HACKADAY

THIS ATOMIC PI EATS OTHER PIS

FOR LUNCH
by: Brian Benchoff 102 Comments

May 8, 2019

The world is full of single board computers that want a slice of the
Raspberry Pi action. Most of them are terrible. But fools and their money,
yadda yadda, and there’s a new sucker born every minute. The latest
contender to the Raspberry Pi is the Atomic Pi. It’s an x86-based single
board computer that costs $35, shipped to your door. Is it worth it? Is it
even in the same market as a Raspberry Pi? Or is it just a small budget
computer without a box? I have no idea.

With that said, the Atomic Pi comes with an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 with Intel
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HD Graphics (Cherry Trail). There is 2 GB of DDR3L-16000, 16 GB of eMMC,
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and an SD slot for storage. Connectivity is a full HDMI port (primary audio
out), USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, a Mediatec RT5572 used for WiFi, a Qualcomm
CSR8510 for Bluetooth 4.0, a “Legitimate licensed BIOS”, and a real-time
clock. Overall, you’re looking at a top-of-the-line tablet computer from four
years ago. One that would run Windows.

To use all the features of the Atomic Pi, you will need to buy a $15 breakout
board to supply power to the board, and use a large industrial power
supply, the kind you would normally find bolted to a RepRap or a
homemade CNC machine. You will need to supply both 5 V and 12 V to the
board if you would like to use the Class D audio amplifier, but if you only
want to use audio over HDMI, supplying only 5 V will do. If you want to
boot this board, it looks like you’ll need to bring a USB/TTL cable to make
everything work. This may be a tough sell to a crowd with zero experience
booting a bare Linux system. That said, it runs Nintendo 64 emulators well,
which is the only reason people buy Raspberry Pis anyway.

Is the Atomic Pi the single board computer you need? I don’t know. But
we’ve got an Atomic Pi on order, and we’re ready to go with a full review
when it show up.

Posted in Microcontrollers
Tagged Atomic Pi, raspberry pi, SBC, x86

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102 THOUGHTS ON “THIS ATOMIC PI
EATS OTHER PIS FOR LUNCH”

ChrisPVille says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:09 am

I don’t know about you, but I write all my software for MIPS/N64. That way, I
only need to write once and run anywhere there’s an emulator.

Reply Report comment

RetepV says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:49 am

I do exactly the same. Except I use Microsoft BASIC. Runs anywhere

where there’s a C64, MSX, Cromemco, Altai, MS-Dos, Atari, or whatever
other emulator. :D

Reply Report comment

jonmayo says:
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 I use a Turing machine so anyone with a pencil and an infinite
amount of paper can run my program.

Reply Report comment

Matt Moeller says:

May 8, 2019 at 8:51 am

I basically have this setup. I speak in metaphors, gesticulate

wildly, and only mumble a little bit so everyone can
understand what I’m trying to say.

Reply Report comment

Nick B says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:29 pm

I imagine a future where something is possible, and

wait…

Report comment

Alan says:
May 10, 2019 at 7:50 am

I still prefer butterflies.

https://xkcd.com/378/

Report comment

Vin Aggarwal says:

June 24, 2019 at 3:48 pm

LOL! but Alan’s butterfly comic strip is awesome!!… magnetic

needle and a steady hand, ROFL!!
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 MattyD says:
May 9, 2019 at 7:39 am

I use an abacus emulated in Krispy Kreme donuts so that if I get my

numbers wrong, I can eat them

Reply Report comment

Jan says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:20 am

“use a large industrial power supply” WHAT?!?!?

“the kind you would normally find bolted to a RepRap or a homemade CNC
machine” ohhhh… nothing special

Phew, you scared me there Brian, when you wrote “industrial” I thought like
something used in the industry, something to power heavy specialized
machinery, But since you refer to something used on an ordinary (DIY home
tool) I guess that any beefy open frame or closed frame power supply would
be good enough, so I think we’re fine.

Reply Report comment

Jason Doege says:

May 8, 2019 at 6:25 am

I would call that a commercial power supply. “Industrial” connotes

something a bit larger and not so living-room friendly.

Reply Report comment

ROB says:
May 8, 2019 at 1:26 pm

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industrial agree tosupply
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2m OK
 Reply Report comment

Jon H says:
May 8, 2019 at 2:23 pm

Industrial suggests 3 phase, imho.

Reply Report comment

Enrico S. says:
May 8, 2019 at 11:30 pm

Having worked in the industrial automation field, I can definitely

say size doesn’t matter. I saw very small, rack/dil mounted PSU, but
yet the industrial touch were the specs and ruggedness. The cost
could be 10x a commercial type.

