[HN Gopher] Nezha is a $99 single-board PC with a RISC-V processor
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       Nezha is a $99 single-board PC with a RISC-V processor
        
       Author : goohex
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2021-05-20 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (liliputing.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (liliputing.com)
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | the future is here & it is slow as fuck (& ghastly ghastly over-
       | priced).
       | 
       | usb2.0, a 1GHz core... a rpi4 will wallop this little toy, just
       | demolish the shit out of it, at 1/3rd the price. or go up & buy a
       | fantastic amazing fairly small x86 (used on ebay) that will
       | destroy both for 2x the price. i really want collaborative open
       | source hardware to become a thing. but wow, risc-v has so far to
       | go to become an in any way at all real challenger.
       | 
       | it just sucks so bad that whatever cpu cores we make, we'll be
       | saddled with no pcie, crappy usb, short of paying big bucks for
       | some IP (99% of the times coupled to some specific fab) that does
       | the interesting bits, like providing usb3, pcie, and, frankly &
       | most presently-important, the future standard to unite them all,
       | thunderbolt4. also the lack of available open source gpus is
       | strikingly notable, and even those who do have gpu IPs to sell
       | rarely have drivers.
       | 
       | this sbc is a necessary step, part of the progress of freeing
       | ourselves. but man, $99? yikes. paying so much to sacrifice so
       | much performance for this cause is a really really really hard
       | sell. to be fair, it's just unreasonable, impossible to compete
       | with how affordable rpis are. but the far far far superior x86
       | offerings available at 2x the price is what really makes the
       | situation untennable for RISC-V would-be's. we want very much to
       | give the moral choice it's large profit margins, but right now
       | it's such an incredibly unappealing value proposition.
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-20 23:02 UTC)