Recently, I discovered a development board that has not yet been released.

It is the

Banana Pi BPI-M6

The size of the development board is basically the same as that of the Raspberry Pi 4B.

Interestingly, it uses a SoC that is quite rare on development boards, aSynaptics SoC from the USA.

This is the company that makes touch screens.

They also make touchpads for products like the ThinkPad.

The SoC is called

VideoSmart VS680

It features 4 Cortex-A73 cores with a maximum frequency of 2.1GHz, and also includes a Cortex M3 core.

The GPU uses Imagination GE9920, equipped with 6.75TOPS of NPU, which is slightly stronger than the 6TOPS of RK3588.

It is advertised as the industry’s first edge computing SoC that combines CPU, NPU, and GPU.

It comes with 4GB LPDDR4 memory and 16GB eMMC (upgradable to 64GB).

Another highlight is that it has two MicroHDMI ports, one for input and one for output.

It has a Gigabit Ethernet port and four USB3.0 ports.

One MIPI DSI port

One M.2 E-Key interface, generally used for wireless cards, but the official documentation mentions (PCIe and MIPI CSI), which is a bit confusing as to why it was designed this way.

It has a MicroSD card slot

and a 40Pin header

USB Type-C power supply interface

It also has a PoE interface

The main highlight of the configuration is the 6.75TOPS computing power. Currently, under the AI benchmark in the IoT category, the VideoSmart VS680 ranks first, surpassing the AI performance of Raspberry Pi 4B and A311D.

If you need HDMI input, this is a great feature. It is currently only seen on RK3588 development boards, and having four USB3.0 ports is quite nice.

The only unclear aspect is how to use the M.2 E-Key interface. Will it require an adapter board, or will the official provide a module? We’ll have to wait until it’s released to find out.

There is no M.2 M-Key, which means you cannot install an SSD, which is a bit disappointing, as RK3568 already has this feature. It might be due to space constraints.

Another design flaw I see is that the SoC is placed on the back, and the heat sink and cooling fan not only make the development board quite thick, but there is no interface for connecting a fan. I wonder if they are confident in the heat dissipation or what.

This development board’s success will largely depend on its pricing. If priced reasonably, it could be quite good.

For reference, the previous generation product BPI-M5 used the Amlogic S905X3 SoC (quad-core Cortex-A55), also with 4GB + 16GB eMMC, priced at 399.

Currently, the price of the Orange Pi 5 with RK3588S SoC has reached 499. It doesn’t seem very optimistic, as its competitiveness is not strong enough. If priced at 350 or even 300, it would be highly competitive.

However, this development board, although its SoC is made by a foreign manufacturer, having one more option is always good.

Regarding AI, if you don’t have high CPU requirements but need strong computing power and want a slightly cheaper alternative to RK3588, this could be a good option.

One more thing to mention about Banana Pi is that their recent product capabilities have honestly not been very good. They seem to be trying to do some different things, likely to avoid direct competition with Orange Pi and FriendlyARM.

Alright, that’s it for today, another development board full of promises.

Banana Pi BPI-M5

https://m.tb.cn/h.5chd2VI?tk=q7gCdEYEDPS

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