flowing and you're very knowledgable of computer tech, benchmarking, and of the products you are reviewing 🙂
at sea level sir
So basically, like a laptop board with 3 M.2 slots, 2x2.5G ports and GPIO. Pretty nice if you need it, considering the price is just $130 more than the Framework’s 13th gen i5 board (which uses the same CPU).
For people that hates laptop like me, I think this SBC is a good one. Imagine you can bring your work back and forth without a very heavy bag. You only have few options with a laptop, like having a small and light laptop, but you can't stand the very small keyboard and screen, or, like bring a very big laptop with large screen and keyboard, but the downside is it is too heavy. We can always bring portable monitor and full-size keyboard/mouse along with the small laptop, but that defeats the purpose of the laptop, with just added bulk. So why not have this pocket size PC and then you have options to bring portable monitor and keyboard (and they are not that heavy alone!). And once you reached your destination, you can simply plug it on your existing workstation, keeping your other portables in the bag. Plus, laptop battery will only take few hours, and so once you work or game, you'll probably going to plug it most of the time like a normal computer. Plus, permanently plugging your laptop as a workstation will definitely kill its battery overtime. Unplugging it might help, but it's more of a hassle when you can just plug it and leave it without worries.
Though yes, laptop is very good for people who likes to work in a middle of travel as you don't need to assemble something. I have tried that, but I couldn't work on that kind of setup, I always stop-by to a hotel if I really need to work, for the reasons of guaranteed power source and internet, security, and focus. Which brings me back to this SBC, I can just plug it in once I'm in the hotel!!
Can't wait other variants of this SBC!! The 32gb!
@@roguemx You don't need to get a Framework laptop. They'll sell you just the board, so you're in good shape (and there are plenty of designs for little cases & the like). I think the fact that you can dump 64G of RAM on the framework board is a good upside...
@@kevinfrei Yeah, been eyeing on that framework laptop as well. With its board, it's almost similar to building a NUC PC, but you'lre building way more than a NUC. But with this SBC, I have nothing to build and just plug in my storage and put it on my pocket.
Don't get me wrong, I love custom build PC and been doing that (variants of SFF, my smallest is 3.3L GPU included).
But for travel, I would rather have a complete but powerful pocket size PC without a need extra effort to build, just like a phone. It's basically just like laptop performance. Then I can do all heavy lifting once I'm on my workstation, or attachment to eGPU. Like you're bringing your NAS and few apps, and data with you.
Those specs for that price is absolutely amazing. With 32GB of RAM and an eGPU it’d be a compelling option for a compact game development workstation.
As-is you could probably just embed it in the side of an eGPU enclosure with a GTX 1660 and be good to go for a gaming machine.
@@KiraSlith It would also be easy to power the board using the power supply of the eGPU enclosure with a boost converter I expect. Edit: Nvm, it looks like it will run from the thunderbolt port.
What was the price? Don't know how I missed it.
It has 16GB Ram doesn´t it?
Just want to say that I enjoy everything you've been posting, Dave, and really appreciate the variety of videos. Keep it up 👍🏽👍🏽
Thanks very much!
now I want one of these for no good reason. you win this round marketing department
I have never regretted subscribing. Very absorbing topics as always! Thank you Dave Plummer.
Impressive SBC in my opinion. Thanks for your time Dave. Cheers from OZ
Nice video, i especially like the slight off-focus camera around 5:52 , emulates what my 49yr old eyes would observe
I wish we had computers like these when I was a kid. I remember having so many ideas for all sorts of mechanisms, gadgets or robots but didn't have a clue how to make a computer control anything in the real world. Schools would sometimes have simple control boxes that connected over serial but I never had any idea how to get such a thing, and nothing like the arduino IDE existed. I wonder what kind of hardware hacking I might be capable of now if I'd been able to play and experiment with GPIOs back then .
Stumbled here , great review with relevant testing.