Reply Report comment

Moryc says:
May 8, 2019 at 11:52 am

When I read “industrial” I thought “a 15kg brick that delivers 12V at 100A
from multiple screw terminals”. There are also other voltages available,
all in the price range of equivalent of 30USD…

Reply Report comment

dave says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:28 am

All sold out.

But not
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Reply Report comment
 scott.tx says:
May 8, 2019 at 8:10 pm

posting it on here sure didnt help any either!!!

Reply Report comment

Adam L. says:
May 11, 2019 at 6:07 pm

The company is doing their best to keep them in stock. They pop
up on Amazon for a few days, then go out of stock again. You just
gotta keep checking.

Reply Report comment

Matt says:
May 16, 2019 at 2:04 pm

Just placed an order on Amazon, as of May 16 the expected

ship date is June 2.

Reply Report comment

Teknokilr says:
May 13, 2019 at 11:42 am

There are some on Ebay now and some of the Full and baby breakout
boards – I think some ship out of the US

Reply Report comment

gary says:
May
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Ordered and recieved from Amazon in less than 2 weeks.
OK
 Reply Report comment

dynamodan says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:36 am

“You will need to supply both 5 V and 12 V to the board if you would like to use
the…” I can already see people building these right into a ATX power supply.
There’s usually a bit of room inside those.

Reply Report comment

Inhibit says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:44 am

You can also use supplies with 5+12 designed for molex HDD cases from
the external IDE drive enclosures.

Reply Report comment

Dheera Venkatraman says:

May 8, 2019 at 10:03 am

I seriously don’t understand why they couldn’t just put a tiny boost
converter on the board for another $3. Nothing — seriously, *NOTHING*
should ask for more than two terminals in terms of power input.

Reply Report comment

fuzzyfuzzyfungus says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:39 am

Can anyone confirm the GPU on this one? I think that it’s one of the Atoms that
uses a real, if cut down, Intel GPU; rather than the PowerVR-based
GMA500/600/3600/3650.
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 If so that is good; Intel graphics aren’t exciting but they play pretty nicely with
normal Linux without any messing around or only-works-on-antique-Android-
with-massive-binary-blobs.

Intel’s cursed foray into rebadged PowerVR is pretty much a lost cause on
Linux; and isn’t a whole lot better on Windows outside the brief 8/8.1 period
when Intel and MS were indulging the mutual fantasy that Windows was a
good tablet OS and Intel could totally handle cheap, low power, silicon.

If it has the real GPU it’s a potentially interesting contender, bit more power
draw than an rPi or the like; but should play absolutely stock x86. If it has the
PowerVR it might as well be headless; at which point it’s a lot less
exciting(especially since there are a lot of ARM application processors that are
quite promising aside from the ‘pity the GPU is a closed blob that barely works
except on one version of Android’ problem.

Reply Report comment

milord says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:58 am

Cherry Trail uses intel HD, just like earlier Bay Trail. And it IS exciting
considering the performance/power ratio and linux software support for
OpenGL and video decoding

Reply Report comment

Foldi-One says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:17 am

It isn’t one of the bad ones, That said the PowerVR stuff plays
reasonably well in Linux in terms of functioning with defaults now.
Though I am pretty sure there is no hardware accel with the default – I
still use some of those machines and while there are a few problems
thanks to the shoddy chipset support – like suspend won’t work right.
They work just fine for ‘light’ use.

I am very curious about its power draw myself – as one of the great
things about a Pi is even going flat out you can have a little farm of them
before
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and services, youpower of agree
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good with media of all types you can stuff one behind the TV, as a NAS, OK
webserver and not worry about the power bill.
 For me this needs to be in a similar computation per watt range as a Pi
to be worth it.. Otherwise use your old desktop, or laptop – why have
new silicon if you have working old stuff that can do the job just as well.

Reply Report comment

RW ver 0.0.1 says:

May 8, 2019 at 7:27 am

Yah, I accidentally a power VR atom netbook, after fusterclucks of win 10

and lubuntu installs it ended up with windoze 7.

Reply Report comment

Shannon says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:43 am

I don’t understand why the “large breakout board” needs several sets of
jumper wires. Did they finish designing this thing?

Reply Report comment

Andy Dodd says:

May 8, 2019 at 8:02 am

Who knows, their documentation is awful. I was interested in this board

before I couldn’t find ANY details on the screw terminal I/O of the large
breakout board. There are multiple PDF documents that seem to be
copypasta of subsets of another PDF’s information.

Their FAQ has a line about Mate-N-Lok connectors for power – why is
there a FAQ asking where to get a power connector that is not
documented as used anywhere on the board? All of their other
documentation says that it’s a PC-style Molex on the large breakout
board.

