Banana Pi M64

[kometchtech]

Hi, All

 

ARM 64 get support plate.

 

http://www.banana-pi.org/m64.html

 

Spec:

 

 

 

M3 Specifications

CPU 1.2 Ghz Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53 64-Bit Processor

GPU MALI-400 MP2 @ 500MHz

Memory 2GB DDR3 SDRAM (shared with GPU)

Storage Support MicroSD Card(up to 64GB)/SATA(up to 2TB USB-to-SATA; GL830)/eMMC(8GB onboard)

Onboard Network 10/100/1000Mbps ethernet (Realtek RTL8211E/D)

WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (AP6212)

Bluetooth BT4.0 (AP6212)

Video In CSI connector that supports 8-bit YUV422 CMOS sensor CSI, CCIR656 protocol for NTSC and PAL, 5MP camera, 1080p video @30Hz

Video Out HDMI 1.4 with resolutions (upto 4K @24Hz)

MIPI DSI for RAW LCD panels

Audio Out 3.5 mm Jack and HDMI

Audio In On board microphone

Power Source 5V 2A DC port

USB Ports 2x USB 2.0, USB OTG(Micro USB)

Buttons Reset button, Power button, U-boot button

GPIO 40 Pins: GPIO, UART, I2C bus, I2S bus, SPI bus, PWN, +3.3v, +5v, ground

LED Power status Led and RJ45 Led

IR Onboard IR receiver

OS Android and Linux etc.OS

Dimensions 92mm x 60mm

Weight 45g

 

If it is like the 3.10 series kernel,?!?

[arox]

I'm not sure 64 bits systems are of any interest, and I dont feel like installing a virtualization system on a arm card. Is that possible anyway ?

[tkaiser]

Well, given the real price later it might be pretty uninteresting (they're talking about $35 but if we keep in mind what they promised for BPi M2+ and how reality looks like then we already know that the board will be somewhat more expensive later). Some more information is already available: http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/07/12/bpi-m64-development-board-is-the-first-64-bit-banana-pi-board/#comments

 

To sum it up:

• It's just another A64 board so we already know what to expect (regarding Linux, RemixOS 3.0 and Android 5.x/6.0 -- for the former linux-sunxi community being responsible, for the latter the RemixOS folks and Allwinner)
• No heatsink means same problem as with BPi M3 or M2+ (no way to get the advertised CPU clockspeed over longer periods, their current settings limit maximum CPU clockspeed to 1152 MHz anyway, the '1.2 GHz' are just the usual 'copy&paste gone wrong' from Pine64)
• Only one USB host port from A64 is used (this SoC has only one and a multiplexed HSIC port so no great IO bandwidth anyway!) so the 2 USB ports have to share bandwidth
• The vendor still has no clue regarding software, at the moment all they have/use is longsleep's u-boot/kernel (containing Zador's/Armbian's kernel fixes also) for Pine64+ -- since they combine this with an insanely slow ARMv6 distro (Raspbian Lite -- WTF?!) you can be assured that this will be the slowest A64 board around (see the notes here)
• The vendor doesn't give a shit as usual about correct information. It's again the usual 'copy&paste (gone wrong)' approach and you can't trust any information they provide (see the page title of their M64 page -- still reads 'octa-core M3' -- or the comments on CNX regarding camera stuff)
• The vendor shows horrible support, just have a short look into their forums to get the idea what to expect: nothing (just one extreme example for an already existing board)

[tkaiser]

I'm not sure 64 bits systems are of any interest, and I dont feel like installing a virtualization system on a arm card. Is that possible anyway ?

 

Sure, at least with A64

 

BTW: Simon (known as longsleep) started to investigate in improving Linux support for Pine64+ for exactly this reason. They use a cluster of cheap Pine64+ utilizing KVM to test ARMv7 and ARMv8 images since this is magnitudes faster than using QEMU (IIRC he talked about 20 times faster running the stuff natively on A64).

 

Apart from that 64-bit ARM systems can be pretty fast. But then we're not talking about Cortex-A53 as with A64 but Cortex-A57 or A72 (A73 when thinking about new designs in 2017). And it's important to be able to use ARMv8 instruction set so think about twice if 'Team BPi' combines an ARMv6 userland with 64-bit kernel in their available OS images for the announced BPi M64 (that's the best way to destroy performance anyway). Staying with a 32-bit Raspbian on RPi 3 makes perfectly sense (since users are somewhat clueless anyway and compatibility remains the same) but on a new A64 board? It's just dumb as hell.

