It's not open hardware, it's open ISA only. Anyone can make a cpu with risc-V (without paying licence), but there is no open hardware implementation right now. But it would be interesting if someone makes something like an open core that anyone could use for making their xips.
@@jordicoma You are taking my comment far too literally. I do understand open ISA. So, to put it another way: We are seeing open software (that does not require paying licenses / royalties), running on a standardised CPU platform (i.e. the hardware), that also does not require the payment of licenses / royalties (for the ISA). Does that help put my much simplified “Open software meets open hardware” comment into perspective?
There *are* open cores though. Look for the T-Head C906, C910, etc., which you can get on real hardware already. And there's OpenXiangShan. And Moonbase Otago Vroom. Much stuff that isn't being promoted too well, unfortunately.
Will we ever see a truly open CPU? To a certain level maybe. So much IP gets licensed to take a design and actually fabricate a wafer. I suppose using fairly agricultural process nodes it might be possible. RISCV is a great first step and it might be what the industry needs to transform much like Linux was in the late 90s. Great video as always.
I was ranting on about how cool the M1 was, and my (engineer) son informed me of RISC-V. Given how much I taught him about technology ... it was a lovely gust of fresh air to get a geek-insight first hand. $0.02 and thanks for the videos.
The M1 really is cool. It's not just an ARM chip. If I've read correctly it also executes x86 code to ARM on the fly (I may have misread that). It reminds me a lot of Transmeta and their Crusoe processor except that Apple has actually pulled it off with decent performance
Now that it's supported by one distribution it won't take much time for them all to do it. The hardest part is the board support package. GCC has to be modified to work with this, you have to compile everything, it's a pain.
After a few mis-starts from others, glad to see someone released a reasonably priced RISC-V sbc. Can't wait to see where RISC-V takes us. Thank you as always Mr. Barnatt! Welcome to DST.
I don't think RISC-V will replace ARM in most areas. It will likely stay in the realm of hardware controllers, like for SSDs and as Coprocessors in GPUs.
I'm surprised it came that close to a quadcore Raspberry Pi. I've been saying for a while now that RISC-V has the potential to be the future and that shows just how competitive it already is, core for core and clock for clock.
I'm also excited to see if RISC-V could fill in a gap between microcontroller and full-fledged desktop computing at some point, if costs can be brought down a bit. Sometimes you just need a CPU with more capabilities than a micro controller to handle light computing tasks, and having a more open standard and wide support for it (with reduced licensing costs, assuming some companies are generous with their designs) could make some hardware devices even cheaper than something like a Pi in the future, while not being too much slower. I think RISC-V may have an uphill battle since 'open' describes only part of the ecosystem, and open doesn't always result in complete, better, or more economical. But I'm encouraged seeing all the investors (including Raspberry Pi themselves!). Early ARM boards were also very, very slow, and usually pretty difficult to get running well. It took a decade to get to where we are with ARM.
It is generally believed in the industry that there won't be any catching up to for example ARM in the foreseeable future. One of the reasons why so few companies invest in it. Right now there isn't a single good argument to use it instead of ARM. The "Gary Explains" video on the topic ("ARM vs RISC V") is pretty enlightening.
@@graealex I'm always deeply concerned about comments like "generally believed in the industry" -- partly because they lack specific reference, and partly because fundamental change is often driven from outside an industry not inside it. The Gary Explains RISC-V video is indeed a good video, but like many others falls into the trap of only really considering RISC-V to be a competitor to ARM (and not also x86), and only treating this as a technical computing issue. Whereas in reality, the whole RISC-V thing is about control, and in particular intellectual property (IP) and the licensing thereof. And in a world in which trade barriers and sanctions are rising to the fore (if for good reason on many occasions), this is likely to be key force behind RISC-V. Already China and Russia have announced plans to make RISC-V desktops and laptops so that their access to the involved IP cannot be constrained. More broadly, the current reality of the West telling the rest of the planet what technology to use, and charging them for it, is not likely to remain intact for that much longer. And this, regardless of what we may think of the involved politics, will be the major driving force behind RISC-V -- and not the "general view" of an often rather inward looking computing industry. :)
@@ExplainingComputers The thing with open source is that it is basically a "prisoner's dilemma" sort of thing. If every participant acts in favor of all the others and contributes in a similar manner, then all of them benefit, a lot more if every one did their own commercial/proprietary project without interaction. However, that scenario is not very favorable with ARM right now, as their proven IP puts the bar of entry so low that you'd basically be stupid not to just use it. Not to play down what the engineers are doing, but the toolchains and software makes it basically possible to drag-and-drop an SoC together, then send it off to TSMC, and you're done. Also, China and Russia will probably use some of RISC V as the base for their own developments, but again, "prisoner's dilemma" - if they achieve any sort of good progress, they'd be stupid to give it back to the community, even if that was somehow mandated (which it isn't). And it still takes sooo much work to make any progress at all - as seen by HiSilicon having 7000 employees and still relying on ARM. I like the idea of open-source hardware development. But there is a commercial reality that puts companies that give away their own work usually at a disadvantage vs. such companies that keep it to themselves.
@@graealex You are right, there are problem with open source as you describe. But open hardware is not quite the same -- there is no requirement that a community re-develops and gives back. Indeed, already core designs like those from SiFive (ad based on the open IP) are closed IP. And hardware will never be free like it can be with software. All of this is therefore why I and others (like RISC-V International!) make clear that the RISC-V ISA is "open" and not "open source" -- they are different! :) One is about community development, the other about IP that is free to use (the same way that IBM made its PC architecture open). So Russia and China would not have to give back, and there is no expectation they would do so. But they could go on manufacturing chips, even in the face of a trade embargo, as a licensor would not be breaking that embargo by selling to them. Except, of course they would be giving back indirectly, as adoption of their hardware would drive open source software development . . .
I thought RISC-V was going to be one of those things people always talked about like bubble memory but would never happen. It's happened, it's here. OK, it not better than an ARM but it could be. Maybe we will see an FPGA version.
Love the RISC-V content! Especially interested in open source core designs using the RISC-V ISA and running open source software on it like Linux and BSD. Can't wait for proper desktops and smartphones using this tech!
@@ExplainingComputers talked to a reactOS developer i pointed out an SBC with react os can normalize/optimize the drivers then can focus on other things to make ReactOS more program friendly He was like MEH .. My thought With how hard old hardware is to get a new option to retro play games on could make $$$
@@vardekpetrovic9716 well at the time i was talking about x86 sbc the # of drivers for hardware in the wild so IMO a semi standardized SBC will cut lots of work from core group to get it in use and being open source will spread the workload
Quite impressed by the performance at this early stage and considering there is no GPU in this little SoC. I'm pretty sure RISC-V will be a serious contender for ARM in the future.
This CPU was also used in first beta version of Beagle-V, however something went wrong and it was never publicly released (only handful of devboards were released for early adopters and they actually shaped how this one came out). There were plans to make this CPU only a small scale production to unblock people who were designing boards and allow them to start porting software. It seems that original plan was to make a production run of JH7110 CPU which should've had 4 cores instead of 2 and it also should have PCIe and 3D Accelerated GPU on board. Not sure what went wrong as I was looking into buying that one, but it never got released and beagle-v was postponed.
