To start with a bit of advertisement, we recently launched a development board selection website. Although it is not yet fully developed, we have already entered around 100 development boards. We believe it’s ready to go live for initial feedback. If you’re interested or have any needs, feel free to check out our selection site, and any good suggestions can be shared in the group or left as messages.

The tentative name of our website is FindBoard, and the domain is: findboard.cn

(Currently, we haven’t adapted for mobile devices. If you’re accessing via mobile, the experience may not be satisfactory. We recommend using a desktop browser for now.)

Actually, the previous article already covered most of this, so let me summarize.

Is this suitable for building NAS/soft routing, and is the price reasonable?

This time, the ITX-3588J development board has many interfaces, catering to those wanting to build low-power NAS and soft routers, as well as all-in-one enthusiasts. However, many people are deterred by the price, which I completely understand.

Because whether you want a NAS or a soft router, there are simply too many options at 2999, and they should all be better than the bare ITX-3588J board. If you want to build a proper NAS, you should budget at least 200 for a case, and if you want it to look good, you might need to add a power supply. If you don’t mind an external power supply, you can skip that. Adding a solid-state drive and some miscellaneous items will add another 1000. Even if you buy a branded NAS, the price won’t be much different.

So if you want to use this to build a NAS, it really is for the wealthy. You might only gain a slight benefit, which is a bit of power saving, but the savings on electricity are negligible. Unless you are a developer wanting to use this chip for your own product testing, I recommend not trying it for now. At least wait until the price stabilizes, the supply stabilizes, or more documentation is available. Moreover, there’s the previously announced Rock 5 awaiting everyone; if you don’t mind waiting, you can hold off for that.

Who is this suitable for?

I believe it is quite suitable for testing developers who want to use this chip. Although it’s not cheap, the interfaces are indeed comprehensive, meeting various needs, and they have basically added all possible interfaces. This means that developing products later will involve simplifications, which will save a lot of effort.

Another group is the early adopters. This group is also quite suitable since currently, there is only this option available, haha.

This time, the NPU has a computing power of 6 TOPS. I don’t know how this compares to NVIDIA’s development boards, but I believe it is very likely to replace Jetson Nano. If you look at the price of Jetson Nano, this price point is acceptable.

Additionally, I want to say that you shouldn’t have too high hopes for the price of Rock 5. Since this time the Firefly core board can be priced at 1399, if Rock 5 is priced below 1000, it would be a win.

Looking Ahead: The Uses of the RK3588 Chip

I believe there is still great potential for the RK3588. This time there has been a huge change, and in many aspects, it is no longer behind the times, such as Wi-Fi 6, 8K, and the 6 TOPS NPU. It is said that the GPU this time is also quite powerful. If you look at the Raspberry Pi 3 era, I remember being able to open a webpage and only load Baidu, and everything was laggy. Although it didn’t lag with direct command lines, this is still a reflection of performance.

I believe the RK3588 can excel in the following areas:

It can run various desktop environments smoothly, such as KDE and Gnome, which are large desktop environments that can run smoothly now. The memory and storage bottlenecks are virtually non-existent; the only issue is still the CPU performance. If it can run smoothly, it can replace various devices such as ATM machines, cash registers, and various scenarios with low performance requirements, thus expanding the application range of ARM.

Another top-tier chip for set-top boxes, the previous A311D chip set-top boxes have already appeared, priced around a thousand. If there are set-top boxes equipped with this chip, the following situations may arise: the size of the set-top box may increase, and the required cooling capacity may also need to be enhanced. Expandability may include the ability to install SSDs or mechanical hard drives. It can run a large number of mobile games, such as Honor of Kings.

Application scenarios are likely no longer limited to just watching online videos. The previous A311D set-top boxes often came with cameras. This time, I believe it may develop towards game consoles or truly occupy the living room. Perhaps VR?

Microsoft had great ambitions when they made Xbox, one of which was to occupy the living room, which is why both PlayStation and Xbox have functions like playing Blu-ray discs. For example, the Xbox system can be understood as a customized Windows system, especially with the latest products. It has integrated the app store, where software like Bilibili can be installed, indicating a trend towards high-end set-top boxes.

This time, the NPU is quite powerful, and the official mention of its application includes various places that require image recognition, such as outdoor license plate recognition, pedestrian recognition, etc. These professional applications also have great potential.

Lastly, another application direction is open-source laptops and phones. The previous PinePhone actually sold quite well. I’m very fond of such products. If you have a DIY spirit, you will definitely be tempted by these products.

Previously, a large number of Raspberry Pi computers were produced, and I also tried running a desktop on Raspberry Pi 4B, running some applications. However, to be honest, it really didn’t work well, it was quite laggy, especially when opening webpages to watch videos; even watching 1080P videos would be laggy. However, that kind of professional video software, like Kodi, doesn’t lag. I also tried FydeOS, a modified version of Chrome OS, and it was the same.

But now, this chip as a replacement for Chrome OS laptop chips seems quite reliable, but it still depends on software optimization.

The Future of Development Boards

The RK3588 chip is powerful, but it still cannot be compared to current mobile chips. Although it uses Cortex A76 cores, the latest cores are already Cortex X2 or MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000, and the gap continues to widen. This also means that for the next few years, there will be almost no options to use mobile chips, either you pay a high price for relevant Qualcomm kits, which is also outrageous.

So it can be concluded that for now, the RK3588 is the strongest chip at this price point (excluding x86 chips). This also means that the chips for development boards must be the most popular versions of the latest technology, downgraded versions, just like this time the RK3588 uses an 8nm process, which is already quite strong, and domestic lithography machines should not be able to produce this. The output is another concern of mine.

This also makes me think about the meaning of development boards. A large part of it, I believe, is popularization. We can simply use a chip without needing to draw schematics; we just need to write programs, which greatly lowers the threshold. We can focus on developing products, and after testing, we can make adjustments to create our own products. This can be seen as a way to understand the electronic world, and many people enjoy this. Watching themselves create their ideal projects through development boards brings a sense of satisfaction and ownership. This is an open world, a window to understand new technologies.

However, on the flip side, everyone knows Qualcomm’s practices. With Huawei gone, Qualcomm is practically the only player left, although MediaTek is catching up, but it is clearly not enough. Apple’s chips are very strong, but will there ever be a development board for Apple’s chips? I am quite curious if that is possible in my lifetime.