Worth my time
Thanks
Small dryer plug maybe Australian 😊
good addition for the mobile radio van or a 9 axis CNC milling machine (auto load unload, tool change and that does a visual inspection using multiple cameras and stores the raw data)..
Very interesting! Glad you're having fun, and Best Wishes from Canada.
The cable in your right hand at 2:49 is a power cable for UK and Ireland sockets, maybe a handful of others too. You're right about the European Schuko plug.
This is an excellent development. I really hope they put some future development focus on the GPU. Gaming is the primary reason I have a PC, and it'd be nice to downsize from the massive ATX tower to a super compact device. And I love the low power draw of the system they have now!
Oh that desk warms my heart. A scope and an Imsai? But wasn't that before your time.? I have a Sol Technology micro in my garage. It was the first micro I got to have total control over. All the other engineers fiddled with the Imsai. This was 77 or 78.
Might be good as a render farm for people with limited space and electrical. Twenty of these at full render would be 1,200W, not heating your room or small apartment and well within the breaker-box limits. In fact that's about the amount of power consumed by a single top of the line overclocked gaming PC - except this gives you 240 cores and 320 threads. Sweet! It would be a little pricey at $12,580 (for 20 of the 32Gig - no drive units) but not *_all that bad_* . We could boot them over the net and run them off a partitioned NAS as well - so wouldn't even need SSDs. Although 64GB or 128GB units are far more desirable for distributed rendering, 32GB is enough for the majority of jobs. It's a shame this unit costs over $600 and not down around the $250 to $300 mark where I believe it belongs but still quite interesting!
there are plenty of 250$ SBCS and mini pcs - just buy older one or w8 till this will get older and cheaper
Hello Dave from Costa Rica. This amazing. truly amazing.
on top of that the way you approach explained its amazines is the great way you approach.. beautiful and clear introduction, passed to hardware, the performance... great and clear explanation. each p
word were putting me deeper and deeper in the curiosity. great work !!!!!
Now this is an extremely impressive device.. It checks a lot if not every box.. Intel NIC, fast RAM, decent GPU, extensibility, thunderbolt and as you benchmarked does very well.... Very tempting and pretty much beats the Intel 13th gen Pro NUC as far as I can see and then some.... Pricing is still on the very steep end I suppose but then again, that is the market these days
Very interesting. Thank you.
This sounds like the perfect solution for a off-grid home computer
Now to find and excuse for me to buy this ontop of all else I have
In the realm of circuits and electronic lore,
Dave strides into the tech galore.
A single board marvel, the Sigma unfolds,
In Dave's Garage, where innovation molds.
Twelve cores humming, a digital choir,
Sixteen threads weaving, a tech desire.
Sixteen gigs of RAM, a memory cascade,
In the world of Sigma, where wonders are made.
Storage, a kingdom of five hundred gigs,
A digital realm that endlessly digs.
Dual NICs with 2.5Gn might,
In the Sigma's circuits, data takes flight.
USBs and Thunderbolt, a symphony grand,
In Dave's skilled hands, where wonders are planned.
Ten gigs of USB speed,
Forty gigs of Thunderbolt indeed.
Dave demos, benchmarks, a tech ballet,
In Sigma's prowess, where minds find a way.
A single board marvel, Windows at its core,
In the digital saga, the Sigma does implore.
So here's to Dave, in his digital garage,
A poet of circuits, a tech sage.
Sigma, the powerhouse in Windows decree,
In Dave's skilled hands, a tech jubilee.
Excellent review, Dave! Your review was way better than most!
Excellent review of the LattePanda board. Many thanks for posting!
Dave, love this and these type of videos! Please keep them coming.
LattePanda Sigma: Hmmmmm well the hardware says, "firewall," but the pricing at $648USD is $300 overpriced. So no. Just no. I WANT to like their brand, and they have some (other) good SBCs, but I can get a Beelink or other knockoff mini with two network prots (or a MOGINSOK clone of a Protectli fan-less fw) for less than $200 less. If this was in the $300 - $400 range, rack mounting these would make a decent cluster. :)
I miss Threadrippers. :(
The piano backdrop music made this video so relaxing 🥺
Generally speaking, I like your presentation style. Sometimes you lose me on the higher complexity topics, but I’m sure you reach many people. Thank you for keeping it classy. Some channels I used to be able to watch with my young daughter have for whatever reason decided to increase or start cursing, That’s generally not a skill our young ones need to develop too early. Lol.