Yeah, the production BeagleV Starlight with JH7110 was promised for September 2021, but as we now know it eventually shipped in the VisionFIve 2 in January 2023, and then in many devices over the following six months: Pine64 Star64 and PineTab-V, Milk-V Mars, and even the Roma laptop which had originally been announced to have TH1520. I'm guess it needed multiple tape-outs to get it right, but eventually it turned out to be a very good and solid chip.@@vladimir.smirnov
Fun fact: This was made by radxa and starfive as a collaboration, that's why the fan has the radxa logo and why it looks quite similar to a radxa board.
Yes, a staple that every plastic surgeon will soon be using in their procedures to better increase the equality of life for the the grotesquely deformed and obese.... Former SNL Executive Assitant Production Designer. - Staples Maples
As always, another Sunday morning surprise here on the US west coast! Thank you for presenting this. Every Sunday morning is like Christmas morning on Explaining Computers!
Chris, I just wanted to let you know I look forward to your videos every week, and I’m most likely watching even if it’s something I’m not particularly interested in, and usually I become interested in it after watching. But your video helped me today to get over the loss of someone very close to me, and think about something new and exciting. Thank you.
Agree, I am curious what benefit the "nvdla" core (.. Is it a separate chip??) brings in practice. It seems to be increasingly thrown in with new SBC designs. Interesting this one seems to include both a deep learning engine and nvdla. Do they work together? Fight for ai dominance? But that's a very specific topic and since I have no "need" to know I won'trequest Chris seriously dedicate a video to it unless interest is there
I'm happy to hear about it, It has been a long time since I've finished my graduation and remembering risc architeture, it is a pleasure to hear that its coming back . Good!
Yet again you have taught me something new. I'd not heard of this open-ISA Risc-V CPU before. Fascinating! Looking forward to see where it goes! Competition is always a good thing.
I totally agree! It is interesting how views diverge in these comments. Some, like you and I, are impressed but what a RISC-V board can do right now. Others are dismissive because it is not as fast and low-cost as current, long-standing technology.
@@ExplainingComputers I'm one of the sceptics, I'm afraid. If you want a free and open source RISC processor, the SPARC has decades more development under its belt. Years before the Raspberry Pi I bought an expensive development board with a MIPS processor and was excited when I got it to boot to the Linux bash command prompt (not a desktop, of course!). They are still used in routers and laser printers. ARM is special because it can do a lot with very little electrical power. x86 can do more but uses more power. I just don't see what RISC V has to offer that will persuade people to use it in sufficient numbers to allow it to develop into anything other than a curiosity, in which case it will continue to underperform and be more expensive than a similar ARM-based product. I was concerned about ARM being swallowed up by Nvidia and had hopes than RISC V might step up to the mark but that danger has passed and RISC V seems to be struggling to find it's purpose. It will always be a couple of generations behind ARM and unless it can provide some compelling advantage of its own, why would anyone choose it?
I've only heard and tead about Risc V architecture. Never seen one in action. Thank you EC for this video. It's running Xfce DE yet appears sluggish. Still quite good for experimental hardware.
Only time will tell, but we may be at a technological moment worthy of the famous "That's one small step for man...", at least as far as open source digital is concerned! Thank you professsor!
Based on the specs, this board is really geared towards AI/ML applications. This explains why only two cores as most of the chip is reserved for ML accelerators. It would be cool to see if TensorFlow (or similar) works on it and makes use of hardware acceleration features 🤞🏼
Indeed. It's unfortunate that the comparison software tests use applications that the board wasn't designed for. I doubt RISK-V will ever be able to compete with the Raspberry Pi and its support ecosystem in either popularity or, for want of a better term, market segment. On the other hand I look forward to seeing this board tested in its intended application areas -- places where the Raspberry Pi will likely be found lacking.
@@tylersperry9164 Agree. I've used RPi4 for real-time ML training (aka reinforcement learning) and it really struggled due to lack of HW acceleration. Might get an RISK-V in the summer to see if it can do the job.
Will that ever happen though, or will ARM always be a couple of generations ahead? ARM and x86 each have well defined advantages in their specialist areas, with increasing overlap. What does RISC V have to offer, apart from being "different"? Does its particular design allow it to excel at any task that sets it apart from the other two choices?
@@johnm2012 RISC-V is technically more energy-efficient than ARM, which is saying something considering how efficient ARM is already. There's also the fact that anyone can make instruction extensions for it, unlike ARM or x86. There could be other differences, but I'm no expert.
@@Diapolo10 What do you base that assumption on? RISC-V is an ISA specification nothing more, nothing less. There is no inherent “energy efficiency” as that’s a matter of implementation. Custom ISA extensions can be done with ARM as well, but no one in their right mind thinks custom extensions are something positive for a platform as it ultimately leads to extreme fragmentation and binary incompatibility.
@@FluffyAnvil no, that's not the case. Instruction decoding is a major energy user in CPUs at this level and below (embedded uses). That's a big part of why Intel has never been able to get into ARM's markets. RISC-V has even simpler and fewer instructions and instruction formats than ARM, without losing much if any functionality. Many customers of RISC-V vendors such as SiFive and Andes have reported the RISC-V cores using as little as 1/2 to 1/3 of the silicon area and energy of the cores they were otherwise planning to use (i.e. probably ARM, though possibly ARC or Xtensa or MIPS in some cases).
Same excitement that I had when loading up MorphOS on Mac Mini G4 1.42 for the first time. Like it is PPC processor and Amiga-Like OS. What a sweet combo.
the potential for a fully libre computer with usable performance is getting closer and closer,the idea of there being a PC you truly own 100% of is a nice prospect,even if most would no go totally without proprietary software (including myself).
Ooh, a very interesting new topic - thanks for this Chris. Really looking forward to hearing more about RISC-V in your videos in the coming weeks and also seeing what the vision pipeline and AI specific capabilities are like on this board 👍🤓
Since i've started watching EC, anytime Im trying to figure something out on my computer, and eventually get it, I find myself silently mouthing "There We Are!" 😂😂 I love this channel☺
Nice design for a new SBC as it's a first risk 5 developer board at a decent price with a valid os along for said price thanks for the review professor Chris and have a great Sunday
Delightful video. 👍 Can't wait to see where this family of technologies ultimately takes us. Whatever it is, I wish for it to be dually useful in edge computing and server layouts, supported robustly by its software community, and not overly power hungry. Thank you for being our shepherd, Explaining Computers.
When you mentioned gaming, the likes of Solitaire and Minesweeper came to mind. Then you said "Quake" and my jaw dropped! Witnessing a dawn of something that has the potential to change the world is truly incredible. Thank you for bringing this to us Chris, you are amazing!
There's always been a choice in CPU architecture, nearly 50 years worth. It's just that the lower cost msinstream gets most of the news. Its just that if you go off-road there's the risk of being left hanging when a supplier decides to close shop..
@@joefish6091 I'd disagree. Most of the choices were either not well supported, or very expensive for a normal individual to own. Mostly both. And of course, there was not much support either, on an individual level. This is, so far, going in a different direction.
So short, can't wait for next one 😀. This reminds me excitement of running first PC/XT DOS programs just for sake of running them :-). It would be great to see video like ISA Explained that goes through different ISA and their differences.
Great video, thank you. Back in the late 1990s I was assembling and selling IBM/Motorola RISC based computer that was used as severs or client to the engineering community. It run on IBM's AIX operating system. It ran CATIA, NASTRAN, Patran and all the engineering software of that time and it was also used for video editing. In order to run the graphic software like CATIA the client had to have a plugin graphics card that cost just as much as the mother board.
interesting device, I'm not sure I'm ready to make the plunge. BUT I do dig open computing and will continue to watch your channel for more information on this subject. Thank you for the video!
