The Latte Panda Sigma is a BEAST... kinda
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- čas přidán 12. 10. 2023
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Latte Panda has a long history of integrating X86 PCs and Maker Boards, with the results often crushing ARM-based competition. While the Sigma offers their fastest PC yet, is this the maker board you're looking for?
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Double the intro double the fun
Never work with children or animals :-D
Shouldn’t have hesitated. First intro was great😂
I figured it was a glitch in the matrix and I was going to be having an aggressively bad day in a few minutes.
Yeah if they could beat the price of the Framework board then I would could see it being worth looking at.
My issue with LattePanda has always been the inflated cost and over-exuberant marketing. While i like the SBC form factor much more than say a mini-pc (beelink, nuc, corporate 1L's, etc) the inclusion of the arduino stuff is a complete turnoff for me, as its wasted cost for something unneeded and unwanted. And like you said, its not even more useful than just stashing an arduino in an enclosure and pretending its all one unit.
its even worst when its just connected with serial like he said, with USB you can at least use it as a button controller cuz its an 32u4
A company I never heard of before, Youyeetoo, had released a SBC of similar size and chipset to the Lattepanda Delta at a much lower price (and no Arduino). I think the LP Delta and Alpha are overdue for a refresh and should give us at least Raptor Lake versions of those. Core m3 is 5 generations old by now.
unfortunately, when you go up in that performance class, costs are always high. the cpu alone is $353 for manufacturers in quantities of thousands. add in the costs for pcb production, ram, chipsets, etc and you hit a $400-$500 wall easily. but as Jeff said, the main problem is this board does not really have a purpose.
It's also out of date. Arduino has since moved on from shitty Atmel AVR micros
its absolutely for industrial use. these are huge in cnc.
and thats 100% the market it's designed and priced for. when its controlling 30 or 50k of equipment it's plenty "cheap"
I can definitely see a use case for this type of products in the automation and industrial machines where you need lots of cpu power for real time calculation but no need for a gpu. It's easy calculation but need to be fast.
Actually in the machine I worked with before we had mATX with i5 or i7 to do that task, this one is smaller and seems to be easier to protect from dust and vibrations
I bought the delta 3 over a year ago and while I did pull it out and play with it a bit, I couldn't really find a good use case for it. It's back in it's box since then.
To answer your question, my guess is this is made for robotics applications. There isn’t a lot of small form factor SBCs with much CPU power available outside of the very expensive top line NVIDIA jetson cards. I don’t think the attached arduino is such a problem specifically if it has the safer GPIO handling. When working with raspberry pi’s, is pretty easy to burn them out if you aren’t careful, I often still have to hook up an arduino to make them work.
If burning out your GPIO is a concern, then you'd be much, much better off attaching an Arduino or Bluepill (STM32) or etc. via serial or USB anyway (and would be functionally identical to this hack the company pulled). I just don't see a place for the integrated Arduino at all. It's stupid, mostly because the Arduino chip they chose is old, massively underpowered, low bit ADC and so on. It's like they once made a good product and now they are just riding on that initial design, update a thing here and then and call it a day and hope people will happily shell out $570.
This product makes no sense
I absolutely love your perspective in these reviews. The question, "who is this for, and what was its intended purpose?" is so important. Much more than, "New shiny fast thing."
The new raspberry pi 5 no longer connects the GPIO directly to the arm CPUs at the heart of the SBC. The GPIO is instead attached to a very low power coprocessor in the RP1 chip. What the Latte Panda Sigma probably should have done would be to offer a library for Windows that makes it look like you have GPIO access on Windows, while shuttling that through USB to a prewritten firmware on the 32U4.
With regard to not being able to add faster networking, Innodisk, and others, offer a 10 gig e NVME card. That could be good in the Gen 3x4 slot. Then the Gen 4x4 slot could have a NVMe to U2 adapter, running to a U2 to PCIe slot adapter for a graphics board.
and here is the problem. why go through all this hassle and not buy a board that already has the expandability that you need, since the cost in both cases will be similarly high? you don't really gain anything in cost or size with this board.
@@giornikitop5373Exactly that. I hate this expectation for the customer to keep buying adapters that only serve to inflate the price and add more points of failure.
