This credit card-sized PC board can use an Intel Core i7 There's something satisfying about fitting a decent processor in a small form factor, and the latest example is a credit card-sized single-board computer that uses an 11th-gen Intel Core part. The single-board PC is from Aaeon, the industrial-computer-focused subsidiary of Asus, and it's being made alongside another board of …
I think the manufacturers of those often like to take all the parts from a board like this and solder them to a board of their own making so that, when something fails, you can't fix it without getting a replacement from them. The hardware's likely the same though, and since Raspberry Pis became so popular with signage companies, maybe it will end up being more common than I predicted.
Specs say there's an 8 bit GPIO header.
Full list of inny outty shake it all abouty stuff:
USB – 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 x2 Type-A ports, 4x USB 2.0 interfaces via header
Serial – 2x RS232/422/485 via header
Expansion
M2 M-Key 2280 socket (PCIe x2, PCIe x4 Gen3 (by FPC))
8-bit GPIO header
optional SMBus/I2C
Storage – SATA III port, M.2 socket for NVMe SSD (See Expansion section)
Display
HDMI 1.4b up to 4Kp30
eDP up to 3840×2160 resolution
Up to 2 independent displays
Networking
2.5GbE RJ45 port via Intel i225LM controller
Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port via Intel i219LM (Tiger Lake) or Realtek RTL8111H (AMD Ryzen) controller
M2 M-Key 2280. That is the desired form for cheap, large storage in smaller form factors.
I'd still rather have the soon to be released ARM based Orange Pi and run x86/64 through a VM. With the specs of this Intel board, the Orange might be all around better (and surely cheaper).
The power consumption alone would render it kinda pointless for Pi-type use cases. There have been a couple of RISC-V boards (VisionFive, Beagle HiFive) at competitive prices (~$100) though they get discontinued as quickly as they're released. It'll be a few years before they mature as real alternatives to the Pi.
I suppose that depends on your use case for the Pi. It's certainly going to use more power, but still below desktop-level power. If the Pi doesn't run fast enough for what you're doing, this might be useful. Since the Pi's power usage already basically prevents it working well with a battery (unless you want to carry around a battery that's a lot bigger and heavier than the computer it's powering), the likely setup for powering the boards will look similar. If speed is important, an extra 10-20 watts might be acceptable to users.
Have another coffee! According to the article, the TDP for the available i7 is 15W, for the top AMD chip 25W. So, not the hottest CPUs around.
Industrial PCs commonly use their case as a large heatsink (to avoid dust ingress). These boards aren't being pitched at consumers, but at engineers who will integrate them (and their cooling requirements) into a larger system.
Also, from the article:
>And the system will become even thicker if you apply the board's specially designed heatsink and fan assembly, which seems to double the board's depth
So you can mod it if your thermal envelope permits/requires.
Seems like an ok core for a hand built router/gateway/firewall. As others have said, mostly useful for people who want to run existing x86 code and need more grunt. No reason to think these will be Pi cheap, but may still be competitive with other embedded PC boards, and the size will be a selling point for those that are building it into something.
The layout is very sensible. I applaud them putting M.2 on it, that's a platform to back going forward. Small efficient and cheap, and it only took 70 years :-) (https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_350.html)
"Seems like an ok core for a hand built router/gateway/firewall."
The moment I read "two Ethernet ports", that thought flashed through my mind. I'd quite like something much smaller as my router/gateway/firewall but it seems most solutions are either fiddly (single Ethernet + a USB adaptor) or just expensive enough that I keep putting it off since the old PC with one onboard NIC and PCI NIC is doing just fine.
Set the wayback machine to 2010 or maybe even earlier.
Intel had acquired a System on Chip vendor and the associated chips and designs and people.
See e.g. IXP422 description in various places.
Two ethernet ports, targeted at low power consumption mainly-Linux application environments.
ARM-based, though, and hence Intel couldn't keep the product range in house.
Found for a while in products such as the Moxa UC-7420.
Enjoy.
We just wanted to go home,...
Here is the problem.
See, this newfangled time is called the "Era of Online". You are not supposed to go "home". The Online world is active and running 24/365. You are supposed to follow suit and accommodate and love the new continuous labour, where ever you are and when ever we please.