Where are the electrical specs of the big-breakout’s screw terminals?

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Whatand
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is on those? I can’t
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 schematic – which doesn’t have any readily-accessible list of key
information such as I/O voltage ratings.

Of interest, the breakout schematic is labeled “AAEON Breakout” – I

think that’s the company that makes UPBoard products…

Reply Report comment

Nick Summy says:

May 8, 2019 at 9:07 am

From comments sections on other sites (so I guess consider the source
lol) the consensus is that these were boards purchased to be integrated
into some audio appliance which either was never created or failed
design or some other reason that there were 5000 of these weird
boards available. I don’t think they were ever designed to be sold
directly as an sbc. I think this theory makes sense as the company
makes a bunch of call logging and recording equioment

Reply Report comment

Ren says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:12 am

IOW, don’t hold your breath waiting for them to be re-stocked.

Reply Report comment

Matt Brunton says:

May 8, 2019 at 5:23 am

Can’t see any mention of SATA which surprises me, a lot of people keep
asking for that on the RPi.

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 Rhys79 says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:08 am

The CPU has support for SATA internally. Looking over the
documentation, it appears there is a very limited subset of IO from the
chip that is actually tied out to anything though, and the SATA pins are
not. Would likely require either some fine pitch soldering work to get
access to the SATA pins on the CPU, or a complete board redesign to
break out more of the pins.

The board was originally designed for a completely different purpose,

and that’s part of the reason for the cost being so low on it. I would love
to see someone design an SBC around the Cherry Trail chips that is
actually intended for the maker/hacker crowd and has all of the pins
broken out. Have a feeling that would be a good bit more expensive
though.

Reply Report comment

Rog Fanther says:

May 8, 2019 at 6:21 am

Well, they could simply design a board with the empty places for
the nicer features/components. People who want them ( SATA, for
an example ) could then populate it. I would like one with at least
two SATA ports, even if I have to solder the required caps and
connectors.

Reply Report comment

Drink More Brawndo says:

May 8, 2019 at 6:11 am

There are certain things that the industry has decided it just doesn’t
want us to have. Decent peripheral support on an inexpensive SBC
without somebody paying a licensing fee for the USB logo is one of
them.
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Oh well,
functionality at least itcookies.
and advertising has USB 3 which
Learn more is probably fast enough for decent OK
hard drive access.
 One of these + a USB3/SATA adapter just might be replacing my
BananaPi as my home server soon. At least I can finally use it as a print
server to translate between some friendly format like Postscript and the
crap my Brother printer (which claimed Linux support) speaks that only
has binary x86 drivers.

Reply Report comment

kd0pgm says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:32 am

And audio in. When one of these boards has both audio in and out
in an ordinary jack I’ll be way more interested. Most of the projects
I would want a tiny computer for have something to do with two-
way audio.

Reply Report comment

Rhys79 says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:24 am

It looks like a slightly redesigned version of the guts of an AcePC T(7/8/11)

series box you can pick up from China for around $60 currently. Performance
isn’t terrible, I have a couple on my desk running Kali Linux right now.
Hopefully the BIOS is full featured like the T8, and not a super gimped no
options one like the T11.

Assuming this SBC is as similar as it appears to be, it may have a TPM2 on it as

well, which can allow for some interesting things with encryption and such.
WIFI/BT is different on this SBC, but I would guess it’s still SDIO.

Now I’ll have to crack one of the ones I have open and see if they exposed
any of the GPIO as pads on the mainboard. Could be an interesting device for
an AIO controller for a CNC or 3D printer.

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Drink More Brawndo says: OK
 May 8, 2019 at 6:17 am

What? The best I am finding is twice that price. Where do you find these
things?

Reply Report comment

Rhys79 says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:28 am

You can purchase the T7/8/11 in 4GB RAM, 32GB or 64GB EMMC
on Alibaba starting at around $45 in quantity, closer to $70 in
singles.

They start at about $100 on Amazon for the same units.

I did pop the lid on the T11, but didn’t have time to pull the
mainboard and inspect it in detail to see what GPIO might be
broken out on it. It has two PCBs internally, the mainboard, and a
daughter board attached via a FFC that has a VGA connector,
additional USB ports, and the SATA interface on it. Box has a bay
in the bottom for a 2.5″ SATA drive. Unfortunately, the BIOS on the
T11 is super minimal with very few options available in it.

The T8 I haven’t opened up yet. It’s significantly smaller and

forgoes the daughter board. Don’t know what it has internally, so
no idea if SATA/VGA/etc could be attached to the mainboard via a
daughter board. It has a MUCH nicer AMI BIOS on it that lets you
tweak just about everything possible.