I can see quite a few projects I've worked on that the Latte Panda Sigma would work well for, unfortunately in all of them there are other options that fit better.
the RTX A500 enclosed GPU exists and runs over USB-4 for power and graphics passthrough back into the main boards connected panel, which would help gaming
Have you messed with this combo was thinking about trying it
Golden Axe in the background is a touch of class!
The only big appeal I see is the multiple m.2 slots, though some only are at x1 speed. As far as size goes, it's actually 50% larger than most NUC-sized mini PCs and you can buy a NUC13 for cheaper if you want general purpose computing use.
The P-series 13 gen CPUs from Intel comes with 2x PCIe x4 Gen 4 only - and their datasheet is confusing as hell. Other 12 lanes comes from the PCH.
However - this board has Thunderbolt ports, so you can connect the GPU using TB dock and get more gaming out of it. However, the price tag is on par with Intel NUC 13, however the latter often gets heavily discounted and has much better support for new BIOS updates.
I was looking at it for home assistant + immich + possibly frigate + others. In other words: nothing requiring the arduino, all using the strong cpu + SSD NAS-lite features.
mini pc are still not there yet in general especially value wise - get a refurb or build when prices drop happen before zen5
Would be great to compare the power draw between the Latte Panda Sigma and the ODYSSEY - X86J4125864 v2
It may not change your mind about it, and I don't have one to play with, but I did want to share one possibility with you as far as the limited arduino and accessing the GPIO directly, here's one possible way to put the hack back in "hackable": run Johnny 5 on the arduino and access those pins directly in the OS with JS via node. Sensors in WITH libraries, and outputs too! I hope to play with one hahaha - Edit now that I got to the end of the video and I'm more likely to hook up a teensy with J5 to a framework here shortly for my automation needs!
I thought it was interesting just to be a home assistant server, but I just thought the price was a bit high and the motherboards for the framework notebooks were a great idea.
Given how much of an advancement meteor lake will be wouldn’t it make sense to wait for a newer version of this?
It would be interesting to see a video on the available pcie connected gpio options. I'm assuming that's a very short list of hideously expensive cards.
I really appreciate you integrating some non-alcoholic brews into the mix, for those of us that choose to live that life. Nice to see what's out there.
The SBC's core features are great and the CPU addresses the main issue I've had with basically every x86 one out there- anemic performance. I could run Windows or basically anything else on this with good performance that doesn't leave me feeling like I'm overtaxing the hardware. that said, fixed ram and limited expansion do really pigeonhole this system into something best suited for a specific task. I can see it managing home automation really well, and the Arduino would allow for some sensor input.
If someone handed me one right now, I'd probably setup a traveling network with it. Has enough grunt to handle DNS & DHCP, serve up typical home directory files and music, and provide a non-cloud central repository for backing up my phones and camera, and could handle encoding/transcoding of any video I shot.
Or just toss it in a corner aa a domain in a box and pair it was a nice storage server and call it a day. The Arduino isn't really a huge value add for me.
Should've put something more like an ESP32-S3 onboard to have a bit more microcontroller grunt while still keeping Arduino compatibility.
This seems like a product that is used for kiosks. The touchscreen ribbon port + HDMI + Arduino... Say, as the control of an automatic barista kiosk in an airport.
its even the only arduino that can act like a usb keyboard for buttons... but he said its only connected via serial, also when im not sure about that
kiosks don't need even a tenth of compute this thing has
Its way to expensive for that
I ordered a LattePanda Sigma yesterday, and I am watching this video of moment of truth today 😮
I am buying the Sigma in 1340p SBC, for the connectivity it offers, 2 X 2.5gb/s RJ45, and 2 X USB 4.0 thunderbolt ports along with others to connect with an M8 smart monitor running Ryzen samsung with Wi-Fi access struggling to maintain connection.
I plan to connect Sigma with the monitor, NAS, HDD docking station with media files in them.
Like you said, my home use networking, connecting backup PC, printers, DVD player works out well for today's technology top upgrading, hoping to get a compatibility with Wi-Fi 7 card to i5 1340p.
