Radxa Rock 5 model B

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

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Has anyone else here seen the (Pico-ITX) Rock 5 model B? With a new octocore SoC/CPU, strong GPU, up to 16GB DDR4, PoE capable 2.5G Ethernet, WiFi 6E and onboard nVME slot (bootable), it is far and away more powerful - and cooler running - than the vapourware Pi 4. I reserved a 16GB DDR4 version for a healthy $50 discount earlier this year, and it was delivered last week. Specs include:

Rock-5b-front.png

  • RK3588, ARM powered, Quad A76 (2.4 GHz) + Quad A55 (1.8 GHz), Mali G610MP4, 6T NPU, 8K 10 bit encoder, 8K decoder.
  • 4GB/8GB/16GB LPDDR4x RAM Options.
  • Supports WiFi 6E and BTE 5.2 (E-key M.2 slot)
  • Supports PCle 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
  • Triple Display Support (with HDR), two HDMI 2.1 up to 8K@60FPS, one USB-C with DP up to 8K@30FPS
  • HDMI in support up to 4K@60FPS
  • 2.5G Ethernet with PoE Support.
  • Linux Kernel 5.10 Compatible
  • Debian Buster Compatible
  • 40P GPIO
  • 2x USB 3.1
It should be a little mini-beast of a home server. Radxa have Debian Bullseye (current version) and Ubuntu Focal server (20.04) images available from launch, and Armbian and DietPi both have testing images available. If previous Radxa boards are anything to go by, *BSD won't be far behind either. I can't wait to test mine out to replace/supplement my Pi 3B. :D

Video overview from ExplainingComputers:
 
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Fastball7174 said:
How are you getting on with this? Had my eye on one to replace my ageing Pi 3b+ as a Plex server and various other things using Dietpi
Click to expand...
Honestly, it's fantastic. I also have a Pi 3B+ (running Caddy reverse proxy, fronting my domain still), but the ROCK 5 model B has taken over all its other duties (AdGuard Home DNS, WireGuard 'server' into my LAN, etc) and it literally doesn't break a sweat despite being hammered by six people and >30 devices. Current load average is 0.08, 0.02, 0.01 and the temps are very low even under load. I opted for their cheap HSF, but the little fan literally never turned on once except when I ran stress and maxed the CPUs, GPU and RAM to 100% all at once.

Code: 
$sudo sensors
gpu_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

littlecore_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

bigcore0_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

tcpm_source_psy_4_0022-i2c-4-22
Adapter: rk3x-i2c
in0:           9.00 V  (min =  +9.00 V, max =  +9.00 V)
curr1:         1.67 A  (max =  +1.67 A)

npu_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

center_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

bigcore1_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C

soc_thermal-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +26.8°C  (crit = +115.0°C)

That's in a room with a 19oC ambient. I'm honestly not even making use of it at present, compared to its capabilities. I'm going to switch from EMMC (about 195MB/sec read and write using Radxa's own cheap EMMC btw) to NVMe once I get around to it. It could easily run everything in Docker and take a load off our NAS (Plex/Jellyfin, Sab, *arrs) - it's a capable little machine with strong hw enc and dec. You're a bit limited on OS atm though. The 'official' Ubuntu and Debian run fine and have binary blobs for the Mali GPU, DietPi is making progress but not there yet, same for Armbian. Rocky Linux are looking to add 'official community support for it, at which point it'll be perfect for me.

Honestly compared to the Pi it's another level entirely. You won't be disappointed, I don't think.
 
Are you using the gpio on it?
If not why this board rather than any of the ex-corp x86 mini pcs or thin clients available?
 
Armageus said:
Are you using the gpio on it?
Click to expand...
Not presently, no.
Armageus said:
If not why this board rather than any of the ex-corp x86 mini pcs or thin clients available?
Click to expand...
Because new toy. I already have ex-corp Dells running random crap (including the very Linux desktop I'm typing this from, atm, as my Threadripper rig mobo died; yay Asus). I also have the Pi 3B+ and loads of other random stuff. I like ARM and this board took my eye with its new octocore SoC and storage capabilities. It's like a Pi 4 but faster, with onboard bootable NVMe and other goodies. I just liked it, and it's way lower power than my old Dell Optiplex 3070 for example, but with newer RAM and just as capable (more) for basic server stuff.
 