This could well be the first true competitor to the Raspberry Pi... this is being supported in ways that the Raspberry Pi is. That is the crucial element, to me.
Yes, RISC-V boards will get more support than the ARM Pi competitors. Already lots of differnet organizations and individuals are contributing, and being open facilities this.
@@nyny They may release one, although I'm doubtful. There's a ton of individuals and enterprises that rely on the long term support and developer community for the Pi. Don't know that theu have the capacity to provide that level of support on a new architecture. Plus a ton of programs Don't support and don't provide binaries for Risc V yet. Drivers and useful software are scarce. Maybe in a few years when Risc V gets some market share.
@@nomms yeah that's true. I was thinking more if rasp faced some serious competition, they have a pipeline in place that they could adapt. However you are right it would be a huge lift on the tooling and apps support
Exciting times for computing developement. It's really nice to see Open source software meet Open source hardware. As a Fedora user it's great to see Fedora running in this breakthrough machine :) Your videos are such a joy to watch and learn, thanks :)
Thank you for the review Chris. That looks like a very nice little computer. I like all the usual desktop connections being located along one side of the board, with the reset opposite them. I just skipped out to the RVspace site, and clearly building your own OS drive is a task for people who are very familiar with Liniux.
Thank you so much for testing out this board! I was actually hoping that you will. I am as excited as you are about RISC-V and can't wait for your next videos.
Great video. The Risc-V will be a gamechanger if they can keep developers interested. The hardware features are interesting, and this board will among other things be nice for robotics and uav's.
That is... surprisingly affordable, considering how new RISC -V is. I imagine it'll stay in the AI domain for for the most part (as ARM and X86 are extremely entrenched), but I can see some interesting use cases for a little board like this with that machine learning kit built right in. Edit: And it seems suprisingly useful for a chip that doesn't even have a GPU! Would be a pretty funny project to take a more advanced variant of the Ben Eater "GPU" and wire it in for a laugh. Even if it'd be a downgrade, and the breadboard would be much larger than the SBC....
RISC-V....how exciting! Once all the important aspects of this new technology are explored, I'd be interested in finding out what its performance equivalent is compared to the other SBCs you have on hand. For example, since it currently performs slower than a Raspberry Pi 4, is it more on par with a Raspberry Pi 3 or 3+ overall? Plus, it would be fun to put it eventually through your traditional heat and cooling tests. Anyway, I am looking forward to whatever aspects you explore next on this hardware. I hope RISC-V catches on in the world of computing out there. Looking forward to your next video!
Greetings Perry. I expect RISC-V hardware like this to improve in performance and decrease in price. Already, core for core (2 vs 4) it beat the Pi 4 in the GIMP test. So a board with 4 U74 core and a GPU would out perform a Pi 4 . . .
@@ExplainingComputers GIMP's lava filter isn't a multithreaded workload. It takes pretty much exactly the same time whether I run it on single core or all 12 on my 5900X.
I remember first hearing about RISC in Computer Science class in 1986. Looking forward to the journey that you take us on with this technology. Thanks Chris.
Cambridge Acorn Computers who made the BBC Micro were so pleased with the 6502 that it inspired their Acorn Risc Machine or ARM cpu in the 1980's. Now it's in half of everything that's not a PC.
Really nice video. Isn’t it nice to see more variety in ISA’s these days? I got really bored with x86 a couple years ago and now have in addition to x86-64 boards for RISC-V (Unmatched), ARM64 (Honeycomb), mk68 (Vampire V4 Stand-alone), and PPC (X5000 Amiga OS41)!
An expensive hobby for sure but fun. Seeing windows work on more than x86 is refreshing but honestly windows on arm is languishing. Windows used to work on not only Intel buy MIPS, Itanium, Alpha, etc. Not forgetting Linux which runs on everything. Unfortunately non-x86 support on Linux is a bit lacking. Look at the ARM64 problems with main lining patches.
This is great for a new technology! Hopefully as time goes on there will be more SBCs and software support and perhaps even emulation such as Box86/64 for RISC-V. One major improvement I hope to see in the near future is increased clock speeds and core counts for lower costs. 4 Cores at 2.5 Ghz would put this well on par with a RPi 4B. The truth is, with ARM being so cheap, popular, and easy to manufacture it will be hard to say if or when RISC-V will become popular for PC processors. However I think it would make a great fourth pillar in the major ISAs of Today.
If the lava rendering is performed on all cores, then the RISC-V hasn't done too badly given half the cores of the ARM. My 1st Gen Ryzen 1700 (8 core/16 thread) with Radeon RX580 graphics card did it in 16 seconds. This makes the lower power RISC-based processors even more impressive.
Interesting board. Still years light behind ARM SBC's development. Performance on desktop is way slower than Vim3 Pro, Odroid-N2+ and Radxa Zero2. All of them using S922X/A311D variants. Price is expensive as well. Currently sells at $179 for the starter kit without a PSU/Cable. Rock5B with a much powerful SoC will be selling soon at $99 if you preorder one for 8GB RAM version. Remains to be seen if Risc-V will catch up with ARM and if it becomes a feasible option to ARM in a near future.
Behind ARM right now, certainly. But absolutely not "light years" behind. Core for core (2 vs 4) the VisionFive actually beat the Pi 4 in the GIMP filter test! Ultimately, this is a development board, and the price reflects that. It is not a consumer product, and we will have to wait a few years for those . . . :)
The key cost reducing factor is mass production (including that of parts like SoCs and connectivity). While these boards or Pinephones and Librem 5 phones are built entirely by small companies. Let's hope it gets better.
@@johnm2012 GIMP just started getting fundamental multithreading support (with release 2.10) and far from all operations support it currently, so this is likely measuring single core performance for the most part.
I went from knowing nothing about RISC V to *almost* putting down for one of these. I'm eager to learn how to develop for it, but I might wait for the second generation of these
At last a computer you can really own, free from hardware backdoors. It needs some more optimized software, but the seed is planted for free and secure computing. I remember another chinese company did the same back in the day, some Loongson-based (MIPS) machines, but sadly they aren't produced anymore. I wanted this for a long time. As always, our dear teacher delivers. Thanks a lot, Chris. I'll scramble to get mine now.
That was amazing. Not interested in this architecture mind you (too slow at the moment) but totally interesting and amazing nonetheless. Thank you SO MUCH for this video!
I think this is a new curve in computing, Open instruction set architecture running Open source software will became the O2 to the a lot of business soon (I think and hope) Thanks Chris, till next Sunday, have a nice week,
A great video, running my favorite Linux OS, and having an open source CPU spec has to be a good thing, I was surprised that it was slower than the Raspberry Pi, but I am sure it will speed up as the product develops.
This system seems to still be in it's shakedown stage, and needs some tweaking to get to decent operational condition. Still, after some work, this looks like a compelling option in the future.
@@lastinline1958 Hopefully they will be easier to get than graphics cards and other computer related things. I have only contempt for scalpers and "resellers". I want to go to the store and buy it for a more reasonable price, not buy it from some shady person who doesn't give a shit about us. Not only would they sell it for WAY too much but it may be worn out too. They don't care.
@Clarissa 1986 That is a good point. Not only do they raise the price way above what it should be, but they can't provide a warranty, They would want to bullshit us into believing they do us a favor when they are doing nothing more than screwing us over every way imaginable and they know it too. They are just good at lying to try to pull the wool over our eyes. It is not working on me!!