Expandability to other than arduino hackabilities are possible by attending a external GPU.
Lattepanda Sigma is expensive than the cheaper Lattepanda 3 Delta for my above said needs, but lacks USB 4 and second 2.5gbs RJ45 and Wi-Fi 6E 😅
I am replacing the ASUS PB62 i7 11700 with LattePanda Sigma 32gb ram, as i7 11700 is not compatible Wi-Fi 6E 😮😮😮
Thank you for pointing out things that others have not, and may never will 😢
Cheers, professional drinking .. 😅😅
Are you able to increase the max all-core turbo to what would typically be the max single core turbo? Might get you up to 12000 if possible.
I think if that was possible someone would have done that already on another board?
random thought, PCI-E 4.0 X4 m.2 to PCI-E 3.0 X16 adaptor, does one exist?
i'd love them to make a Latte Panda based on Ryzen 7000 or 6000 based APU's.
On your statement that, because the Sigma isn't really upgradable outside of storage, you CAN use it as a NAS if you wanted to. Thanks to the 3 M.2 slots on the board, there are available online SATA controllers with 5 or 6 ports on a M.2 2280 board, these use the ASMedia PCIe to SATA controller and while using the M.2 M Key slot, they only support PCIe 3.0 x1. You could use the M.2 M key slot on the back that is wired for Gen3 speeds for this, if you wanted to add more you could use the Gen4 M.2 slot and add 2 of these controllers and use the B Key M.2 slot for the OS drive (Truenas). While the lack of memory would make it a less than stellar NAS, its certainly possible
unfortunately "ryzen 7000" doesn't mean anything anymore, because AMD decided the 7 is just the release year; the 7735HS for instance is Zen 3+ and Rembrandt graphics. probably should just say zen 4
@@acuteaura7000 series apu refers to Zen4 or zen3+ based apus. So saying 7000 series apu means either of these 2, preferably the Zen4 based ones, not really that hard. Any anyway a zen3+ based apu would be more preferable to Intel based board since AMD's iGPU in the entire 7000 series of apu (RDNA3) are much better than Intel's Xe iGPUs. So my point still stands 😊
@@camjohnson2004 It's not just Zen3+ and Zen4, there's also plain Zen 3 in the form of the 7x30 chips, and those have the old Vega iGPUs since they're just renamed 5000 series chips. Go down far enough and there's also Zen 2 in the form of the 7x20 series chips, and AMD for whatever reason saw fit to call one of those a Ryzen 5 despite still only having 4 cores (the 7520U).
Although to be fair the 7000 series isn't even the first time they're pulling these sorts of shenanigans, the 5000 series APUs also had a mix of Zen 3 (5800U) and Zen 2 (5700U) as well.
Edit: Sorry! I reacted before watching to the end :)
-
You know M.2 functions as an expansion slot too right? All they did was change the 2 PCIe slots to 2 M.2 slots.
(I'm using M.2 as an encompassing group, so i don't have to go in to every slot's differces.)
You can turn that thing in to a seriously large NAS. It's actually exactly what I'm looking for, A Late 3 with more cores and switchboard.
AI is a thing now.
In short, I'm (planning to) work on an AI that needs to be able to manage GPIO. As in reprogramming an Arduino pretty much in real time based on what's needed. Think, 'a smart home with AI'. As seen in movies XD
You think they custom cooled + overclocked the crap out of the CPU to get that bench score?
Or, do you think they just got it to where they could round the number up to 12k?
Does TB4 not support eGPUs? My TB3 laptop does.
I still have not been able to update the firmware on mine. anyone have tips?
I kinda disagree on the Arduino point. If you have a serial connection then you can send signals and take advantage of the processor
I'm gonna go on a limb and suggest you *can* add a GPU via a cheap and simple "mining" NVMe to x4 adapter. True it's only x4 lanes, but are they 4.0? (Cheap as in $5-$10)
I think the 32u4 is an outdated choice when more capable MCU like rp2040 exist and are cheap,
It's inclusion is very useful for user input / output applications.
Eg if using the lattepanda to drive an interactive display / art piece the group can be used to easily interface with buttons, switches, sensors and LEDs etc.