Performance in Kali isn’t terrible, mostly I end up bumping up

against the RAM limitations when doing large scans of subnets.
Windows performance is sluggish, but not as bad as the older
cheap Atom tablets I’ve used. A proper SATA SSD in the T11 would
likely help performance quite a bit. I did some quick tests on the
EMMC embedded on the mainboard, and the R/W performance for
4K random isn’t spectacular, around 30MB/s. Contiguous R/W was
a bit better at around 100MB/s.

The maker/hacker crowd is not the primary market for the

company selling the Atomic Pi. Their main product line is related to
call recording. They essentially saw a way to make some extra
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different purpose, and knocked together a breakout board to OK
 make it more friendly for that market. It’s far from ideal due to it
being a re-purposed device.

I’d love to see someone put out a board designed specifically for
this market. That would likely increase the cost a good bit though,
as the R&D cost for the design would need to be included in the
cost. These re-purposed boards have already recouped the R&D
budget from sales of the primary product at a much higher
markup, and this is just a way for them to make some extra cash
off of additional inventory.

Reply Report comment

Drink More Brawndo says:

May 8, 2019 at 8:57 am

Cool, thanks!

Reply Report comment

PuceBaboon says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:34 pm

Some of the Alibaba folks have dual GbE port fanless

models advertised at between $80~180 (usually based on
quantity, rather than config) with the specs showing the NICs
being Intel (which is great). Unfortunately, the CPU chips are
all fairly long in the tooth. I’ve been asking them about units
in the same price range, but with this same CPU chip (the
Z8350), because my experience with it has been relatively
good (https://esp8266hints.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/z83-
ii-mini-pc-quad-core-8350/) and because it has the AES
instructions. As others have mentioned, such a configuration
should make
a great little, low-cost, economical (to run) VPN/Firewall box.

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 NiHaoMike says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:42 am

I would like to see a version with at least 2 Gigabit ports. Should make a
decent VPN router.

Reply Report comment

Ostracus says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:10 am

Seems a NUC would be less trouble.

Reply Report comment

Nick Summy says:

May 8, 2019 at 3:17 pm

NUCs don’t have 2 gigabit ports

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Ostracus says:
May 8, 2019 at 3:57 pm

Indeed.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Machine-NUC8i7HVK-
Radeon-Graphics/dp/B07BR5GK1V

Reply Report comment

TK says:
May 17, 2019 at 10:24 am

Well. For $900 USD I suppose adding the second port

is not surprising.

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 That’s like asking for a basket to go on your bike for
carrying stuff, and someone says a dually pickup truck
with turbo diesel engine would be better.

Report comment

Barry says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:45 am

When you test this do please make sure to, once linux is up and running,
install wine. Then see if this thing can handle running windows exe file based
software (office programs, CAD programs, notepad++,…) under wine. That’s
bveen the one thing I’ve found annoying about raspberry pis, you can’t get
x86 programs running on them due to use of an ARM core. If this atomic thing
can do what a rapberry pi does, plus run pre-compiled windows x86 exe
software under wine then it sounds a really great idea.

Reply Report comment

Shannon says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:05 am

What Windows software do you find yourself wishing to run on a Pi?

Reply Report comment

RW ver 0.0.1 says:

May 8, 2019 at 7:18 am

I get the feeling that anything “mature” enough to be well behaved

under Wine can be run on Win98 in an x86 emulator.

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 jonmayo says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:59 am

I used to run x86 windows binaries on my RPi pretty nicely with ExaGear
Desktop ($$$). It’s not fast, but it’s fast enough for running older
windows programs. It’s just an emulator with a lot of convenience and
good OS integration. Unfortunately ExaGear has been discontinued.

Reply Report comment

gregkennedy says:
May 9, 2019 at 7:01 pm

Can you not just install Windows directly on this?

Reply Report comment

Ken Hansen says:

May 8, 2019 at 6:13 am

“That said, it runs Nintendo 64 emulators well, which is the only reason people
buy Raspberry Pis anyway.”

I expect a bit of blow-back from Raspberry Pi advocates anytime now…

Reply Report comment

Pete says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:32 am

Yeah, [Brian], that’s pretty inflammatory. Retro gaming is only #5 on the

list of 20 at https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/different-uses-raspberry-pi/

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May 8, 2019 at 6:53 am
 Nice!
Bookmarked!

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perhof says:
May 9, 2019 at 1:46 am

That’s not an ordered list based on RPi usage but I agree. Retro
gaming is not all it’s used for.

