Libre Computer's Renegade Elite Offers USB-C With DP, PCI-E x4, 4GB LPDDR4, 6 Cores

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Libre Computer's Renegade Elite Offers USB-C With DP, PCI-E x4, 4GB LPDDR4, 6 Cores

While yesterday we looked at the Renegade ROK-RK3328-CC Libre Computer Board, they already have the successor well in the works. The Renegade was interesting as for just dollars more than the Rasberry Pi it offers better performance, Gigabit Ethernet makes the networking potential a lot more than the slow Ethernet on the Pi, there is USB 3.0 connectivity, and its using DDR4 memory, among other technical advantages. But the new Renegade Elite even puts that to shame...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Libre-Renegade-Elite-Launching

[hajj_3]

Nice price for the spec. Only 6 days left to fund it though.

[L_A_G]

I've never really understood why the people who make SBCs even bother with USB2.0 ports when they have 3.0 ports on the board. It's not just this board and it's precursor, the ODroid XU4* has two USB3.0 ports and a USB2.0 port and from what I've seen (went trough a lot of boards last year looking for a board with fast storage-usable and network IO) pretty much all SBCs with USB3.0 do this.

*Which I've used for a process monitor that, per customer request, needed to be able to display data from weeks-months ago and am using right now as a small fanless in-office Git server.

[Michael_S]

I've never really understood why the people who make SBCs even bother with USB2.0 ports when they have 3.0 ports on the board. It's not just this board and it's precursor, the ODroid XU4* has two USB3.0 ports and a USB2.0 port and from what I've seen (went trough a lot of boards last year looking for a board with fast storage-usable and network IO) pretty much all SBCs with USB3.0 do this.

*Which I've used for a process monitor that, per customer request, needed to be able to display data from weeks-months ago and am using right now as a small fanless in-office Git server.

My understanding is that these companies operate on razor thin profits per unit, so even if the price difference between four USB 2.0 slots and four USB 3.0 slots is $3 total per unit, they'll go 2.0 because the $3 really matters.

[Terrablit]

> for just dollars more than the Rasberry Pi
> set to start at $99 USD

Reeeeaaallllyyy...

It's not like it's terrible for the price, but when it costs nearly 3x the price, it's bound to have some improvement. At that price level, though, it's not really a significant improvement over competitively-priced x86 boards. Apparently it's also got a 15W TDP, putting it in the same power envelope, too. And adding $50 for a 128GB eMMC board? SSDs are a better value. And I'm still trying to figure out if it comes with a power adapter. It's more interesting for ARM tinkering, rather than the specs.

Calling it "libre" is also a stretch given that Panfrost just barely started showing progress on the Mali-T860 two days ago. Seems more like another Indiegogo cash grab than anything else.

[L_A_G]

...

Ever heard of this thing called the "economy of scale" or similar concepts? When you're making one or two runs of a few hundred boards things obviously end up costing way more than when you're making dozens of runs of thousands of boards and that's before you factor in for this thing having much more and higher end hardware. So not only do you have way fewer boards to amortize development costs over, you also have a higher development cost to amortize over these boards.

I do have to say that this does look somewhat interesting, so it's a shame I don't have a need for something like it at the moment.

[starshipeleven]

I've never really understood why the people who make SBCs even bother with USB2.0 ports when they have 3.0 ports on the board. It's not just this board and it's precursor, the ODroid XU4* has two USB3.0 ports and a USB2.0 port and from what I've seen (went trough a lot of boards last year looking for a board with fast storage-usable and network IO) pretty much all SBCs with USB3.0 do this.

USB 3.0 requires around twice as much traces with more stringent interference standards, a twice as powerful power supply, and generates interference to nearby electronics (in the sense of other stuff in the same board, which is quite close) as well as wifi https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423604,00.asp so it requires more space and design effort.

I assume that they add USB 2.0 in places they could not feasibly place USB 3.0. A USB 2.0 port is still better than an empty space after all.

[starshipeleven]

> for just dollars more than the Rasberry Pi
> set to start at $99 USD

Reeeeaaallllyyy...

It's not like it's terrible for the price, but when it costs nearly 3x the price, it's bound to have some improvement. At that price level, though, it's not really a significant improvement over competitively-priced x86 boards. Apparently it's also got a 15W TDP, putting it in the same power envelope, too. And adding $50 for a 128GB eMMC board? SSDs are a better value. And I'm still trying to figure out if it comes with a power adapter. It's more interesting for ARM tinkering, rather than the specs.

Calling it "libre" is also a stretch given that Panfrost just barely started showing progress on the Mali-T860 two days ago. Seems more like another Indiegogo cash grab than anything else.

The Up boards are x86 and have 2W or 6W of TDP, not 15. Imho for the price they thoroughly slaughter this fake "libre" bullshit. https://www.up-board.org/

[L_A_G]

USB 3.0 requires around twice as much traces with more stringent interference standards, a twice as powerful power supply, and generates interference to nearby electronics (in the sense of other stuff in the same board, which is quite close) as well as wifi https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423604,00.asp so it requires more space and design effort.

I assume that they add USB 2.0 in places they could not feasibly place USB 3.0. A USB 2.0 port is still better than an empty space after all.

All IO generates some amount of noise/interference and if they are able to have USB3.0 ports on the same board, then I don't think power, space, interference and placement is really an issue. If you run out of USB ports, USB hubs do sort of exist and are in my experience pretty commonly used with SBCs.

I also wouldn't be so sure about USB2.0 being that much better than empty space as it would allow for better margins and more leeway for layout or a larger parts budget.

Also, AFAIK the RPi draws less than 1A at 5V even under high stress, meaning that it's got a sub 5W TDP and is in a pretty different league both in terms of power draw, thermals and performance than this board. If you want to compare this board to something, compare it to the ODroid XU4 as it's got a pretty similar roughly 15W TDP (the manufacturer supplied power supply goes up to 4A at the 5V it supplies).

[caligula]

The Up boards are x86 and have 2W or 6W of TDP, not 15. Imho for the price they thoroughly slaughter this fake "libre" bullshit. https://www.up-board.org/

Apparently UP Board can lock up without a fan, if official heat sinks are used. So there's still a gap between fanless ARM systems and the power boards that require an onboard fan.