I think we've reached a point where sbcs are starting to lose its "appeal" and are starting to become "why this even exists when my laptop is a trillion times faster and spends the same amount of watt per hour" devices.
They've stagnated for so long that people have stopped caring. The lack of PCIe in its most common form on this is a prime example.
i want to integrate this into my GR supra. Canbus, flexray integration bypassing OBD2 connection for flashing tunes, coding, diagnostics, datalogging. Also for google maps, youtube, web surfing, gaming for passenger............or i can just get a surface pro 9 lol
You can’t attach a graphics card? I thought this thing had thunderbolt 4?
Wish i loved it more then i do its way expansive for an maker sbc
The funny thing about the GPIO is that x86 machines DO have some sort of GPIOs. They just aren't usually exposed to the OS or to userspace, or they don't have drivers.
For example, AMD chipsets have an ACPI\AMDI0030 device where the name says it's a GPIO controller, but I sure can't find any way to actually *use* those GPIOs.
They're sometimes exposed on the board, as is RS-232 (usually looks like an HD Audio header)
That’s really cool (learned something new)
What are the barriers to designing your own board? Why aren't we at the point where you just connect your storage, power, memory and network on a kicad screen, and send it off to PCBWay or the like for some prototypes? Is it just red tape like EM testing or are all the needed docs under NDA?
the components are really expansive when you just want a couple of them, and sometimes reeally hard to come by
but if you realy want it, you can do it
so i think the biggest barrier are the trace routing rules and sourcing the parts. And when you started to choose parts, there are just tooo many, all with different specs.
EDIT: ah and dont forget that PCBWay got a problem with reaally small stuff and the pins on some components are too small for them, yea i started to design one and after finding that i didn't kept going, my plan was to use an RK3399 but its just to small for them (or a different chip im not 100% sure anymore)
@@dbmaster46446 if it's just a couple components that's what samples are for 😁
Verifying signal integrity used to require some fancy lab equipment but stuff like DRAM and serdes are instrumented inside the chips and can even read out the eye pattern, provided you have the software from the manufacturer. Good enough for on-board wiring but you might still want a scope if it has to talk to other people's stuff
full agree on your assesment of the sigma. do more NA beers!
I wouldn't use it for industry anything unless it was fanless. There might be some niche use for it somewhere I suppose, but not in a live environment. Dust n schmoo will fill this guy up quickly. Manufacturing grime has a way of finding itself into some of the best "enclosed" systems already...
$600?!? I think a better play is a used framework motherboard.
I thought the same thing later in the video.
This is the right take on this 👍
I really couldn't understand the abundant hype for something overpriced 2x.
Thank you for amplifying normalized sensibilities around hardware of this sort.
Kindest regards, neighbours and friends.
M.2 -> 6x sata (powered separately) could make it a little NAS... But the nic is also a letdown so any nuc style mini-pc could do it better. I have a hard time believing that there isn't any decent way to put an Arduino into a mini-pc.
There's m.2 10gb lan cards, but it's still more kludge than necessary
thunderbolt network? why didnt said he anything about it? you can pull 20gbit with only one of them....
So I looked it up and it does have a thunderbolt so it could use an e-gpu. Core I-5s have virtualization too.
My issue with it as a micro homelab though is that you'd likely have to trade out components to do different things. And when sticking with x86 you can get a three pack of ZimaBoard 832s for less. (4 core(x3))
TB4 at 32Gb (essentially x3 lanes).
@@CraftComputing each lane got 10gbit, there are 4 for sending and 2 of them can receiv too so 40gb sending and 20gb receiving
how do you get the "x3 lanes" ?
what about the thunderbolt ports? and adding a GPU on a m.2? or the 32gb ram?
so my plan with it was to connect it to my notebook with an thunderbolt port for a 20gbit network connection
They specifically advertise eGPUs with the thunderbolt ports, so what Geoff is saying has me confused as well. I hope we see a clarifying comment.
@@LordOfHell73 did i skipped it or didnt he said a singe word about the thunderbolts?
id wondered about m.2 to pcie connector, and run a 4x card on it?