Great for someone who specifically wants to explore RISC-V, but it's not price/performance competitive at the current $149, so there are better options for general small computing applications. To be fair, it is being marketed as a 'development' board, rather than a commodity product. Maybe the price will fall significantly if/when volume ramps up?
Yes, certainly a development board right now. I think we will have to move on a few product generations before price and performance matches and then betters the currently mainstream platforms.
Seeing how this thing has many chips and passive components on it compared to cheaper SBCs, maybe they will lower the price by combining them into an SoC in a future design as manufactures often do. This is plenty affordable for an engineer, but not the best choice to build a livingroom emulator box.
@@user-jj1pn3ql7q The current price for a pi 4b 8G from CPC (one of the main UK distributers) is £58.14 excluding taxes and shipping. The problem is availability - you can order them, but may have to wait months for delivery because of current supply problems. However, I managed to find a pi 4b 4G recently for £44.84. from a UK supplier. $265 is not the official price. If someone is asking for that amount they are engaging in profiteering due to current supply problems.
Great video, and I look forward to hearing more about RISC-V technology! Some more possible things to compare: How does the power consumption compare to the Raspberry Pi? And is the same software available in the Fedora repositories for RISC-V as there is for ARM or x64? Given that the architecture is open-source, hardware drivers should be much more optimized and available compared to SBC ARM boards.
Thanks for this. As far as I can tell, the repositories are currently more limited (as they are for Debian, for which a RISC-V version is also available). But the more hardware that gets out there, the more software will be available. As you say, being open source should make driver and wider software availability accelerate more quickly than with ARM.
@@ExplainingComputers It strongly depends on the amount of effort and money put on the RISC-V project. What could it be without NVIDIA and other corporations? Compare it to OpenRISC, for example. There's a lot of job to be done (and we want it to be done) but the pratice shows us that it can't be done on bare enthusiasm.
@@utvpoop It's a bootstrapping problem. They need to develop a full fledged, competitive, consumer ready product, but to do that they need the financial backing to research, develop and iterate, which requires them to... Y'know... Sell a full fledged, competitive, consumer ready product. If people would stop voting right wing, we could perhaps task our government to fund and develop open source projects in the name of public good, but oh noes, that's the commynisms!
@@YourIdeologyIsDelusional It looks like they've managed to do that with this board. Also remember that Seagate are starting to use RISC-V in their storage controllers. If they write their code in C then it's pretty irrelevant if the chip is popular or not as long as it does the job well and they can make them for the right money. Takeup is likely to be rapid because it can fill the role of ARM and be cheaper. Note also that with Nvidia not owning ARM they may decide to do their own RISC-V cpus.
This SBC looks really interesting! I kinda want to buy one to mess around with RISC-V and have a closer look at this architecture. Additionally, congratulations on the 400 (or 401 now) videos! You make really interesting content.
It looks a little sluggish but only 2 cores, I can't wait to see what comes next, especially being open source.. is it conceivable we'll see an rpi sporting this processor.. fingers crossed..
Open software meets open hardware. Feels like we're experiencing a defining moment in the timeline of computing history. :)
It's not open hardware, it's open ISA only. Anyone can make a cpu with risc-V (without paying licence), but there is no open hardware implementation right now. But it would be interesting if someone makes something like an open core that anyone could use for making their xips.
@@jordicoma You are taking my comment far too literally. I do understand open ISA. So, to put it another way: We are seeing open software (that does not require paying licenses / royalties), running on a standardised CPU platform (i.e. the hardware), that also does not require the payment of licenses / royalties (for the ISA). Does that help put my much simplified “Open software meets open hardware” comment into perspective?
There *are* open cores though. Look for the T-Head C906, C910, etc., which you can get on real hardware already.
And there's OpenXiangShan. And Moonbase Otago Vroom.
Much stuff that isn't being promoted too well, unfortunately.
Will we ever see a truly open CPU? To a certain level maybe. So much IP gets licensed to take a design and actually fabricate a wafer. I suppose using fairly agricultural process nodes it might be possible. RISCV is a great first step and it might be what the industry needs to transform much like Linux was in the late 90s. Great video as always.
@@CyReVolt How fast are those cores?
I was ranting on about how cool the M1 was, and my (engineer) son informed me of RISC-V. Given how much I taught him about technology ... it was a lovely gust of fresh air to get a geek-insight first hand. $0.02 and thanks for the videos.
You do realise the M1 is not using the RISC-V ISA, don't you? The M1 is a ARMv8.4-A based chip.
@@Peter1986C yeah, I realise that. A given fact.
just being RISC is impressive after a good couple decades of x86 dominance in desktop computing
"RISC architecture is going to change everything"
The M1 really is cool. It's not just an ARM chip. If I've read correctly it also executes x86 code to ARM on the fly (I may have misread that). It reminds me a lot of Transmeta and their Crusoe processor except that Apple has actually pulled it off with decent performance
@@Peter1986C When did he say it was RISC-V in his comment?
good on Fedora for fully supporting RISC-V , since 2016! while other major distros are "in development" . huge Fedora fan. this is all very exciting!
Ubuntu has been out for some time now, with both 20.04 LTS and 21.10 available for RISC-V.
I am sure gentoo could be compiled for that arch soon after releasing :) but I didn't check that though
Now that it's supported by one distribution it won't take much time for them all to do it. The hardest part is the board support package.
GCC has to be modified to work with this, you have to compile everything, it's a pain.
After a few mis-starts from others, glad to see someone released a reasonably priced RISC-V sbc. Can't wait to see where RISC-V takes us. Thank you as always Mr. Barnatt! Welcome to DST.
I'd say that not only reasonably priced but actually working and with better support than most ARM SBCs from last 2-3 years.
@@SergiuszRoszczyk especially compared to Allwinner SoCs which microcode has to be reverse-engineered because the vendors don't supply any
I don't think RISC-V will replace ARM in most areas. It will likely stay in the realm of hardware controllers, like for SSDs and as Coprocessors in GPUs.
@@SergiuszRoszczyk Except for the Raspberry Pi, with which it compares even worse than I expected on both price and performance.
@@johnm2012 Pi and Pico are gold standards. I'm talking about all those Pi Killer wannabes ;)
I'm surprised it came that close to a quadcore Raspberry Pi. I've been saying for a while now that RISC-V has the potential to be the future and that shows just how competitive it already is, core for core and clock for clock.
I'm also excited to see if RISC-V could fill in a gap between microcontroller and full-fledged desktop computing at some point, if costs can be brought down a bit.
Sometimes you just need a CPU with more capabilities than a micro controller to handle light computing tasks, and having a more open standard and wide support for it (with reduced licensing costs, assuming some companies are generous with their designs) could make some hardware devices even cheaper than something like a Pi in the future, while not being too much slower.
I think RISC-V may have an uphill battle since 'open' describes only part of the ecosystem, and open doesn't always result in complete, better, or more economical. But I'm encouraged seeing all the investors (including Raspberry Pi themselves!).
Early ARM boards were also very, very slow, and usually pretty difficult to get running well. It took a decade to get to where we are with ARM.
Greetings Jeff. :)
It is generally believed in the industry that there won't be any catching up to for example ARM in the foreseeable future. One of the reasons why so few companies invest in it. Right now there isn't a single good argument to use it instead of ARM. The "Gary Explains" video on the topic ("ARM vs RISC V") is pretty enlightening.
