NVIDIA Rolls Out Jetson TX1 Developer Board SE At $199 USD

[CTown]

Interesting, but it's nowhere near as close to an ARM-based PC as the Jetson TX1.

• USB is only a couple 2.0 connections (and just one, if in device mode)
• No DisplayPort, HDMI, or DVI
• SATA is only via adapter, plugged into its (only) PCIe 2.0 x1 slot
• No wired networking

No doubt it's good for some things, but surely not an ARM-based PC.

BTW, 4-5 years ago, I expected ARM-based mini-ITX and micro-ATX boards would be fairly commonplace, by now. I still think it'll happen, but maybe not as big as I expected. Also, mini-STX is an even more probable form-factor.

That's pretty disappointing to hear. Well, thanks for describing the problems in detail. Also, so you don't think performance is an issue? It seems if Android runs extremely smoothly on these newer SOCs. The issues just lie in physical connectivity?

[coder]

Also, so you don't think performance is an issue? It seems if Android runs extremely smoothly on these newer SOCs.

Performance is entirely a question of what you want to do with it. Phoronix has published benchmarks of A57-based SoCs, and you can find more on OpenBenchmarking. In general, A57 cores are about 2x as fast (per-clock cycle), as the A53 cores used in Raspberry Pi v3 and many of its competitors. Some of the more recent ARMv8-A (64-bit) cores are about 3x as fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar..._ARMv8-A_cores

I'm not aware of any ARM cores that can rival the single-thread performance of Intel's Kaby Lake, but there are plenty of ARM-based NAS systems, showing they're more than capable of handling I/O-oriented workloads. Furthermore, the relative power-efficiency of ARM cores is helping them find their way into the cloud.

What I'd wanted to do was build an ARM-based, fanless micro-server. For that, I wanted gigabit Ethernet and a SATA-3 port (or M.2 NVMe slot). Here's what I ended up using:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4205-ITX/index.us.asp

I'd have preferred it to be mini-STX (or at least "thin mini-ITX"), but I managed to find a small case and efficient external PSU:

http://mitxpc.com/proddetail.php?prod=MX500

https://seasonic.com/product/ssa-0601he/

(also available from mitxpc.com)

For those not wanting to build your own, you can find Apollo Lake SoCs used in low-end Intel NUCs and some micro PCs (not to mention many Chromebooks):

http://ark.intel.com/products/95062/...C-Kit-NUC6CAYH
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11229/...ucff-pc-review

Apollo Lake SoCs are also now available on project boards:

http://www.up-board.org/upsquared/