@@ghomerhust here on CZcams are videos doing exactly that, so it works also when it makes a little trouble on the gen 4
Don't worry. This chinese $600 board will be $200 as soon as they realize nobody is buying.
Can't you attach a GPU via Thunderbolt 4?
If you want the GPU to run over PCIe 3.0 x4, but with 32Gb/s instead of 40Gb/s bandwidth.
You keep saying you can't hook up a GPU to it yet I'm sitting here with mine right now with a 6700xt attached and it's working just fine
Shame, a pair of TB4 ports would've greatly added to the utility of the thing and probably not have been too difficult to add.
Можно расширить функционал данного мини ПК подключив переходник M.2>PCI Express 3.0x16
I don't want to crap on your video really, but ive been lookong into the world of nvme based expansion quite a bit, and i have seen boards that give you 10gb nics, a full pcie x4 slot, a sata contoller with up to 6 ports, sff connections, etc. I'm not sure if all these are guaranteed to work, but I wouldn't discount this yet before giving some of that stuff a shot. As for what I may use this for, I think I'd like to buy 3 of these to replace my 8 orange pi 5s type idea for my kubernetes cluster. I think putting these inside my case will be more space efficient, and for me, the x86 setup will likely behave a lot better with some loads I'd imagine.
But why not use the cheaper Framework mainboards, or the 'nucs' Intel or AMD based which have maybe the connections you want allready and at least are cheaper.
@@JReinhoud My hope is to get these as small as possible, or else I'd agree, i've gotta fit all of these inside of one pc case with liquid cooling for everything
@@awetisimgaming7473 With liquid cooling I don't think you want them as small as possible because then you probably have problems fitting any cool block.
You don’t need any of that. The sigma has TWO thunderbolt 4 ports. Not sure how this guy managed to screw that up.
@@JReinhoudThe framework board is a good option however it is stuck with DDR4. The Sigma has DDR5. Both have thunderbolt 4, so with PCIe tunneling support you can add eGPUs and high speed networking and storage. The Sigma is physically smaller and IMO because of its shroud / fan design is better to run out in the open. The framework 13 i5 base is $449 and the Sigma is $579, however the Sigma comes with 16GB RAM. It’s soldered ram though, not socketed like the framework. For that extra $130 you also get two 2.5 Gb E ports and also the ram and the power supply, so it’s not like they’re charging you extra for nothing…and OFC the arduino and GPIO ports. There’s also a native RS232 port on the Sigma which can be useful. I’m personally going to wait and see if they release a new version of this when meteor lake CPUs come out.
You can actually get it in 32 GB ram too. I only have the 16 though. Also - I’m running a GPU via USB-c, but you can also run one via M.2 to oculink. In those parts of the presentation, you’re 100% wrong.
While, yes, you can connect a GPU, Thunderbolt 4 is limited to PCIe 3.0 x4, and you don't even get the full bandwidth as 8Gbps is reserved for the DisplayPort functionality. Similar story to the m.2 to occulink adapter, you are only getting half of the specified bandwidth at x4 lanes.
@@CraftComputing with pcie at the end the thunderbolt is limited to 32gbps anyway, and thunderbolt network to 20gbps, so i dont see the problem with it
@@CraftComputing so you actually CAN connect an eGPU…or as you explicitly say on screen, twice, you can’t? Because it’s one or the other. A comment saying ‘it’s not at full bandwidth’ isn’t ‘can’t’.
You basically get x3 Gen3 lanes (after the 8Gb reserved for DP1.4) to connect a GPU over Thunderbolt. So sure, go ahead an spend the $200 for an inexpensive TB enclosure and $129 for the fastest video card the interface will support.
@@CraftComputing - I hear ya. I just wanted to point out a couple of parts of the video that were wrong. I've been using this thing for gaming for the past couple of months, and I'm running it with an RTX4060 TI and a TH3P4G3 Graphics Docking Station. It still hauls as a gaming rig. ETA Prime also covered the sigma and it inspired me to do a similar build.
Value for money against an 8th Gen NUC motherboard at $100 (or the one I got for $48) is highly questionable. I'd love it if they did 2 P core 4 E core (because I can bet you they won't do something that makes decent sense, like 8-16 E core only, or 4-6 P core only)
Pretty hard font to read specifications. Just you to know.