@@graealex I'm always deeply concerned about comments like "generally believed in the industry" -- partly because they lack specific reference, and partly because fundamental change is often driven from outside an industry not inside it.
The Gary Explains RISC-V video is indeed a good video, but like many others falls into the trap of only really considering RISC-V to be a competitor to ARM (and not also x86), and only treating this as a technical computing issue. Whereas in reality, the whole RISC-V thing is about control, and in particular intellectual property (IP) and the licensing thereof. And in a world in which trade barriers and sanctions are rising to the fore (if for good reason on many occasions), this is likely to be key force behind RISC-V.
Already China and Russia have announced plans to make RISC-V desktops and laptops so that their access to the involved IP cannot be constrained. More broadly, the current reality of the West telling the rest of the planet what technology to use, and charging them for it, is not likely to remain intact for that much longer. And this, regardless of what we may think of the involved politics, will be the major driving force behind RISC-V -- and not the "general view" of an often rather inward looking computing industry. :)
@@ExplainingComputers The thing with open source is that it is basically a "prisoner's dilemma" sort of thing.
If every participant acts in favor of all the others and contributes in a similar manner, then all of them benefit, a lot more if every one did their own commercial/proprietary project without interaction.
However, that scenario is not very favorable with ARM right now, as their proven IP puts the bar of entry so low that you'd basically be stupid not to just use it. Not to play down what the engineers are doing, but the toolchains and software makes it basically possible to drag-and-drop an SoC together, then send it off to TSMC, and you're done.
Also, China and Russia will probably use some of RISC V as the base for their own developments, but again, "prisoner's dilemma" - if they achieve any sort of good progress, they'd be stupid to give it back to the community, even if that was somehow mandated (which it isn't). And it still takes sooo much work to make any progress at all - as seen by HiSilicon having 7000 employees and still relying on ARM.
I like the idea of open-source hardware development. But there is a commercial reality that puts companies that give away their own work usually at a disadvantage vs. such companies that keep it to themselves.
@@graealex You are right, there are problem with open source as you describe. But open hardware is not quite the same -- there is no requirement that a community re-develops and gives back. Indeed, already core designs like those from SiFive (ad based on the open IP) are closed IP. And hardware will never be free like it can be with software. All of this is therefore why I and others (like RISC-V International!) make clear that the RISC-V ISA is "open" and not "open source" -- they are different! :) One is about community development, the other about IP that is free to use (the same way that IBM made its PC architecture open). So Russia and China would not have to give back, and there is no expectation they would do so. But they could go on manufacturing chips, even in the face of a trade embargo, as a licensor would not be breaking that embargo by selling to them. Except, of course they would be giving back indirectly, as adoption of their hardware would drive open source software development . . .
What serendipitous timing. I was actually looking at RISC-V development boards and single board computers yesterday...
Excellent! :) And keep watching. Another will come along here very soon.
Great to see RISC-V on the move and being promoted. Certainly worth a look into for development of AI functionality purposes.
IA according to the limitation of the mortal human brain.😞😁😁😁😁😁😁
It's been 50 years and still humans haven't been completely replaced yet.
@@joefish6091 50 years in the grand scheme of things is merely a nap.
I thought RISC-V was going to be one of those things people always talked about like bubble memory but would never happen. It's happened, it's here. OK, it not better than an ARM but it could be. Maybe we will see an FPGA version.
Love the RISC-V content! Especially interested in open source core designs using the RISC-V ISA and running open source software on it like Linux and BSD. Can't wait for proper desktops and smartphones using this tech!
Very excited for RISC-V to be going mainstream.
ReactOS should do an sbc like this
Yes, such possibilities here.
@@ExplainingComputers talked to a reactOS developer i pointed out an SBC with react os can normalize/optimize the drivers then can focus on other things to make ReactOS more program friendly
He was like MEH ..
My thought
With how hard old hardware is to get a new option to retro play games on could make $$$
@@vardekpetrovic9716 well at the time i was talking about x86 sbc the # of drivers for hardware in the wild so IMO a semi standardized SBC will cut lots of work from core group to get it in use and being open source will spread the workload
@@vardekpetrovic9716 also
Quite impressed by the performance at this early stage and considering there is no GPU in this little SoC.
I'm pretty sure RISC-V will be a serious contender for ARM in the future.
This CPU was also used in first beta version of Beagle-V, however something went wrong and it was never publicly released (only handful of devboards were released for early adopters and they actually shaped how this one came out). There were plans to make this CPU only a small scale production to unblock people who were designing boards and allow them to start porting software. It seems that original plan was to make a production run of JH7110 CPU which should've had 4 cores instead of 2 and it also should have PCIe and 3D Accelerated GPU on board. Not sure what went wrong as I was looking into buying that one, but it never got released and beagle-v was postponed.
Yeah, the production BeagleV Starlight with JH7110 was promised for September 2021, but as we now know it eventually shipped in the VisionFIve 2 in January 2023, and then in many devices over the following six months: Pine64 Star64 and PineTab-V, Milk-V Mars, and even the Roma laptop which had originally been announced to have TH1520. I'm guess it needed multiple tape-outs to get it right, but eventually it turned out to be a very good and solid chip.@@vladimir.smirnov
Seeing an actual RISC-V machine run Quake made my day. Thanks!
:)
Fun fact: This was made by radxa and starfive as a collaboration, that's why the fan has the radxa logo and why it looks quite similar to a radxa board.
Ah, I has not twigged the logo on the fan. Of course, Radxa. :)
Finally a reasonable priced RISC-V SBC, that GIMP filter test was way closer then I expected.
🐘
RISC-V is going to be a staple soon. I can't wait. Another splendid video, Chris! :-)
Hope it is going to be as good as Apple silicon.
It will be a staple as soon as it will be the year of Linux on the desktop
@@Sithhy yes
Yes, a staple that every plastic surgeon will soon be using in their procedures to better increase the equality of life for the the grotesquely deformed and obese....
Former SNL Executive Assitant Production Designer.
- Staples Maples
As always, another Sunday morning surprise here on the US west coast! Thank you for presenting this. Every Sunday morning is like Christmas morning on Explaining Computers!
Thanks Mark! :)
Chris, I just wanted to let you know I look forward to your videos every week, and I’m most likely watching even if it’s something I’m not particularly interested in, and usually I become interested in it after watching. But your video helped me today to get over the loss of someone very close to me, and think about something new and exciting. Thank you.
Thanks for this, and sorry to hear about your loss.
It looks to me like the CPU is just intended to be glue for the AI. I would love to see this board showing off its machine learning abilities.
Agree, I am curious what benefit the "nvdla" core (.. Is it a separate chip??) brings in practice. It seems to be increasingly thrown in with new SBC designs. Interesting this one seems to include both a deep learning engine and nvdla. Do they work together? Fight for ai dominance? But that's a very specific topic and since I have no "need" to know I won'trequest Chris seriously dedicate a video to it unless interest is there
Would definitely like to see a video going further into the AI capabilities of this board.
And if it indeed is a better platform for a neural network, then this is a good thing.
Whoooah quake on a risc soc from a microSD. This is truly a new era. Students should be awarded 1 of these with tuition
I'm happy to hear about it, It has been a long time since I've finished my graduation and remembering risc architeture, it is a pleasure to hear that its coming back . Good!
Yet again you have taught me something new. I'd not heard of this open-ISA Risc-V CPU before. Fascinating! Looking forward to see where it goes! Competition is always a good thing.
