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Recently, the stock market has been in turmoil… Thus, the saying “Raspberry Pi is the best investment product” has been ringing in my ears again. Under the shadow of the “chip shortage,” there have been supply issues with development boards. A friend’s joke reflects the reality of the world. Because of their scarcity, good boards are still in demand even if they are expensive, revealing their investment properties! I have been wandering through various software and hardware communities, and the most common question in the comment sections is: “So… where can I buy them?”
With the intention of finding the future second-hand trading market for development boards, I have compiled a list of 5 Linux development boards worth collecting, some of which have already increased significantly in price. As for whether they can continue to be a good investment in the future, it’s up to you to judge~ As always, investing comes with risks.
Raspberry Pi 4B
First, let’s take a look at the price trend chart. Entering 2022, the price of the 4GB Raspberry Pi 4B in the European market has stabilized at around €90, while the price of the 8GB version is generally above €160, with an increase of over 50%. The situation is similar in the Chinese market. It’s worth noting that the prices of the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 3 have doubled in 2021… Writing this, I shed tears of regret, wondering why I didn’t buy more when they were cheap…
From Geizhals price comparison website
Back to the point, why recommend Raspberry Pi 4? The Raspberry Pi itself is highly versatile. Compared to the 3rd generation, the Raspberry Pi 4 has been completely upgraded, boasting faster operating speed, larger memory, and desktop performance comparable to entry-level x86 PCs, with fully upgraded interfaces. Though small, it is fully equipped; insert a micro-SD card, connect a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, and the Raspberry Pi 4 can be used as a computer.
The specifications are not elaborated here; please check the official website for details.
The official Raspberry Pi operating system is based on Debian and optimized for the Raspberry Pi hardware. This operating system comes with over 35,000 software packages, with pre-compiled software bundled in a very convenient format for installation. The powerful software ecosystem is one of the key factors that make Raspberry Pi stand out among many development boards.
I boldly predict that if the “chip shortage” issue is not resolved, the price of Raspberry Pi 4 will see another wave of increase. As for where to buy it, that’s up to your own ability…
Fang·Starlight VisionFive
A shining light of domestic products! The pioneer of RISC-V! It is now widely believed that RISC-V will eventually form a tripartite situation with x86 and ARM.
The Starlight board is crafted by the leading domestic RISC-V chip company, SiFive, and was officially launched last December. As the world’s first RISC-V development board capable of running Linux, the Starlight board carries the mission of building the RISC-V software ecosystem and is a must-have for various communities to adapt RISC-V software.
Currently, the officially recommended operating system is Fedora, and the toolchain has a high level of maturity. Enthusiastic users in various communities have also created image packages for mainstream operating systems such as Ubuntu and Debian. To promote the rapid development of the RISC-V software ecosystem, SiFive has launched the RVspace open-source community at https://rvspace.org/. As an open-source community supported by the chip manufacturer, RVspace provides the most professional documentation and technical support.
The community has already attracted many domestic and foreign RISC-V experts. This is also one of the reasons I am optimistic about the Starlight board; relying on community support from the chip manufacturer and contributions from numerous developers in the open-source world, the Starlight board is bound to have great potential for play in the future! Just to mention, the JH7100 SoC used in the Starlight board has already been integrated into the Linux kernel 5.17 mainline, indicating that the Linux community recognizes this chip.
The price of the Starlight board in China is 1100 yuan, and you can find it by searching for VisionFive on iceasy 🔗 www.iceasy.com.
ODROID C4
Some friends say this is a board that can outshine the Raspberry Pi. I won’t comment on that, but I personally feel that ODROID C4 is the most cost-effective one in the ODROID family, priced at $54 🔗 www.hardkernel.com. Whether you can buy it really depends on luck, as the production is reportedly very limited. Its appearance is almost a copy of the Raspberry Pi design, making it very familiar for those who are used to using Raspberry Pi~
ODROID C4 is equipped with a high-performance Amlogic S905X3 SoC, featuring 4 Arm Cortex-A55 processor cores with a maximum frequency of over 2GHz. The following image shows the CPU benchmark scores of ODROID C4 compared to other ODROID models and Raspberry Pi 4, with performance slightly better than Raspberry Pi 4. The benchmark scores of the Mali-G31MP GPU, which runs at a frequency of up to 650MHz, are also provided.
CPU Benchmark
GPU Benchmark
ODROID C4 has performance that is not inferior to or even surpassing that of Raspberry Pi 4 and offers a rich array of native interfaces. Although its software ecosystem is not as rich as that of the Raspberry Pi, in some high-performance niche areas, such as high-resolution image encoding applications, it is undoubtedly a perfect alternative to Raspberry Pi 4. Due to its extremely limited production, I believe that as the software ecosystem gradually improves, its value will also increase.
It’s worth mentioning that ODROID HC4, based on ODROID C4, has two additional SATA ports, making it suitable for use as a home NAS storage development board, priced at $65, which those in need can also consider.
Odyssey X86J4105
As the name suggests, this micro PC uses the Intel Celeron J4105 processor, which has a 4M cache and a working frequency of up to 2.5GHz. In addition to running the officially recommended Windows 10, this powerful processor can also run Linux distributions perfectly.
This is a development board with very powerful interface functions, providing an integrated Microchip SAMD21 Arduino microcontroller and a 40-pin GPIO header compatible with Raspberry Pi. CNXSoft has also specifically conducted a test of the Raspberry Pi and Arduino header compatibility.
The UHD GPU gives this board powerful image processing capabilities, allowing it to play 4K videos perfectly. The M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 slot can accommodate high-performance NVMe SSDs, and the full-size SATA-III connector can connect any standard SATA drive, while 8GB of RAM provides ample space for running FreeNAS and XigmaNAS.
This development board is currently out of stock on Seeed’s official store.
As a powerful and feature-rich development board, it is a strong competitor to Raspberry Pi. It’s easy to imagine that once it is restocked, it will be snatched up in seconds.
NVIDIA Jetson Nano
This entry-level edge AI computing platform has already seen a price increase of nearly 80% in 2021!!! I have scoured major malls both domestically and internationally, and there is no stock available. If you have one, be sure to cherish it~
Its performance is certainly not comparable to its older brothers, Jetson TX2 and Jetson Xavier, but it also has the lowest price and power consumption, making it a balanced choice. In embedded AI application scenarios with lower computing power requirements, Jetson Nano is an excellent choice, such as for small mobile robots, facial recognition clock-ins, smart locks, smart speakers, etc. The biggest advantage of Jetson Nano is its size; its core board is detachable and only 70 x 45 mm, making it easy to integrate into various embedded applications.
Jetson Nano uses the Ubuntu system, and the installation process is very simple, and NVIDIA provides a pure Chinese page resource library and operating guide, which is commendable for an international giant! NVIDIA provides community support for Jetson products, and developers actively publish various videos, guides, and open-source projects in the community. NVIDIA also offers various free tutorials, ranging from the entry-level “Hello AI World” to robot projects like the open-source NVIDIA JetBot AI robot.
The official definition for this board’s use is product development, learning, and education. With an increasing number of students interested in embedded AI, I believe this board will often be discussed.
In conclusion
Raspberry Pi has gained many fans due to its excellent ecosystem, NVIDIA’s AI products stand out, Raspberry Pi-like development boards are emerging fiercely, and the new architecture RISC-V is setting sail. In the future, who will become the “best investment product” among development boards? Let’s wait and see~
I wish everyone happiness whether trading stocks or purchasing development boards, and may you all become rich soon~
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