"Small Drier" !! I love it. I was thinking the same!!
£550 with 500gb ssd + wifi 6e? not bad.
This does show that a rather powerful device should be put in a vr headset very soon.
This is a lot of power packed into a tiny board!
i really like your way to review everything! CLEAN AND STRAIGHT TO THE POINT. thanks !
Succinct, practical, useful, no one better. Thank you
Hey Dave, I realise I am a little late to the party and this may have been said already. The first plug you returned to the box is the British plug design. Lastly, I love your content (and task manager lol) please keep doing what you do.
Real hero here is the Mac Mini. M1 is almost 3 years old, the base model mini (a 700 tops usd computer so only 100-150 more than the panda) still comes within 10% of a latest gen i5 (it was launched along side 10th gen) and it does that on a 15W chip (so over 3x the power efficiency). Sure the Panda is way more flexible and way better for a DIY scenario, but the mac is going to be a more polished product with probably a better warranty/reliability prospect, plus you get macOS if thats your thing. For home server use, The mac mini is still a no brainer. I guess the only downside to the mini is compatibility because arm
As someone who lives and Depends entirely on solar power, I'm always watching computer operations per second versus watts. My current server uses about 10 to 15 watts of power and it is one of those single board computers. I wonder how much power this one uses?
upto 44 watt
I'm looking forward to the PC I can stick on the back of my monitor and use for gaming. A setup I could move about the house easily and play cross platform with my sons XBox would be perfect!
The fact you could theoretically connect an eGPU 4090 and that tiny thing becomes a gaming powerhouse is crazy to think.
I found your video on this product rather interesting.
Well presented and to the point.
A trick for the wifi antennas that Ive learnt is to snap, clip it in from an angle (30 to 40 degrees), not straight down, you'll bend stuff.
Awesome fun video, enjoyed hanging out Dave. Good times. 😊
I was going to go down the LattePanda path then decided to go with a Erying Mini ITX solution with an Intel 12700H cpu built in. The whole build with a dedicated low profile GPU for me came out about the same price as just one LattePanda board.
These SBC are getting so small and powerful that soon they will be a dongle hanging off the bacl of my large 43" monitor.
this is normally a video i would see on Explaining Computers YT channel, nice to see you branching out to the SBC's Dave!
i love how this mini computer era coming, do we have mini gpu already?
"i forgot bring my laptop, but that's ok, i have my flagship pc with gpu right here in my pocket"
it's gonna be perfect
Holy crap, that is on par with my Ryzen 2700X, I'm VERY impressed!
An excellent review of the Sigma. Thank you.
Thar thing outperforms my 3700X by a substantial margin. Impressed
Terrific, well-detailed review. Would be nice if you could've included fan noise (which drives my wife crazy) under the heaviest of loads, and then at normal.
The current trend where SBC are now boasting of powerful CPU and heavy RAM is good, but it will also come with hefty price that might be out of the reach of most DIYs. Not sure if I want to spend $600 to operate my home automation or run my CNC router when a decent RPi 4 or their multiple clones (yeah, I know those are costly too nowadays) can do the same thing.
I absolutely don't need one of these. But I'm sure as hell going to buy one. Might as well upgrade my RV main server. 🤷♂️
This is a good device for emulations of game consoles. Just hook it to a TV and game controller and play with smooth settings. Very powerfull indeed.
with good internal gpu comparisonable with discrete one, this red pill was a deal
Can't wait for the Dave Tech Tips channel to take off.
I refuse to drop hardware for effect.
Linus has staff to do things properly for him (well, at least some of them), maybe you can hire someone to drop things for you? 😉
Benchmarks mean i am subscribing.