Wouldn't be a Sunday afternoon without an EC video. Thanks Chris!
That is a fairly surprising (and fast) little device considering RISC-V is (still) having its first baby steps on the market. It shows promise!
I totally agree! It is interesting how views diverge in these comments. Some, like you and I, are impressed but what a RISC-V board can do right now. Others are dismissive because it is not as fast and low-cost as current, long-standing technology.
@@ExplainingComputers I'm one of the sceptics, I'm afraid. If you want a free and open source RISC processor, the SPARC has decades more development under its belt. Years before the Raspberry Pi I bought an expensive development board with a MIPS processor and was excited when I got it to boot to the Linux bash command prompt (not a desktop, of course!). They are still used in routers and laser printers. ARM is special because it can do a lot with very little electrical power. x86 can do more but uses more power. I just don't see what RISC V has to offer that will persuade people to use it in sufficient numbers to allow it to develop into anything other than a curiosity, in which case it will continue to underperform and be more expensive than a similar ARM-based product. I was concerned about ARM being swallowed up by Nvidia and had hopes than RISC V might step up to the mark but that danger has passed and RISC V seems to be struggling to find it's purpose. It will always be a couple of generations behind ARM and unless it can provide some compelling advantage of its own, why would anyone choose it?
Your pure glee at these things makes me so happy. Brilliant video.
I've only heard and tead about Risc V architecture. Never seen one in action. Thank you EC for this video. It's running Xfce DE yet appears sluggish.
Still quite good for experimental hardware.
You must have so many SBC's now Chris! Here is a tip: Plastikote them all in clear varnish and re-tile the bathroom.
Only time will tell, but we may be at a technological moment worthy of the famous "That's one small step for man...", at least as far as open source digital is concerned! Thank you professsor!
Agreed.
Really good introduction to RISC-V. Excited to see more info on this hardware. Thanks for another great video Chris.
Thanks Steve, I hope that all is well with you.
@@ExplainingComputers
😊👍
Based on the specs, this board is really geared towards AI/ML applications. This explains why only two cores as most of the chip is reserved for ML accelerators. It would be cool to see if TensorFlow (or similar) works on it and makes use of hardware acceleration features 🤞🏼
Indeed. It's unfortunate that the comparison software tests use applications that the board wasn't designed for. I doubt RISK-V will ever be able to compete with the Raspberry Pi and its support ecosystem in either popularity or, for want of a better term, market segment. On the other hand I look forward to seeing this board tested in its intended application areas -- places where the Raspberry Pi will likely be found lacking.
@@tylersperry9164 Agree. I've used RPi4 for real-time ML training (aka reinforcement learning) and it really struggled due to lack of HW acceleration. Might get an RISK-V in the summer to see if it can do the job.
It's cool seeing RISC coming back in a more mainstream way. I love my old PowerPC RISC Macs!
Have you forgotten that the letter 'R' in ARM stands for RISC?
I have server RAID cards with PowerPC cpus. Maybe next they will have RISC-V cpus.
RISC-V and framework laptops are my little spark in the dark that is proprietary tech.
I hope these open technologies go far and beyond
I was just getting interested in this architecture then this video comes out. Yes!
Once the performance and price point come into line with the alternatives, this should be a very attractive option.
Agreed!
Will that ever happen though, or will ARM always be a couple of generations ahead? ARM and x86 each have well defined advantages in their specialist areas, with increasing overlap. What does RISC V have to offer, apart from being "different"? Does its particular design allow it to excel at any task that sets it apart from the other two choices?
@@johnm2012 RISC-V is technically more energy-efficient than ARM, which is saying something considering how efficient ARM is already. There's also the fact that anyone can make instruction extensions for it, unlike ARM or x86. There could be other differences, but I'm no expert.
@@Diapolo10 What do you base that assumption on? RISC-V is an ISA specification nothing more, nothing less. There is no inherent “energy efficiency” as that’s a matter of implementation.
Custom ISA extensions can be done with ARM as well, but no one in their right mind thinks custom extensions are something positive for a platform as it ultimately leads to extreme fragmentation and binary incompatibility.
@@FluffyAnvil no, that's not the case. Instruction decoding is a major energy user in CPUs at this level and below (embedded uses). That's a big part of why Intel has never been able to get into ARM's markets. RISC-V has even simpler and fewer instructions and instruction formats than ARM, without losing much if any functionality. Many customers of RISC-V vendors such as SiFive and Andes have reported the RISC-V cores using as little as 1/2 to 1/3 of the silicon area and energy of the cores they were otherwise planning to use (i.e. probably ARM, though possibly ARC or Xtensa or MIPS in some cases).
Same excitement that I had when loading up MorphOS on Mac Mini G4 1.42 for the first time. Like it is PPC processor and Amiga-Like OS. What a sweet combo.
I will never complain about Xorg/GLX performance on a Raspberry Pi ever again. Still looks like an interesting system!
the potential for a fully libre computer with usable performance is getting closer and closer,the idea of there being a PC you truly own 100% of is a nice prospect,even if most would no go totally without proprietary software (including myself).
Ooh, a very interesting new topic - thanks for this Chris. Really looking forward to hearing more about RISC-V in your videos in the coming weeks and also seeing what the vision pipeline and AI specific capabilities are like on this board 👍🤓
Yes to open computing. Wait to see what you put forward each Sunday and never disappointed!
Since i've started watching EC, anytime Im trying to figure something out on my computer, and eventually get it, I find myself silently mouthing "There We Are!" 😂😂 I love this channel☺
:)
Exciting stuff! I can't see it not over taking from ARM as leader in the single board computer market.
Nice design for a new SBC as it's a first risk 5 developer board at a decent price with a valid os along for said price thanks for the review professor Chris and have a great Sunday
Delightful video. 👍 Can't wait to see where this family of technologies ultimately takes us. Whatever it is, I wish for it to be dually useful in edge computing and server layouts, supported robustly by its software community, and not overly power hungry. Thank you for being our shepherd, Explaining Computers.
When you mentioned gaming, the likes of Solitaire and Minesweeper came to mind. Then you said "Quake" and my jaw dropped! Witnessing a dawn of something that has the potential to change the world is truly incredible. Thank you for bringing this to us Chris, you are amazing!
You clearly get the potential here. :) Thanks for watching.
🐼
🐼
I never thought I'd see the day that we'd actually have a choice in CPU architecture.
:)
Amazing and confusing times we live in, heh
There's always been a choice in CPU architecture, nearly 50 years worth.
It's just that the lower cost msinstream gets most of the news.
Its just that if you go off-road there's the risk of being left hanging when a supplier decides to close shop..
@@joefish6091 I'd disagree. Most of the choices were either not well supported, or very expensive for a normal individual to own. Mostly both.
And of course, there was not much support either, on an individual level. This is, so far, going in a different direction.
@@thekakan We'll see if RISC-V will be well supported in a few years
So short, can't wait for next one 😀. This reminds me excitement of running first PC/XT DOS programs just for sake of running them :-).
It would be great to see video like ISA Explained that goes through different ISA and their differences.
I am planning a video called "Explaining RISC-V" that will hopefully address what you raise. :)
@@ExplainingComputers I guess so 🤩
This has the honor of being the only SBC in the world to have a BMC (it is, in fact, a reference board for OpenBMC development).
It made me happy when you loaded up Original Quake. Nice video and SBC. Thanks Chris.