Please, for your readership, don't take a break(see icon).
> It was written and edited in the US and scheduled for the UK morning
Oh! So it wasn't out of consideration for your Liberian readership?
(one of two countries in the world that, officially, use Fahrenheit, though in practice the Liberians stick to °C like everyone else. Yes I've been there)
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There's a lot to be said for some of the old systems in day to day life because of the use of fractions and we've kept sexagesimal for angles because of this. But we didn't have common systems throughout. Money had 12d to a shilling and 20 shilling to the pound, weight is a combination of base 16 and base 14 and let's not get started on distance! But in many situations you work with a multiple or a simple fraction of a known amount. You don't have as much of this in metric but calculations are easier because of the consistency.
"You don't have as much of this in metric but calculations are easier because of the consistency."
Fractions work with decimals, just not as conveniently in some cases. 1/3rd of a metre is a bit imprecise, but half a metre or a quarter metre works fine. Just that almost no one uses them. On the other hand, half a litre is a common usage in speech, but always labelled in print as 0.5l. The usual argument trotted out is "yeah but 12" foot can easily and conveniently be spit into 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8 etc, etc, etc.". My response is if you are working with those sorts of fractions, then millimetres will get you where you need to be just as easily. You might not be able to convert precisely between, say 1/3rd" and mm, but so what? If you'll be using metric, then you'll measure 8mm because 1/3" isn't what you want. You want something about that size, ie something that will fit into the other part of the same size, ie 8mm. If you need more significant figures, it's just as easy to drill a hole 8.4 or 8.46mm if you need that level of accuracy, but again, there is no need to mix different measuring scales. The only people with problems are those thinking in the old scale and converting in their head to the new scale. All of us above an age have been through that. Some of us still do for some things. I still do my height in feet/inches and my weight in St/lbs (none of this US lbs only malarky!)
Fractions work with decimals, just not as conveniently in some cases.
Agreed, but for day to day work, fractions (and multiples) are very convenient; we're not as clever as we think we are. Hence, 2ft instead of 2/3 yard and thirds are very common. Of course, this only matters where you don't have accurate rulers, scales, etc. As I said, engineering switched very quickly to metric even though you'll still come across people happy to talk about "thous".
Oh, and aviation and shipping remain holdouts for some old-style measurements.
"The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated."
Sir PTerry was mis-quoting for humorous effect. The process of converting en masse was going to be expensive and complicated. Not the actual usage, once that giant step was taken.
The UK transitioned to metric over the 1980s and by the early nineties metric was predominant, especially in medicine and engineering. Though in true British contrariness contradictions abounded: weights and measures remained imperal when being served but were metric for packaged products.
I can do a lot of the conversions in my head but find °C to °F tricky because of the offset, even though it's "easy". Both scales also have their pros and cons: you needed pretty pure water for Celsius but its also arguable that Fahreinheit's larger scale matches our experience of temperature better. But Fahreinheit is unsuited for anything other than the weather for the similar reasons: boiling points, freezing points, etc. are all for elements in their natural state.
"If you can't do F - 30 divide by 2 in a couple of seconds then you are Jacob Rees Mogg AICMFP"
Using that same logic (but using the correct numbers) surely it makes more sense to use the units the entire world uses and leave it the USA to convert to F if they choose to be the outliers.
"as I'm up late working."
Thank you :-)
Question though. Is El Reg becoming more US based? I've noticed over recent months that there are fewer new stories published in the morning UK time than there used to be and more new stories still appearing late into the evening UK time which used to be quite rare. Is El Reg scheduling more stuff around USA time these days or are more of the authors in the US office now? Is this a result of the last ownership change?
The US uses both SAE and metric. We have no issue using either. Being officially SAE, like most things in the US, only matters to folks who pay attention to such things, which really isn't many people at all. Most of us do it for fun. I, for example, will fight to the ends of the Earth to keep the US as an SAE nation, but only because it's amusing. In practical matters I can use either system.
If anything, staying SAE has advantages over the metric system as it's far more precise. People raised using SAE can use both because metric is intuitive and less complicated, but people raised using metric have a hard time with SAE.
