Which single board computers support the Rockchip RK3588 SoC, is this not the most powerful ARM based CPU to this date ?

Last Updated on April 5, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

  • ETA prime showed us an example where Ubuntu runs on it:
  • Orange Pi 5 uses the RK3588S which is less peripherals and I/O options with a single NVMe slot that’s PCIe 2.0 so pointless getting a super fast SSD drive as speeds are capped well below 500MBs.
  • A vast improvement over an sd card with recommendations to just get a cheap SSD that’ll give you 300-400MBs which is more than enough for a SBC.
  • Due to the lack of kernel support from Rockchip the community is working hard to get the driver issues sorted with Radxa Rock 5B a great starting point as it’s better supported for now and offers the full RK3588 experience (extra peripherals, connectivity, etc) but for a greater cost.

But we are still using the Raspberry Pi Zero W2, since it very power efficient. We do not know about the power efficiency of the Orange Pi 5, but we did no research on this.

  • ETA PRIME showed us that the Rockchip RK3588 SoC is very fast:
  • but ETA PRIME did test that with a device where the chip was mounted on a module sticked into an expensive desktop housing.
  • What is interesting about this, is that he shows Ubuntu running on it. Is this not rare that someone shows a Ubuntu demo on an ARM based single board computer?
  • In the Orange Pi5, there is a variant of this chip, with less peripherals. Is it fast all the same?
  • NicoD’s SBCs shows us a Armbian demo on the Orange Pi5A:
  • Would he not show a Ubuntu demo, too, if Ubuntu is suitable for this board?
  • Armbian in this demo looks great, but can Armbian currently to more than looking great?
  • eepspvideo shows Ubuntu on it.
  • The Orange Pi5 is currently not available from any Swiss seller, this raises warranty questions.
  • Which Swiss buy a Orange Pi5 as a Ubuntu desktop without a warranty from a Swiss seller?
  • And to use a Orange Pi5 as a mobile device, how big is the battery which is required.
  • We did a preliminary test with a Raspberry Pi4 and a 10 000 mAh battery. Battery life was around four hours.
  • Do you have any suggestions, how to improve the battery life of these devices?
  • Post it in the comments below:
  • There is currently one expensive Swiss seller who sells the Orange P5 for around 200 USD. Is this not very expensive? On Aliexpress, it is available again for 90 USD.
  • Do you want this device as a desktop computer with Ubuntu running on it?
  • We still miss a Orange Pi5 zero low power PC with the same specifications as the Orange Pi 5.