Reply Report comment

Ren says:
May 9, 2019 at 6:20 am

The past is not what it used to be…

Reply Report comment

Ren says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:32 am

Nahh,
the author is Benchoff, we’ve come to expect over-the-top statements in
his articles.
In fact, some would be disappointed if one of his articles was unbiased.

Reply Report comment

Ø says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:50 am

I’d call for a ambulance because then he’s probably having a

stroke.
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Reply Report comment
 Feinfinger says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:32 am

What about Spectre, Dirty-Cow, Rowhammer, Meltdown, Brainsmasher,

Nosecrasher, Hearttrasher and all the other X86 hardware problems?
Can we really still allow X86s to connect to the real world or shouldn’t they
better be kept in a well walled asylum for their own sake?

Reply Report comment

SomeRandomGuy says:
May 8, 2019 at 11:17 am

RowHammer, Spectre and Dirty-Cow aren’t limited to x86 and are

possible against ARM. The rest sound like punk cover bands.

https://mlq.me/download/master_thesis.pdf

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/in-a-first-
android-apps-abuse-serious-dirty-cow-bug-to-backdoor-phones/

https://developer.arm.com/support/arm-security-updates/speculative-
processor-vulnerability/downloads/software-implications-for-spectre-
meltdown-on-arm-cores

Irony; The more ARM works to bring performance to parity with x86, the
more vulnerable they become to x86 style issues. One reason
Rowhammer is harder on some ARMs is simply they are too slow to
make it feasible. I suggest you stick to Rad-hardened Z80s in Faraday
cages if you are that worried about it.

Reply Report comment

halherta says:
May 8, 2019 at 11:36 am
By using our website and services, you expressly agree to the placement of our performance,
I do not
functionality see Ubuntu
and advertising or anyone
cookies. maintaining a repo containing binaries for
Learn more OK
the linux kernel for each possible ARM SOC out there. No one wants to
 have to compile an outdated custom Linux kernel in order to get their
SOC to run.
And by the time a custom Linux port for a particular ARM SOC is
mainlined, the SOC is already halfway through its lifetime if not at the
end of it. And even after its mainlined, few will like the idea of having to
compile the mainline kernel every time it gets updated for each ARM
SOC that they have. Oh and let’s one forget about the s**tshow that is
the ARM GPU driver support.

Find me a Linux OS iso/img file that can run on more than 10 different
ARM SOCs and a regularly updated repo that allows me to regularly
update the Linux kernel binaries for my ARM SOC . When that happens
I’ll start to consider ARM based SOCs as an alternative to x86. As flawed
as x86 is, it will always be king in the desktop and server markets
because of this…i.e. one can download a single Linux iso from the web
and install it on pretty much every x86 machine out there. one can also
get regular kernel updates without having to pull teeth.

Reply Report comment

Igo says:
May 15, 2019 at 11:50 pm

> Find me a Linux OS that can run on more than 10 different ARM
SOCs and a regularly updated

armbian

Its in better shape and kernel wise maintained better than Ubuntu
or Debian on x86. On userspace level is the same since user
space packages come from upstream.

Reply Report comment

Ren says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:35 am

I sortour
By using of website
had myand hopes up you
services, there, until Iagree
expressly found outplacement
to the you needed
of ourto buy another
performance,
board, and
functionality maybe another,
and advertising cookies. yadda yadda
Learn more OK
to get it to work.
 And then when I saw it was sold out, (I didn’t see if/when to expect more) well
that dashed any hopes to the ground and splattered them over a 4 meter area.

Reply Report comment

ericfcb says:
May 9, 2019 at 9:55 am

you don’t have too, you can just hook up 5V directly to the board. If
that’s too much work, their small $3 breakout board has the 2.5mm
power supply jack. You will be able to boot up and login to the
preloaded linux in less than couple minutes. I am pretty impressed with
the board actually, boot and login to linux without any hiccup and
detected my wireless n and ac instantly upon login and get connected to
internet in less than 5 minutes.

Btw, i do need a usb hub to hook up my mouse and keyboard though,

they only have one onboard USB 3.0 connector.

Reply Report comment

deshipu says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:43 am

But does it run GNU/Windows?

Reply Report comment

Sweeney says:
May 8, 2019 at 6:56 am

Let’s not forget the real reasons that Intel failed in the IoT space – the lack of
documentation and support. Any indication that this will be better?

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says: OK
 May 8, 2019 at 10:44 am

Intel seems to rely on the layers of industry in the PC industry to get

things working. They keep the full hardware specs internally. There is
lots of stuff here that they want to protect like enabling functional blocks
that have been disabled at the factory used to bin parts (either for being
able to sell chips with defects in a block as a different SKU, or
sometimes just to protect a market segment). Other values might tune
characteristics of a part and could be dangerous to the ‘health’ of the
chip (at least from a warranty point of view).