Love the review! More single board stuff!
I think if you swap those SSD's over then the 980 Pro being PCIe 4 will be a lot faster once you place it into a PCIe 4.0 x 4 port rather than PCIe 3.0
I assume it'd still boot, too... I should swap them and retest!
@@DavesGarage I also noticed - at least in the video - you didn't attach/use the heat transfer sticky pad for your 980, but I also am not sure you really ran enough disk activity to heat the SSDs up all that much... just something I noticed is all :)
Great review Dave. My Current 5U Rack mount beast is going to be replaced by something like this.
This looks to be a good solution for someone on solar power.
One nuts SBC, blows my current desktop out of the water.
@Dave's Garage
Please try some FFmpeg encoding testing. That Iris Xe with 80EU's is a transcoding beast, this could make a great Proxmox node with all the ARR's in docker along Plex or Jellyfin fed from a separate NAS. I have a 1235u with the same GPU running Blue Iris/CPAI with 24/7 no substream recording on a dozen 5mp 1440P cameras @5fps and the CPU is ~40% with the GPU ~30% all while only using ~26w at the wall with a 14TB WD Purple drive. I run Frigate along with a Coral in another 1235U that is running bare metal HA using the substreams for notification's and automations and it sit's ~20w all while dealing with ~130 devices split between the Zwave, Zigbee, wifi, 433mhz, and BLE protocol's. I am very happy with the efficiency as I get everything in place but I already see some places where I can squeeze out a fare bit more. This rebuild all started as part of a desire to go solar this year and part of that was gauging usage and trimming the fat so the dual socket servers had to go.
The first power cord has a UK plug, and the second one is called Schuko which is the European Union standard plug!
I'm not gonna lie, I love these videos, but I hate them as well because I know that as soon as more people find out, people will start mass ordering and scalping them, and then I probably wont ever get one. Very cool video though, and very relaxing atmosphere!
Thanks very much Dave, very useful review indeed
This was very informative. I wonder if you have any recomendations for a single board windows PC that would be a great dedicated NDI decoder.
"Small dryer" 😂 Should totally be the official name of that power cable!
Why Windows on the title? Linux Rocks.
I have never heard of that single-board system, but I might use it as a retro-gaming machine/spare computer connected to a TV.
Dave should have a millions subs❤
This will be absolute fire for 3d printers
Great info! Need to purchase this pc!
Hard to imagine a use case where a conventional small formfactor mother board would not be a better choice.
12:09 - God bless you, you've got an IMSAI 8080 in the center of your shot!
I have discovered some desktop computers that are single board computers. Dell Micros and equivalents. The micro I own supports 32 GB RAM, 1x M.2 SSD, 1x M.2 WLAN. ethernet, one SATA, 4 USB3 on the back, 1 x Dp. It's quite old, Optiplex 7050.
No header though. I can grip the case across its length, but it's too heavy for me to pick up. This has an i5, it supports i7 too.
Although it is a SBC, it is intended to be use in its case.
really enjoyed this one; thanks for your time-investment
Superb review brother! u just got a new sub.
Excellent review, your a natural
Nice this is wonderful for academic purposes
Are there any cases for that thing? I have a couple of potential use situations for that, but I need to put it in something! Enjoyed the review, btw.
You can 3d print one
@@CosmicHaven1 can the OP though?
@@sirdewd2197 idk
The first and probably biggest use case I can think of is Cyberdeck building. Since the majority of the computer stuff is in a small self-contained package, it makes it easier to focus on stuff like peripherals and durability.
Looks so perfect for my needs wish I could afford it.
im thinking of adding this to my GR supra. datalogging, tune flashing, obd2 diagnostics, google maps, websurfing video gaming for passenger.
This SBC really has the sigma grindset
Wow, that's really cool. Will consider picking up this or a weaker model as a home server/arduino tinkering setup.
Very cool. Shared to others.
seeing boards this dense never fails to tickle the neurons