My new video about the Rock64 with Armbian

[NicoD]

Hello all.

I've made a video about the Rock64. I've tried different distro's, but Armbian was the best for me.
The only problems I've found was that Synaptic Package Manager didn't work. It crashes when I press the search button. And sometimes surfing was extremely slow. Otherwise it did fix all the problems I've had with the other distro's I've tried.
Thank you for all the great work.

Now I've started my research with the Orange Pi +2, and again Armbian is the best choice.
Greetings, NicoD

Here is my video.

 

[TonyMac32]

A look at some different use-cases is nice, as you can probably tell most of the discussion here is either extrmeely low-level or is for NAS/server capabilities.

[JMCC]

I'm guessing that if RPi's were using a 32-bit OS, that could be the cause for the huge performance difference with Rock64 and C2, in addition to RAM speed.

[JMCC]

@NicoD And also, I have seen some of your other videos, and you seem to be interested in testing SBC's for desktop usage, which is nice because that is what many of the new SBC users try first when they get their boards. Right now, we are working in several desktop and multimedia related stuff in Armbian, currently with Tinkerboard/MiQi and Odroid XU4. I can let you know when all that stuff is ready, so you can try it and give us some feedback, if you are OK with it.

[NicoD]

2 hours ago, JMCC said:

@NicoD And also, I have seen some of your other videos, and you seem to be interested in testing SBC's for desktop usage, which is nice because that is what many of the new SBC users try first when they get their boards. Right now, we are working in several desktop and multimedia related stuff in Armbian, currently with Tinkerboard/MiQi and Odroid XU4. I can let you know when all that stuff is ready, so you can try it and give us some feedback, if you are OK with it.

Hello. Indeed the 32-bit does make a big difference too.

I am certainly willing to test new things. I have got a Tinkerboard and a XU4. Also a C2, Orange Pi plus 2, khadas vim2 max and all the raspberrys.

I'll pm you my email adress.
Thank you, greetings.

NicoD

 

 

[nachoparker]

Thanks for sharing

[tkaiser]

On 6.4.2018 at 10:50 PM, JMCC said:

I'm guessing that if RPi's were using a 32-bit OS, that could be the cause for the huge performance difference with Rock64 and C2, in addition to RAM speed

 

By looking at the individual results it should be pretty obvious that at least the Blender test is all about DRAM performance. Just compare the 'overclocked' RPi 3 B+ numbers and eg. ODROID-C2 vs. Rock64. Memory throughput numbers here are useful for interpretation: https://libre.computer/2018/03/21/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-review-and-comparison/ (the RK3328 device there has even faster DDR4 memory so this has to be taken into account).

[JMCC]

2 hours ago, tkaiser said:

the Blender test is all about DRAM performance

Mmmm, could you elaborate that a little more, please? I absolutely agree that DRAM speed is part of the cause, but I don't unserstand why you are discarding armhf vs aarch64 as another important factor.  

[tkaiser]

See the numbers for RPi 3 B+: 115 minutes 'overclocked' vs. 136 minutes with stock settings. That's an 18% increase in 'benchmark numbers'. CPU clockspeed raised by 12% and DRAM clockspeed raised by 27.5% with the 'overclocked' settings.

 

Now as an excercise as already mentioned: Rock64 vs. ODROID-C2. Both use Cortex-A53 with 64-bit kernel and userland, the CPU clockspeed difference isn't that much so why does the ODROID-C2 perform that better? Search for tinymembench numbers and you've the answer.  

 

The Raspberry Pi is a 2011 design (only ARM cores exchanged, everything else is still the same, just clocked slightly faster each year). It performs like that of course.

[JMCC]

14 minutes ago, tkaiser said:

Rock64 vs. ODROID-C2

Got it. I was so puzzled with the huge gap between the Pi's and the others, that I didn't notice the difference between regular/overclocked Pi3B+ and also between C2 and Rock64.

 

[NicoD]

Indeed the ram makes the most difference. I've done tests with the Raspberry Pi 3B by overclocking the cpu and ram default, and doing blender and kdenlive. Then the ram overlocked to 515 in Ubuntu and cpu stock. The ram overclock did more than CPU overclock.
At the end of this video you see the difference in overclocked to 1.35Ghz without ram overclock and with ram overclock. The difference is hughe.
Cheers