The next layer are documents that are given to partners with heavy NDA
protection. These will provide recipes for things like strapping, power
sequencing info, magic values firmware needs to program as well as
certain blocks of init code and tools to help bring up new hardware.

Then there is a layer that is more public. These docs might need an NDA
before a chip is shipped, but are generally made public after the chip is
shipped.

Generally, the guys writing the drivers are Intel employees and are
working from one of the more restricted documents. The public data
sheets are more there to help OS maintainers or provide info on using a
peripheral that implements a more open standard (like SATA or USB).

This is a real issue for Intel when it comes to other markets because of
how their silicon shares a lot of IP.

I’ve worked for a partner before and the documentation was not bad (I
can recall working with chips that had much worse documentation). But
that doesn’t help in a space that is looking to get as close to full
documentation as possible.

I don’t think Intel will get there unless they had new silicon designed to
be that open but still able to run x86 code (to take advantage of the
years of software and compiler development). We’ve seen what the
issues are with ARM based platforms thanks to the Pi and copy-cat
platforms.

I honestly think it will take getting some chip designers interested in an

open source ISA (along with a body to help prevent too much
fragmentation), an open source implementation of that ISA, open source
memory controllers, open source interface buses, open source
peripheral
By using our websitebuses, and open
and services, sourceagree
you expressly peripherals then layer
to the placement of ouropen source
performance,
functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more
code on that. OK
 I think we are just starting to see that become viable with RISC-V and the
current state of FPGAs.
Fabbing will still be a costly proposition but that’s where I think the brave
people who go into OSH will be able to build businesses and prove it’s
viable in a similar fashion to how OSS based companies needed to find
a viable business model.

Reply Report comment

Esticazzi says:
May 8, 2019 at 12:03 pm

Andò Aldo because x86 drawn power so much, Galileo crappy board
was hot Mike hell.

Reply Report comment

Hans says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:11 am

A pitty it is soldout

Reply Report comment

Thomas says:
May 8, 2019 at 7:14 am

http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-90 with 120W for the win! :)

Reply Report comment

RW ver 0.0.1 says:

May 8, 2019 at 7:25 am
By using our website and services, you expressly agree to the placement of our performance,
Considering
functionality the extras
and advertising to run
cookies. this,more
Learn seems like the older Atom mini ITX boards OK
that you can pick up cheap now are probably just as useful.
 Reply Report comment

Ø says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:52 am

But larger.
That said, D510 and D525 mITX boards are dirt cheap second hand,
same with memory.

Reply Report comment

RW ver 0.0.1 says:

May 8, 2019 at 7:48 pm

Volume wise, not necessarily larger if you have to add boards to

the atomic and it needs dual rail power instead of just small 40W
12V brick size of a laptop one.

Reply Report comment

alxy says:
May 8, 2019 at 8:13 am

“The world is full of single board computers that want a slice of the Raspberry
Pi action. Most of them are terrible. But fools and their money, yadda yadda,
and there’s a new sucker born every minute.”

Spoken like a true member of the Raspberry Pi “foundation”.

Most of the Raspberry Pi competitors are Allwinner-based, Orange Pi, Banana

Pi, Lichee Pi, etc.
I would not describe these as terrible, as most have performance specs much
better than equivalent Raspberry Pi’s for prices equal or less. The Raspberry Pi
“foundation” broken record is “we have better documentation, better support,
better community”. What they really have is a shady Silicon Valley company
backing them (Avago Broadcom) selling closed silicon at inflated prices with
“support”
By using for hipster
our website -levelyou
and services, beginners. What?
expressly agree youplacement
to the still can’tof get that $5
our performance,
functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more
Raspberry Pi Zero for $5 in any quantity greater than one? Gasp.. OK
 Reply Report comment

Nick Summy says:

May 8, 2019 at 3:50 pm

Yep, Raspberry Pi isn’t the best, just the first (or at least the first to gain
popularity). I just bought my first Rpi, basically because of the support
aspect. I kind of have buyers remorse. Extremely overpriced for the
technology that you get, and while I find the (community) support to be
good, I have only needed to reference it because of the annoying and
pointless quirks that come with the board. For as many boards as they
sell you would think they could get extremely deep discounts and come
out with something much more modern. I suspect though there is quite a
bit of profit when you can sell boatloads of something designed 2 years
ago.

Reply Report comment

qxsnap says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:15 pm

If you feel the Raspberry Pi has quirks, good luck with one of the Pi
clones because you haven’t seen nothin’ yet. The fact you haven’t
needed support is itself an indicator of a well supported product
and a compliment to those who came before you to identify
issues, fix software, write howtos, etc.

