Yes, I agree: Rock960 has a nicer form factor than the RPi. I had one here to play with last year. Because of 96boards compatibility, it brings far fewer GPIO lines out on its connectors than Edge does on the MXM3 fingers; no ethernet, no eDP, etc. My conclusion was that Edge was a better board to work with.
The previous generations of Compute Modules were more bare-boned than Rock960 or Edge. Sometimes an advantage, especially when cost is paramount, but it can be a pain to run all the impedance controlled traces, matched pairs and high speed connections on your own board just to add (say) a standard wifi module or a DP/HDMI socket. Rock960 and Edge sit in a nice halfway house.
Thank you for this feedback. Highly appreciated since me not being a hardware guy at all always having a hard time to understand why users choose this or that SBC which looks just overpriced based on my (rather primitive) use cases
Since when it’s a mistake when you get eMMC plus an SD slot? It would be if they didn’t include the SD slot, which is not the case. Also considering the ammount of corrupted SD posts and how to prevent SD corruption (having to do some trickery like disable swaping or changing mount types) I wouldn’t say relying only on an SD card like RPi does any good.
Just to pick up on their claim: the Samsung KLMBG2JETD B041 eMMC on the Edge board has an on-chip flash translation layer which handles wear levelling, bad block remapping and error correction. It’s a good quality choice.
It is true you can also buy cheap-and-nasty eMMC without wear levelling, just as for SD cards. I doubt anyone would solder a chip like that down on an expensive SBC/SoM, although maybe the RPi guys use something at the cheaper end of the market on the Compute Modules to bring the price point down? Don’t know I’m afraid, as I’ve never used one.
Then we’re not talking about eMMC any more but about raw NAND flash. Citing a document I already had open: ‘eMMC encloses the MLC NAND and eMMC controller inside as one JEDEC standard package, providing a standard interface to the host. The eMMC controller directly manages NAND flash, including ECC, wear-leveling, IOPS optimization and read sensing’.
eMMC is all about not having to care about stuff like wear-leveling and so on, it’s software compatible to SD cards which also always have their own FTL inside. What the RPi guy stated is just pure incompetence.
Wow. I just went through exactly the same experience with the Rock Pi 4B, + M.2 extender, + 1TB NVMe SSD, + Heatsink, + Noctua cooling fan, + PWM temp controller, + Power switch, + barrel jack, + 2 x DIY aluminum cases. =~$400 + labor, only to end up with a less than functional OS.
Really had to think twice about purchasing another RK3399. But, the connectivity of the EDGE-V was irresistible. I could even salvage the 1TB SSD from the Rock Pi 4b. For 2 months, it beckoned me. The EDGE-V is a far superior design and build quality. It’s a much more mature and full featured product, including power options (like a power button). With the heatsink and M2x extender board, the EDGE-V is still only half the height of the Rock Pi 4b.
You’re absolutely right about the form factor of the EDGE-V (it’s so cute). It’s much easier to package with other devices inside a case, with all of the external connections along one side. And, as you have mentioned, there’s less desktop clutter of cables.
I’ll be using my EDGE-V as the central environmental controller/security camera for an aquaponic greenhouse. It will communicate over WiFi with remote ESP32 sensors. So, $200 is a small price to pay for such a device.
Also purchased a RPi 4B for evaluation purposes. It could probably do the same job, at half the price. Hmm, then I could keep the EDGE-V on my desk, having fun with the stereoscopic cameras, gesture controls, IR features, etc. Why should it sit on top of a pole, instead of the RPi 4B?
I really love this SBC!
Linux performance wise the difference its quite big.
VIM3: really feels like a PC replacement, I am serious about this. LIbreOffice writer opens in a about a second, internet browsing its surpringsingly smooth even on demanding pages and youtube is also smooth.
Edge V: opening writer takes more time and even when opens you can see the different icons not being displayed at the same time. Menus have lag.
Hmm, then I could keep the EDGE-V on my desk, having fun with the stereoscopic cameras, gesture controls, IR features, etc. Why should it sit on top of a pole, instead of the RPi 4B?