I want a framework laptop... I am waiting for the 16.
If you don't love it as much as you do. That's ok. I can carry the rest of that love for you. There's plenty of love over at this camp.
How are you using it? What made you fall in love? Because I'd be more than happy to be converted.
the price just insanely high for that
I was like "Vega = 1050"? The fuck... then I remembered Vega 11 lol
Anyone try this with ESXi 8?
Can you pass the gpio interface through to a VM?
No. The GPIO is in no way connected to the Intel CPU. There's only an internal COM/Serial connection to interface with the ATmega.
@@CraftComputing is it not even connected with an USB ?
They should have add these PCIe lanes through one or 2 PCIe connectors. At this price, it would have been logical.
SBC makers rarely consider what the community actually wants from their products unfortunately.
Hope future iGPUs, Arc derived, don't mess up intel quicsync, encoding or decoding that its working fine for PLEX, Blue Iris, NxWitness, Premier, etc. Most of us don't buy a CPU to play games, and i for one, like how the igpus from intel work. Most of AMD igpus while more powerful are not supported by Plex, Blue Iris, Premier, etc, so we lose instead of gaining anything.
The Arduino is really the weakest link on this board IMO. Not only is the Arduino itself one of the weaker Arduino IDE compatible chips, but the header is non-standard, meaning it's DoA as a legacy item. I really wish they'd used one of the newer Espresso ESP32-S series chips, a platform without the IO layout expectations, with much better I/O performance, and it's serial header is capable of maxing out the protocol without struggling if you want a really low-latency interface for data polling.
It's almost like you could have X86 code command the arduino.....
I see! There is also a feline Producer in the back inspecting the filming set at the start of the video. 😇😁
Would like it at $250.
I think integrating arduino into a board misses the point of arduino... This is a cheap board you can break and replace with the next one without too much worry. Unless you just put mains on the GPIO it will not bring your PC down with it.
Here you suddenly have arduino integrated putting entire system at risk when tinkering.
Lol, any spc from China on newest Ryzen 7000 with radeon 780m just laughting on this office joke)
Can it play Eve Online? haha
so ... if there was a pcie gpio passtrough would probably kill any development board....
Chuck it in the freezer and maybe it might tickle that cinebench /s
KITTY
Do we trust the vendor?
What does this question mean?
@@CraftComputing in terms of:
Warranty/support as well as there is no edgy firmware Chips on it with backdoors or whatsoever.
Price is the issue
are they / you serious -beast- , lmao intel PR & lp having a stroke offering 4 power cores & a atmega 32u4 at 2 times the retail price of an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G -16Watt idle- 8-core, 16-Thread Processor £165 & MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi ProSeries Motherboard £122 +£3.26 atmega 32u4
Not your fault, but the moment you mentioned the price I closed the video since there was no reason to continue. Basically worst of both worlds where you pay close to gamer PC money for a sub optimal performance and cooling solution just to get the lolz of an unique form factor.
Lots of missed opportunities - I wonder if they did all this to boast a low power consumption with high CPU speed... which is kind of cheating.
nice little board but usual problems. the manufacturer tries to cover as many use cases as possible and ends up practically delivering in none. as for the hackable bs, it's lost all it's meaning and now is basically a meme. in the end it's a powerfull little board that seems that it can be used by everyone, but ends up being practical to noone. meh.
Typical latte panda product, overpriced, underperforms and lacks expadability
That is expensive as hell and would have been better with AMD. If you don't need Arduino, this is interesting as was the video, but the product is pointless, at the price of entry gaming laptop or a solid laptop with good IPS display, keyboard, pad, basically an complete computer even with a battery!
Shame it’s overpriced like ARM SBCs are.
No enclosure, no expansion = makes no sense.
Ligma
frick yeah first :)))
it's 200 bucks overpriced!
I'd argue closer to $80-100.
@@CraftComputing fair, it is a really nice convenient package thats worth some.
@@dangerotterisrea you got lucky, don't take a look how expensive it is in other countrys, here in Germany they want 729,95€ that's 767,36$
This is well overpriced!