Reply Report comment

Igo says:
May 16, 2019 at 4:51 am

RPi (1,2,3) is technically a simple toy designed back in 2009,

where support is simple since device is dump and simple.
99.99% of it was done by (huge) community and most of the
software and howtos were already there, ready to be be
recycled …

Reply Report comment

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 David Thijs says:
May 8, 2019 at 9:15 am

If it can run Marlin and has some IO expanders, that would be nice :)

Reply Report comment

sgfdgsdg says:
May 8, 2019 at 10:32 am

NUCs are absurdly overpriced, some aren’t dual NIC, some don’t support AES-
NI. If you want to do any form of encrypted network data transfer in any
significant volume, especially at high data rates, you pretty much require AES-
NI. That’s one of the many failings of the Pi3 – shitty network performance
(more than 200mbit/sec is impossible because the gigabit controller is USB2
based) and no crypto.

Reply Report comment

sdfdsgdf says:
May 8, 2019 at 10:33 am

That chip supports AES-NI. If the ethernet controller is actually on a PCIe or

PCI bus instead of USB2 like it is on the Pi, then this would make a fantastic
VPN endpoint.

Reply Report comment

Matt says:
May 8, 2019 at 11:04 am

Based on Intel’s info, it looks like the CPU alone is $21 assuming they are even
still shipping this.
By using our website
As others haveand services,
pointed youthis
out, expressly
looksagree to the placement
like some of our performance,
sort of surplus lot that is being
functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more
sold off. OK
 Perhaps comparing to the LattePanda 2G/32G is the most comparable option I
can find.

It seems like it has been a real challenge to even get a reasonable x86 based
board under $100. Maybe AMD can do something here but they are fighting
bigger battles.

Reply Report comment

Nick Summy says:

May 8, 2019 at 3:51 pm

I think the intel chip shortage is to blame. Some Gemini lake boards
retail down to $70, but they are impossible to find.

Reply Report comment

Ostracus says:
May 8, 2019 at 4:06 pm

Pricing I’m not sure but they are entering NUC territory.

http://linuxgizmos.com/worlds-first-amd-based-nuc-mini-pc-showcases-
ryzen-r1000/

Reply Report comment

Don Latham says:

May 8, 2019 at 3:00 pm

VAPORWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reply Report comment

ginbot86 says:
By using our website and services, you expressly agree to the placement of our performance,
May 8, 2019
functionality andat 3:09 pm cookies. Learn more
advertising OK
 Damn, I forget about buying this for a week and now it’s sold out – that’s what
I get for procrastination.

The Realtek PCIe Gigabit Ethernet interface would’ve been better off as either
an Intel NIC, or as an expansion slot like an M.2 or plain PCIe 1x, in my opinion.

Reply Report comment

LordNothing says:
May 8, 2019 at 5:37 pm

ive actually been looking at this one to use as a media center. since one of my
older pis was terrible at it.

Reply Report comment

Smartoad says:
May 9, 2019 at 4:41 am

Is it a SBC when it needs a second board to be used? Lol

Reply Report comment

ericfcb says:
May 9, 2019 at 9:49 am

you don’t really need a second board to use this, it is easy to hook up a
5V power to the main board directly (only 2 wires). The extra boards are
for convenient purposes. The small extra board is for easy hook up of
2.5mm power supply, while the big extra board is for easy hook up of
other peripheral . I actually owning one and just run the 5V directly to
the main board. The board also come preloaded with ubuntu linux in the
oboard emmc. I own almost any SBC on the market and this although
biggest among all, but the best experience from unbox to boot up. I dont
even have to burn an image into SD card, just hook up the power supply,
HDMI, keyboard and login to linux in less than a minute.

Reply
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 Slow Bro says:
May 9, 2019 at 5:13 am

No sleep or hibernate that I could see, which is so important for solar or

battery power. Still waiting for a SBC with sleep or hibernate that makes sense.
The few ones with hibernate take almost the same time to boot as a normal
boot, and sleep doesn’t save that much. Got to use a micro controller or mains
power or a big honkin’ battery setup.

Reply Report comment

Don Quijote says:

May 9, 2019 at 5:35 pm

it’s back in stock

Reply Report comment

Hugo Karius (@HugoKarius) says:

May 10, 2019 at 6:34 am

No 4K support. This is very disappointing. It is just a slow AMD64 compatible

computer. I can’t think of a good use for this computer that would not be
surpassed by a small board with an ARM CPU. If they can meet this same price
point on a model with a better CPU/GPU that supports 4K and maybe a little
more power efficient, it would be great for Kodi and Retro Gaming
(unfortunately, some emulators still only support AMD64 CPUs).