True, although once we’re being technical, I’m sure you remember that water actually freezes at its triple-point, which is 0.01 ºC (273.16 K), not zero, and that the boiling point is only 100 ºC at 1013.25 hectopascals of air pressure (= 1 atmosphere); in a hard vacuum, pure water has no liquid state, and so boils at any temperature over its triple-point, and freezes at any temperature below.
Yes, and if I needed a 5mm hole drilled, I'd use a 5mm drill bit. If I needed a 9/64 hole, I'd use a 9/64 bit while you'd use your nonexistent 3.571875mm bit. Advantage, SAE nation.
Mind you downthumbers, I'm not making a superiority claim for SAE, just saying that being SAE has advantages, as we have access to and use both.
13/64" would be the closest but not precisely 5mm.
But what has that to do with which system is more precise. Lets reverse the conversion.
I need to drill a hole precisely 13/64" in diameter. What's that in millimeters? I have a 13/64" drill bit. Sadly I can't find one that is 5.1594mm in my new set of metric bits.
Neither system is more precise than the other, precision is limited by the smallest division of a measuring device. When I started comprehensive predecimalisation we were still imperial outside of science. By the time I left most subjects used metric an exception was metalwork the lathe was imperial down to a thou.
So my 1 foot rule (1/32" smallest increment) became 30cm rule (1mm smallest increment). That does not mean imperial is more precise.(1/32" smaller than 1mm). In metalwork the Vernier gauges and Vernier micrometers measured to a thou, but the metric Vernier micrometers we used measured to 0.001m. That does not mean metric was more precise.
The problem with imperial is the inconsistent number base. Just look at the distance from yards base 3, 12, then 2 for a while (1/2", 1/4" ... 1/64"), and then they give up and decimalise to a thou (1/1000"). Sure can I use feet and inches but it is a lot easier to use metric.
Try compiling an Android application on that M2 chip. You'll be back 10 minutes later (I kid you not) begging for an x86 chip that can do the job in 1/10th the time.
That's just one example I know of but there are more. Apple's chips, like their computers, are fine for writing your screenplay in Starbucks that will make you rich & famous but not much use for actual work.
Well @iron wins a prize for the most arrogantly ignorant post I've read today. The M1/2 chips smoke benchmarks for real-world, hugely demanding tasks such as video editing and music production. They are incredible.
That your compiler doesn't perform well on them might be down to the compiler. Has it been optimised or is it running through an x86 translator for example?
So disappointing when developers display such obvious illogical bias and fundamental technological ingorance.
As I recall (and I have no skin in this) the increase in performance on common consumer tasks is because the architecture has specialisations precisely to deal with whatever consumers do with a computer (presumably browsing, shopping and watching porn). Pretty sure there was an article in El Reg that went into some detail on this.
It's certainly a valid approach, and what the mobile phone manufacturers have been doing for years, just not necessarily what you want when you're doing computation intensive tasks of a kind for which the architecture has not been designed or optimised for.
Try compiling an Android application on that M2 chip. You'll be back 10 minutes later (I kid you not) begging for an x86 chip that can do the job in 1/10th the time.
I've just installed the latest android studio on an M1 mini and an AMD zen3 12 core.
Downloaded the owncloud app, open in studio and let things settle.... then did a 'Rebuild project'.
It takes 1:12 to compile on the mac, and 1:27 on the AMD.
I then tried fenrir, did: build, clean, build. (To take the dependency install out of the equation), the M1 took 1:32, the AMD 2:04.
A module fitted inside and running industrial machinery is usually powered by said machinery, not a DC jack on the outside.
It doesn't look like there are any internal power bus options, and it's very close to the USB ports. Will interfere with quite a few USB devices.
It looks more like a set-top-box form factor. Which is odd, as you'll usually find ARM there.
At least it's a locking DC jack, I suppose.
...or pretty much any microcomputer before the IBM PC came along. The IBM PC was one of, if not the first mass produced computer to be pretty much unusable as a bare board with no add-ons. Yes, there were other, earlier ones eg S100 based card rack systems, but they weren't really mass produced and certainly not aimed at consumers.
Would it have not been thinner if the external ports hdmi,usb etc ran from a ribbon cable to a choice of user selectable peripheral ports rather than being mounted on board?
After all in industrial use surely these ports would usually be connected with a lead to wherever the designer wanted them.
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