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The Cabin >> Raspberry and Other Pies >> A Quad Core Pi-Zero? Not From Raspberry!
http://www.hondosackett.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1500395800

Message started by Fernando on Jul 18^th, 2017, 12:36pm

Title: A Quad Core Pi-Zero? Not From Raspberry!
Post by Fernando on Jul 18^th, 2017, 12:36pm

Imagine a Pi-Zero unit, its size, capabilities and its low cost running a Quad Core CPU. $15 for such a system, it is possible?

Not by the Raspberry Foundation; it is by B-Pi (Banana Pi of China). They worked on using an H2 CPU, like those used on the O-Pi Zero, fitting it on to the Raspberry Pi Zero sized board, complete with the same ports. Even the GPIO is similar to the R-Pi Zero. This is unlike the O-Pi Zero, which is twice as large and does not have the same ports, requiring a separate expansion board or hack to extend out the other ports on the system.

Though B-Pi M2-Zero has Wifi, it does not say if it has BlueTooth. The BT Chip is there, but is the driver there to support it? Maybe not yet but maybe soon. And it needs an external antenna as it does not have an internal antenna. This can be a major plus as a larger antenna can be used for longer range and be placed anywhere outside the board. I do not know if the antenna is included, but it is a standard Wifi Micro Antenna Jack, such external antennas are about $3 a piece.

It has a standard 512MB of RAM and uses the Mali 400 GPU at 600MHZ, so video processing will be very fast. The CPU is 1GHZ and can be overclocked by software.

They are not on sale yet, but will be within a week. At $15 a piece, I would definitely be ordering a couple of them. The Banana Pi group on FB says they would be selling them but no news on that is available yet. For more technical info:

http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/banana-pi-bpi-m2-zero-quad-core-singel-board-computer-with-allwinner-h2-chip-design/3532/1

Being the same size as the R-Pi 0, I wonder if it would fit inside R-Pi's Zero Case... That I will find out when I get one.

Title: Re: A Quad Core Pi-Zero? Not From Raspberry!
Post by Hondo I. Sackett on Jul 19^th, 2017, 1:37am

Awesome! Damn, the stuff these folks come up with! Gotta try one of these for sure!