Developers at Pine64 today unveiled a list of upcoming hardware planned for a 2020 release, one of which is a new single-board computer (SBC) called the HardRock64. With its small form factor, GPIO pins , wireless support and four USB ports, it's hard not to compare it to the Raspberry Pi .
Below we compare the HardRock64 to the most recent Pi, the Raspberry Pi 4 .
HardRock64 vs. Raspberry Pi 4 Specs
| Spec | HardROCK64 | Raspberry Pi 4 B |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2x Arm Cortex A-72 cores + 4x Cortex-A53 cores (Rockchip RK3399) | 4x Arm Cortex A-72 cores (Broadcom BCM2711B0) @ 1.5 GHz |
| GPU | Arm Mali-T860 MP4 | VideoCore VI @ 500 MHz |
| USB Ports | 2x USB 3.0; 2x USB 2.0 | 2x USB 3.0; 2x USB 2.0 |
| Connectivity | WiFi 802.11ac; Bluetooth 5.0 | 1x Ethernet; WiFi 802.11ac; Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Storage | MicroSD card slot | MicroSD card slot |
| RAM | 1 - 4GB LPDDR4 | 1 - 4GB LPDDR4 |
| Power Supply | DC 5V | DC 5V /3A |
This board is a successor to the previously released RockPro64 SBC. It's very similar in design, with the biggest difference being a lack of PCIe and USB-C support.
"The board will run all RockPro64 OS images with little or no tweaks (we checked) and probably most Pinebook Pro OS with a ‘simple’ device tree tweak. In other words, if you don’t need all of the ROCKPro64’s functionality – e.g. PCIe or USB-C – then this may just be the board for you," the announcement said.
Pine64 noted that the board is known for running hot, and you will definitely need a heatsink , so add that to the price of the board. The HardRock64 board will be available with the options of 1GB ($35), 2GB ($45) or 4GB ($55) of RAM, just like the Pi 4.
This new SBC has a tentative release date of April 2020. It doesn't seem to have any immediately obvious advantages over the Pi 4, but if you're in the market for a new SBC or just want to try something different from the usual Pi, you may want to check it out.