[Tido]

Wow, bascially no mistakes in the spec sheet - I was impressed.
Did SinoVoip finally care about becoming better ?
Well, I thought I wait for TK's first comment before I comment
 

 

M3 Specifications
/spoiler]

Aha, that is the reason that it is in such a good shape and it does include: SATA (up to 2TB USB-to-SATA; GL830)
 
At least it has a power-barrel, looks like the China's SBC maker came to conclusion that Micro-USB is not good enough and switched to 96boards standard-plug. 4,0 mm / 1,7 mm (EIAJ-02 - thanks TK)
 
Edit:
OMG: I was still curious. So the post in the forum has a 'picture' of the specification, with more correct data, whereas the 'homepage' of the M64 is bad copy&paste.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Tido

[tkaiser]

Wow, bascially no mistakes in the spec sheet - I was impressed.

 

The specs are 'copy&paste gone wrong' from Pine64 (wrong clockspeeds), the M3 (the USB-to-SATA bridge that does not exist) and M2+ (count of leds for example): http://web.archive.org/web/20160718120216/http://www.banana-pi.org/m64.html

 

No worries: Since the same insanely minded people are responsible in 'Team BPi' for 'documentation', the 'quality' is still the same. You can't trust a single word they tell, since you never know when it's just the usual wrong copy&paste result or real information. What scares me more is the next threat somewhere hidden in the text above: 'because this Banana Pi BPI is named after its 64-bit SoC. BPI-M4 will be reserved for an upcoming board:p'. So they plan already another totally incompatible board also named 'Banana Pi' to rip-off clueless people.

 

BTW: Your reference to 96Boards is wrong. Better inform yourself before posting: https://www.96boards.org/products/accessories/power/  (8-18V vs. 5V, EIAJ-03 vs. EIAJ-02, 4.75mm vs. 4.0mm)

[arox]

tkaiser said : "Apart from that 64-bit ARM systems can be pretty fast."

 

I am a bit at a loss. What is for exemple the state of the art with Odroid C2. Am I right to say that there is no today any distro that can use userspace programs and libraries (like firefox) compiled for 64 bits arm ?

 

And at the end, how much is the performance/heat dissipation ratio better (which determine the usability for a passive cooling small card system) ?

[tkaiser]

how much is the performance/heat dissipation ratio better (which determine the usability for a passive cooling small card system) ?

 

Simply try it out, Pine64 is rather cheap even when considering shipping. Maybe A64 is the worst example for a Cortex-A53 design (still in 40nm process, therefore overheating pretty early) and at the moment the whole 64-bit ARM story is more for developers than end users. But by being able to use ARMv8 instruction set (eg. for encryption) you can gain huge speed improvements in some areas. And that's why developing a new board wird ARMv8 SoC and providing an OS image relying on ARMv6 userland is just dumb if it's not done by RPi foundation (compatibility is one of the few sellings points of RPi 3, so selling Cortex-A53 based RPi 3 combined with Raspbian to the clueless RPi user base is maybe the best choice, with BPi M64 it's plain stupid)

[arox]

"Simply try it out"

 

Well, question of priority ! I will have a look at longsleep project because a virtualizer is one of my architecture targets. I just found the sale page for pine64. Money is not a big deal when you compare to the time spent in trying to make it work (with people that pretends it is working - I have a long list). I donot understand how you manage to do so much, but I am new to armbian and a bit lost in the mass of information. Thanks a lot one more time : you saved my skin many times with uboot or /sys/ info or little things like op_mode=2 for bcmdhd.

[tkaiser]

I will have a look at longsleep project because a virtualizer is one of my architecture targets. I just found the sale page for pine64. Money is not a big deal when you compare to the time spent in trying to make it work

 

Well, it's just using our build system and choosing Pine64+ for example. Or you use longsleep's Ubuntu Xenial image (from Pine64 forums, not the crap the Pine64 folks or 3rd parties provide at Pine64 wiki or pine64.pro) and you're already done (having to rely on old BSP u-boot and kernel). The real fun stuff (most recent u-boot and mainline kernel) is still WiP. At least virtualization choosing the 2GB board variant will work already flawlessly.

 

But you're right: apart from that (or other use cases where ARMv8 instruction set makes the difference) there's not that much to gain from 64-bit, especially when we're talking about such limited SoCs like A64 or S905 on ODROID-C2: both pretty much 32-bit SoCs with 64-bit CPU cores -- see the maximum amount of DRAM possible with both. Using 64 bit we would be able to exceed the physical 4GB barrier but both SoCs are limited to 2GB (3 GB by specs with A64 but since 12Gb DDR3 DRAM modules aren't available it's also just 2 x 8Gb --> 2GB in reality)

 

64-bit / ARMv8 gets more interesting when looking at different hardware (and leaving the SBC or OTT box camp), see Marvell ARMADA 7K/8K for example and the ARMADA 8040 community board. But there we're speaking about at least ten times the cost, so for doing development stuff cheap (and slow) Cortex-A53 designs based on A64 or Amlogic S9xx are the better choice.