I wish to see RISC-V based Android phones and Laptops in future
A new computer architecture is always exciting. Nice video, can't wait for the next in the series.
First and only tech CZcams I watch. VisionFive seems like an awesome SBC, esp for doing IOT projects.
Great video, thank you.
Back in the late 1990s I was assembling and selling IBM/Motorola RISC based computer that was used as severs or client to the engineering community.
It run on IBM's AIX operating system.
It ran CATIA, NASTRAN, Patran and all the engineering software of that time and it was also used for video editing.
In order to run the graphic software like CATIA the client had to have a plugin graphics card that cost just as much as the mother board.
Chris’s time machine ⏰ has gone forward in time!
Yes, I find it very strange when we move time around.
This is a good first step when it comes to a completely new ISA processor. Hole this matures just as fast as ARM did.
interesting device, I'm not sure I'm ready to make the plunge. BUT I do dig open computing and will continue to watch your channel for more information on this subject. Thank you for the video!
I just love open source and efficiency. Can't wait to see what RISC-V will accomplish in the next couple of years.
This could well be the first true competitor to the Raspberry Pi... this is being supported in ways that the Raspberry Pi is. That is the crucial element, to me.
Yes, RISC-V boards will get more support than the ARM Pi competitors. Already lots of differnet organizations and individuals are contributing, and being open facilities this.
Is there any reason Raspberry couldn't release a RISC variant? If it grows and the price is good, I don't see a reason why not.
@@nyny They may release one, although I'm doubtful. There's a ton of individuals and enterprises that rely on the long term support and developer community for the Pi. Don't know that theu have the capacity to provide that level of support on a new architecture.
Plus a ton of programs Don't support and don't provide binaries for Risc V yet. Drivers and useful software are scarce. Maybe in a few years when Risc V gets some market share.
@@nomms yeah that's true. I was thinking more if rasp faced some serious competition, they have a pipeline in place that they could adapt. However you are right it would be a huge lift on the tooling and apps support
Open Source Achitecture for Open Sorce Operating System? Gorgeous!
:)
Exciting times for computing developement. It's really nice to see Open source software meet Open source hardware. As a Fedora user it's great to see Fedora running in this breakthrough machine :) Your videos are such a joy to watch and learn, thanks :)
Yes, this is a feather in the cap for Fedora!
The most exciting thing is the potential for the future.
Thank you for the review Chris. That looks like a very nice little computer. I like all the usual desktop connections being located along one side of the board, with the reset opposite them.
I just skipped out to the RVspace site, and clearly building your own OS drive is a task for people who are very familiar with Liniux.
Look up Linux From Scratch. Once I finish moving I'm going to try the ARM guide out with a spare Pi3.
@@anon_y_mousse I keep considering it Anony... but I just never seem to find the time.
And I am retired!
How did I ever find the time to go to work?
Cracking topic choice again, Chris. And well-timed too as CPU makers ramp up their production. Look forward to your take on Open ISA.
Well, I was definitely not "in the know" before your video, but I feel like I am now - thanks as always!
Thanks Chris. Greetings! :)
Thank you so much for testing out this board! I was actually hoping that you will. I am as excited as you are about RISC-V and can't wait for your next videos.
Great video. The Risc-V will be a gamechanger if they can keep developers interested. The hardware features are interesting, and this board will among other things be nice for robotics and uav's.
That is... surprisingly affordable, considering how new RISC -V is. I imagine it'll stay in the AI domain for for the most part (as ARM and X86 are extremely entrenched), but I can see some interesting use cases for a little board like this with that machine learning kit built right in.
Edit: And it seems suprisingly useful for a chip that doesn't even have a GPU! Would be a pretty funny project to take a more advanced variant of the Ben Eater "GPU" and wire it in for a laugh. Even if it'd be a downgrade, and the breadboard would be much larger than the SBC....
Never get tired of your content Chris.
Have you ever considered making documentary length videos? I think you'd make some great documentaries.
Looking forward to hearing more about Risk V! I'll be staying tuned!
Excellent, thanks. :)
RISC-V....how exciting! Once all the important aspects of this new technology are explored, I'd be interested in finding out what its performance equivalent is compared to the other SBCs you have on hand. For example, since it currently performs slower than a Raspberry Pi 4, is it more on par with a Raspberry Pi 3 or 3+ overall? Plus, it would be fun to put it eventually through your traditional heat and cooling tests. Anyway, I am looking forward to whatever aspects you explore next on this hardware. I hope RISC-V catches on in the world of computing out there. Looking forward to your next video!
Greetings Perry. I expect RISC-V hardware like this to improve in performance and decrease in price. Already, core for core (2 vs 4) it beat the Pi 4 in the GIMP test. So a board with 4 U74 core and a GPU would out perform a Pi 4 . . .
@@ExplainingComputers thanks for the input. I am pleased to see this technology finally get into your hands!
@@ExplainingComputers but does GIMP use all cpu cores for this? Or is such a filter done on one core? Still impressive for a newcomer 1GHz core.
@@ExplainingComputers GIMP's lava filter isn't a multithreaded workload. It takes pretty much exactly the same time whether I run it on single core or all 12 on my 5900X.
@@henrikemppainen2511 Thanks for this. I had not considered that the filters in GIMP were not multi-threated. My bad. :(
Nice video. Love to see more about machine learning abilities in it.
I haven't heard much about RISC-V I hope it becomes popular I love open source creations.
Thank you for this very interesting video and congratulations with your first RISC-V computer!
I remember first hearing about RISC in Computer Science class in 1986. Looking forward to the journey that you take us on with this technology. Thanks Chris.
Cambridge Acorn Computers who made the BBC Micro were so pleased with the 6502 that it inspired their Acorn Risc Machine or ARM cpu in the 1980's. Now it's in half of everything that's not a PC.
Really nice video. Isn’t it nice to see more variety in ISA’s these days? I got really bored with x86 a couple years ago and now have in addition to x86-64 boards for RISC-V (Unmatched), ARM64 (Honeycomb), mk68 (Vampire V4 Stand-alone), and PPC (X5000 Amiga OS41)!
Now that is cool! :)
An expensive hobby for sure but fun. Seeing windows work on more than x86 is refreshing but honestly windows on arm is languishing. Windows used to work on not only Intel buy MIPS, Itanium, Alpha, etc. Not forgetting Linux which runs on everything. Unfortunately non-x86 support on Linux is a bit lacking. Look at the ARM64 problems with main lining patches.
How exciting to see RISC-V actually in your hands, and running Linux!
Nice to see that Risc V is progessing very fast at the moment.
Been waiting for this video for years. EC first!
Yes, I take this video as a milestone! It will be very interesting to see where RISC-V hardware goes in the next few years.
This is great for a new technology! Hopefully as time goes on there will be more SBCs and software support and perhaps even emulation such as Box86/64 for RISC-V.
One major improvement I hope to see in the near future is increased clock speeds and core counts for lower costs. 4 Cores at 2.5 Ghz would put this well on par with a RPi 4B.
The truth is, with ARM being so cheap, popular, and easy to manufacture it will be hard to say if or when RISC-V will become popular for PC processors. However I think it would make a great fourth pillar in the major ISAs of Today.
Looking forward to the additional RISC-V videos. Exciting times indeed!
If the lava rendering is performed on all cores, then the RISC-V hasn't done too badly given half the cores of the ARM. My 1st Gen Ryzen 1700 (8 core/16 thread) with Radeon RX580 graphics card did it in 16 seconds. This makes the lower power RISC-based processors even more impressive.