Reply Report comment

dlcarrier says:
May 10, 2019 at 11:53 am

The first thing I plugged mine into was a 4K TV, and it defaulted to the
full 4K resolution.,

Reply
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 Hugo Karius (@HugoKarius) says:
May 13, 2019 at 6:35 am

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/atom_x5/x5-z8350#Graphics
“Max HDMI Res 1920×1080 @60”
You are mistaken.

Reply Report comment

Lane Jennison says:

May 27, 2019 at 10:41 am

It will do 4k at 30hz.

Im running 2560×1440 @60hz using an active HDMI-

>displayport adapter

Reply Report comment

Andy Moon says:

May 11, 2019 at 4:45 am

Check out the videos ETA PRIME put on youtube to see it in action. I
bought mine on amazon, and it should be here in two days or so. It
looked very responsive, and the performance was really good in
retrogaming. Older PC games ran well enough too, I was quite surprised.
If you have a stack of dupont jumpers lying around like most of us, you
can cobble up a power connection pretty easy, just use 2-3 pins to share
the current load.

Reply Report comment

Hugo Karius (@HugoKarius) says:

May 13, 2019 at 6:55 am

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+x5-
By using our website and services, you expressly agree to the placement of our performance,
Z8350+%40+1.44GHz&id=2774
functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more OK
“Average CPU Mark 1266”
 It is more than 4 times slower than a 5 year old non-high-
performance notebook I still own. It is quite slow. I do think it
would be fine for retro gaming for the most part, but the lack of 4K
video and decoding support is a blocker for me. The CPU was
released in 2015. I am hoping they will design another with a
newer CPU with the features I need for close to the same price.

Reply Report comment

Bobbus says:
May 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm

4k is available. Microsoft removed the codec from Windows

in 2017. You can work around this. See the ETA Prime
YouTube review for details.

Reply Report comment

vnuEndru says:
August 2, 2019 at 7:14 am

Can you explain more? I did watch all EAT Prime

videos and there is nothing about 4k, only 1080p
support.

Report comment

gary says:
May 20, 2019 at 12:35 pm

Some of the larger RPi supplies will work on this. You need a little electronic
experience to make a connection but you dont need the adapter board for
that. Iff you are looking at building a SBC like this or the Pi you better know a
little anyway. Or use an old PC power supply for plenty of power and the fan
can do
By using ourdouble duty
website and blowing
services, youover the agree
expressly Atomic Pi. placement
to the This is really
of ouraperformance,
Pi killer except
functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more
the Zero or ZeroW. I still like playing with my 4 RPi’s but will be hooking up the OK
 Atom on the same test bed I use for them. Only took 2 trys on Amazon and
less than 2 weeks to get it with no shipping. Super deal.

Some of the videos on Youtube are showing pretty impresive power for the
Atomic Pi.

Reply Report comment

bill says:
June 24, 2019 at 4:51 am

WARNING, this board is a system pull from a robot, this means limited stock ,
“explaining computers” just did a video on this. I have been seeing allot of
videos seeing how wonderful this board is. But the sad fact is it is a PULL
BOARD which means it is no longer made and once gone, it is gone. And
development will be probably none

Reply Report comment

Jamesy Garfield says:

June 27, 2019 at 6:07 am

It does have x86 processor. So this board has more development done on it
already then raspberrypi will have in 1 000 000 years.

Reply Report comment

shody ryon says:

June 30, 2019 at 5:24 am

i am wondering if it is 64 bit
q
uote:
It usually refers to x86 for 32 bit OS and x64 for system with 64 bit. Technically
x86 simply refers to a family of processors and the instruction set they all use.
… The 64 bit computers can run both 32bit programs and 64 bit programs.
whatour
By using is the difference
website between
and services, x64 and
you expressly x86
agree – Net-Informations.Com
to the placement of our performance,
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net-informations.com/q/mis/x86.html Learn more OK
:end quote
 quote:
And yes the initial generic name for the architecture was amd64 because it
was developed, well, by AMD. Anyway, today is usually know as x86-64 or
even x64. Intel licensed the AMD64 instruction set for their non-Itanium 64 Bit
CPUs. Then, yes, AMD64 is one generic name for the x86 64 bit
architecture.Sep 1, 2010
64 bit – My processor is 64-bit – does that mean I need the amd64 …
https://askubuntu.com/…/my-processor-is-64-bit-does-that-mean-i-need-the-
amd64-ima…
:end quote

everyone referring to this as x86 seems to be implying it is 32 bit which

doesn’t seem very useful unless you are using it for retro gaming.

Reply Report comment

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