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I'm looking at getting this SBC. It looks and reads great!
Was hoping to get this as a daily driver to connect to VDI for work - no need to use my 1000W Desktop PSU on 8+ hours a day. Even it is not drawing too much power!
Only one question - what would be the main differences in performance between the 8GiB and 16GiB versions?
 
gtludwig said:
I'm looking at getting this SBC. It looks and reads great!
Was hoping to get this as a daily driver to connect to VDI for work - no need to use my 1000W Desktop PSU on 8+ hours a day. Even it is not drawing too much power!
Only one question - what would be the main differences in performance between the 8GiB and 16GiB versions?
Click to expand...
Hi, and welcome. The RAM difference is mostly for multi-tasking. If you want a single purpose machine, or even a basic server, 8GB is plenty. I got 16GB because I had a $50 voucher as an early adopter, and I've never regretted it. Just a hint, make sure you get their own PD USB charger to avoid boot issues (known issue due to the PD spec and uBoot for this kernel), as well as the heatsink/fan (or even just the heatsink). Both are cheap as chips but decent quality.

I also got their cheap basic acrylic 'case' which is basically just standoffs and 3 pieces of cut acrylic. Fit and finish are spot on, and the whole product is quality tbh. Under stress load (100% CPU, GPU and RAM IO) it hits over 70 degrees for me, which is fine. The fan hasn't come on since, it just stays passively cooled serving my network; but it's nice to know the option is there should it need it.

DietPi and Armbian both have preliminary images out for this board now, but tbh I found their own Ubuntu server image works just fine (and I don't even like Ubuntu).
 
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Thank you for your reply, @Rainmaker!
As mentioned, I would be looking to install on this SBC something like RebornOS (https://www.rebornos.org/) and use as my main driver for work.
I hope the GPU on this SBC would handle my 3440x1440 monitor without a hassle. Would the GPU benefit from the bigger memory?
The 8GiB RAM is readily available locally but not the 16GiB.
Neither is the passively cooled case that I would like to get for the unit (https://ameridroid.com/products/rock-5b-metal-case).
Final question, and that is totally out of ignorance, would I benefit from the OS to be installed in a 32 or 64GiB eMMC?
 
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Small update on this board:

It's been running flawlessly for 9 months now. Radxa thankfully diverted their devs away from Ubuntu Server 20.04 to Debian Bullseye, which now forms the official Radxa OS for these boards. Hopefully Bookworm is coming soon(ish), but there's always Armbian or whatever - and Armbian do have fully functional Bookworm images atm.

I got rid of the OEM-supplied EMMC module. It was plenty fast tbh, at just under 200MB/sec read/write; but its latency wasn't that great and the NVMe slot proved too much temptation. A bargain pickup of a Sabrent Rocket 4 meant I could flash the SPI with the latest official release (to enable NVMe boot), and then download the Debian image onto the EMMC running Ubuntu. One lsblk to find the drive/confirm it was recognised and a xzcat image.iso | dd of=... later and the thing was ready. Much better!

Code: 
sudo hdparm -t /dev/nvme0n1

/dev/nvme0n1:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 5162 MB in  3.00 seconds = 1720.50 MB/sec

That said, the NVMe sits underneath the board with no cooling per se. SoC temps are now about 10 degrees higher than they were - around late 30s to early 40s, up from ~28. To be fair it's also the middle of summer and I last checked in winter. Either way, it's plenty cool just relying on the SoC heatsink. The fan has never even turned on (and yes, I tested it works by running stress lol). It's chugging silently away running AdGuard Home, Caddy (serving and reverse proxying all my domains with automatic TLS), and WireGuard. Uptime goes into months, and load average is lol-worthy at load average: 0.13, 0.04, 0.01. It only sips a few watts even under load, so all in all it blows away the Pi 4 and acts as an almost perfect little ARM server... but it could just as easily flip to being an 8K capable desktop if needed. Nice. :)

rock5b-btop.png
 
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We're looking for overclocking information/howto on the Radxa Rock5B 32GB Blue SBC. The cpu is cooled via the $3.99 Rock5B passive heat sink from Allnet.de/AllnetChina.cn and a dedicated 80mm fan.
 
The unmodified Rock5B Blue base clock runs 240TB (ie 12 * 20TB disks) rock solid at 1.5+GB/s I/O (ie NIC to HBA) for weeks on end. Per server in a multi-server cluster. Of course its only possible to do that by replacing the cluster FS (Lustre / Fraunhofers BeeGFS / CERNS EOS etc) with the higher performing VaultFS.
 
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