Interesting board. Still years light behind ARM SBC's development. Performance on desktop is way slower than Vim3 Pro, Odroid-N2+ and Radxa Zero2. All of them using S922X/A311D variants. Price is expensive as well. Currently sells at $179 for the starter kit without a PSU/Cable. Rock5B with a much powerful SoC will be selling soon at $99 if you preorder one for 8GB RAM version. Remains to be seen if Risc-V will catch up with ARM and if it becomes a feasible option to ARM in a near future.
Behind ARM right now, certainly. But absolutely not "light years" behind. Core for core (2 vs 4) the VisionFive actually beat the Pi 4 in the GIMP filter test! Ultimately, this is a development board, and the price reflects that. It is not a consumer product, and we will have to wait a few years for those . . . :)
@@ExplainingComputers Does the GIMP filter test use all available cores, or is it single threaded? Running htop at the same time would confirm.
The key cost reducing factor is mass production (including that of parts like SoCs and connectivity). While these boards or Pinephones and Librem 5 phones are built entirely by small companies. Let's hope it gets better.
@@johnm2012 GIMP just started getting fundamental multithreading support (with release 2.10) and far from all operations support it currently, so this is likely measuring single core performance for the most part.
I went from knowing nothing about RISC V to *almost* putting down for one of these. I'm eager to learn how to develop for it, but I might wait for the second generation of these
At last a computer you can really own, free from hardware backdoors. It needs some more optimized software, but the seed is planted for free and secure computing. I remember another chinese company did the same back in the day, some Loongson-based (MIPS) machines, but sadly they aren't produced anymore.
I wanted this for a long time. As always, our dear teacher delivers.
Thanks a lot, Chris. I'll scramble to get mine now.
I am impressed. Cant wait to see where this goes in the future . Quake though ... Awesome mate . Looking fwd to you next video on the RV . Cheers .
That was amazing. Not interested in this architecture mind you (too slow at the moment) but totally interesting and amazing nonetheless. Thank you SO MUCH for this video!
Not a pi, but since no one in the solar system has them in stock, I'm willing to consider alternatives. Thanks 👍
I hope that RISC-V will become mainstream.
I think this is a new curve in computing,
Open instruction set architecture running Open source software will became the O2 to the a lot of business soon (I think and hope)
Thanks Chris, till next Sunday, have a nice week,
A great video, running my favorite Linux OS, and having an open source CPU spec has to be a good thing, I was surprised that it was slower than the Raspberry Pi, but I am sure it will speed up as the product develops.
@Dylan At 3.59 the video states that the CPU has a Vision DSP, is this not just another name for a GPU?
This system seems to still be in it's shakedown stage, and needs some tweaking to get to decent operational condition. Still, after some work, this looks like a compelling option in the future.
Eventually it can become a good alternative to Raspberry PI.
@@charleshines1553 Especially if they are actually available.
@@lastinline1958 Hopefully they will be easier to get than graphics cards and other computer related things. I have only contempt for scalpers and "resellers". I want to go to the store and buy it for a more reasonable price, not buy it from some shady person who doesn't give a shit about us. Not only would they sell it for WAY too much but it may be worn out too. They don't care.
@Clarissa 1986 That is a good point. Not only do they raise the price way above what it should be, but they can't provide a warranty,
They would want to bullshit us into believing they do us a favor when they are doing nothing more than screwing us over every way imaginable and they know it too. They are just good at lying to try to pull the wool over our eyes. It is not working on me!!
@Clarissa 1986 I just wish other people felt the same way. Don't they realize they are just enabling and encouraging them?
This is really sweet its always great to use hardware designed for Linux versus hacking devices that were designed for windows
very interesting sbc. thanks for another grand introduction of a new product.
You can tell the pioneers from the arrows in their back!
Sadly often so.
Great for someone who specifically wants to explore RISC-V, but it's not price/performance competitive at the current $149, so there are better options for general small computing applications. To be fair, it is being marketed as a 'development' board, rather than a commodity product. Maybe the price will fall significantly if/when volume ramps up?
Yes, certainly a development board right now. I think we will have to move on a few product generations before price and performance matches and then betters the currently mainstream platforms.
Seeing how this thing has many chips and passive components on it compared to cheaper SBCs, maybe they will lower the price by combining them into an SoC in a future design as manufactures often do.
This is plenty affordable for an engineer, but not the best choice to build a livingroom emulator box.
@@leonidas14775 Would be really fun, though.
The raspberry pi 4b 8G is $ 265,
@@user-jj1pn3ql7q The current price for a pi 4b 8G from CPC (one of the main UK distributers) is £58.14 excluding taxes and shipping. The problem is availability - you can order them, but may have to wait months for delivery because of current supply problems. However, I managed to find a pi 4b 4G recently for £44.84. from a UK supplier. $265 is not the official price. If someone is asking for that amount they are engaging in profiteering due to current supply problems.
Can't wait to see more about RISC-V.
Risc-V is such a refreshing development. To see it on real, available (almost) hardware is excellent news. Thanks Chris.
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Great video, and I look forward to hearing more about RISC-V technology!
Some more possible things to compare:
How does the power consumption compare to the Raspberry Pi?
And is the same software available in the Fedora repositories for RISC-V as there is for ARM or x64?
Given that the architecture is open-source, hardware drivers should be much more optimized and available compared to SBC ARM boards.
Thanks for this. As far as I can tell, the repositories are currently more limited (as they are for Debian, for which a RISC-V version is also available). But the more hardware that gets out there, the more software will be available. As you say, being open source should make driver and wider software availability accelerate more quickly than with ARM.
@@ExplainingComputers It strongly depends on the amount of effort and money put on the RISC-V project. What could it be without NVIDIA and other corporations? Compare it to OpenRISC, for example. There's a lot of job to be done (and we want it to be done) but the pratice shows us that it can't be done on bare enthusiasm.
@@utvpoop
It's a bootstrapping problem. They need to develop a full fledged, competitive, consumer ready product, but to do that they need the financial backing to research, develop and iterate, which requires them to... Y'know... Sell a full fledged, competitive, consumer ready product.
If people would stop voting right wing, we could perhaps task our government to fund and develop open source projects in the name of public good, but oh noes, that's the commynisms!
@@YourIdeologyIsDelusional This might be the dumbest thing I've ever read. Stay classy LOL. "Vote left and RISCV projects will work better REEEEEEE"
@@YourIdeologyIsDelusional It looks like they've managed to do that with this board. Also remember that Seagate are starting to use RISC-V in their storage controllers. If they write their code in C then it's pretty irrelevant if the chip is popular or not as long as it does the job well and they can make them for the right money. Takeup is likely to be rapid because it can fill the role of ARM and be cheaper. Note also that with Nvidia not owning ARM they may decide to do their own RISC-V cpus.
We're gonna have a risky future 🤩🤩🤩
This SBC looks really interesting! I kinda want to buy one to mess around with RISC-V and have a closer look at this architecture.
Additionally, congratulations on the 400 (or 401 now) videos! You make really interesting content.
And now we can 🙂
Feels like a new frontier with RISC-V! Hope to see more of this content in the future.
It looks a little sluggish but only 2 cores, I can't wait to see what comes next, especially being open source.. is it conceivable we'll see an rpi sporting this processor.. fingers crossed..
The PI draws on the ARM heritage from Acorn Risc Machines. However it would be even better if RPI was based on an open source CPU.