[HN Gopher] RISC-V SBC VisionFive 2 Officially Shipped
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RISC-V SBC VisionFive 2 Officially Shipped
Author : britneybitch
Score : 103 points
Date : 2023-01-11 15:48 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.starfivetech.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.starfivetech.com)
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| ~ 10% $ of Xilinx demo boards.
|
| Curious: Is there a "Ferrari" general RISC-V ISA shorthand or CPU
| implementation with more extensions including Q B V K H & S ?
| _joel wrote:
| Explaining Computers "StarFive VisionFive 2 RISC-V SBC review,
| including a demo of an engineering release of Debian, and of
| Python GPIO control"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKnc86UtXg
| geerlingguy wrote:
| It's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in software'
| is an achievement for an SBC. But I do applaud StarFive for
| actually seeming to throw some support behind their boards.
|
| We have been spoiled with Raspberry Pi the past few years prior
| to the shortages. I wish another vendor could get close to Pi's
| position to give more competition in terms of support and
| documentation.
| mikerg87 wrote:
| We should remind ourselves that Raspberry Pis are in
| abundance, just not in the hobbyist channel. Current
| situation is not unlike the graphics card shortage when
| crypto miners were on garaunteed purchase contracts
|
| This board has so much going for it. The native M.2 is a
| highly desireable feature. The only knock is the lack of
| wifi/bluetooth which can at least be solved with a dongle.
| somethingwitty1 wrote:
| The no-wifi seems to just be the kickstarter. When I
| ordered mine a little while back, they had an option for
| wifi (extra $8-$10, as I recall). I haven't received it
| yet...so not sure if it actually does.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> it's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in
| software' is an achievement for an SBC
|
| Yeah, but with an OS and MMU you don't get to just write to a
| port or other registers. The plumbing has to be in place.
| synergy20 wrote:
| I have a sifive "unmatched" board sitting here collecting dust,
| cost me $700 then.
|
| Most projects turned out ARM based after I bought it.
|
| The site is not working, any price of this board? What's its
| market, e.g. ip camera? I'm still interested in lower cost ready
| to go risc-v boards.
| gurjeet wrote:
| I'm looking to buy these boards; recently I bought one on eBay.
| I plan on using them to add to FOSS projects' buildfarms. The
| first one I got from eBay is now running Postgres buildfarm.
|
| Please let me know if you're interested in selling me yours.
| m00x wrote:
| Any reason why it's collecting dust? I have a few RISC-V boards
| and I haven't had any issues with them other than having to
| compile almost everything from source.
| rwmj wrote:
| The Unmatched board is great, a real workhorse for building
| Fedora packages. It was very expensive at release (as was
| Unleashed) because of the small run, so we hope the VF2 with
| better performance far lower price will drive more adoption.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| $55/$65/$85 for 2GB, 4GB, 8GB plus shipping
| rahen wrote:
| How well are Linux and the BSDs supported?
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| Not this board, but a $$ RISC-V from Xilinx's PolarFire does:
|
| - Yocto Linux BSP
|
| - Buildroot Linux BSP
|
| - Embedded Linux from Siemens Embedded
|
| - FreeBSD (coming soon)
|
| https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/syst...
| MisterTea wrote:
| Where is the CPU hardware manual that tells me the CPU's memory
| map and registers?
|
| This is why so much hardware ends up in landfills. No thanks to
| undocumented junk.
| swetland wrote:
| The _CPU_ itself (Core Complex, including cache, irq
| controller, etc) is documented by SiFive:
|
| https://www.sifive.com/cores/u74-mc
|
| Unfortunately there appears to be no detailed documentation at
| all (unless you count a pile of Linux and bootloader patches,
| which I don't) for the peripherals, etc, outside of the core
| complex on the SoC:
|
| https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/jh7110.html
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I am waiting to get mine.
| jacooper wrote:
| Good luck using it with docker, many images don't support ARM,
| let alone RISC-V
| sargun wrote:
| Does anyone know if this SBC contains RISC-V Worldguard
| capabilities (https://www.sifive.com/technology/shield-soc-
| security)? I've been looking for a RISC-V SBC with a way to
| protect asymmetric keys. The new ESP32 has a dedicated key
| storage.
|
| The SoC docs indicate: * 512 x 32-bit (2 KB) of OTP for key data
| on-die storage
|
| But, that sounds like it's for the likes of secureboot.
| aseipp wrote:
| No, and there aren't any (public) cores deployed with
| Worldguard support that I'm aware of, at least none with user-
| controllable software, nor am I aware of any alternative
| implementations to Worldguard e.g. FPGA designs for
| prototyping. Seems like a fairly involved product.
|
| If you just want some kind of trusted key storage/signing
| inside a secure enclave style design, to keep things secure
| from the OS/hypervisor, something like Keystone may be more
| your speed. It largely just re-uses the existing M-mode
| privilege level to enforce separation from the OS and userspace
| stack. It isn't 1-to-1 with Worldguard, but it's a start, and
| in theory you can "just" patch the SBI implementation to
| support it: http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting-
| Started/H...
|
| Anything implemented today is probably going to be missing some
| key features of a complete stack, but the parts are all mostly
| there, and still moving.
| psychphysic wrote:
| I received mine weeks ago.
|
| There are several desktop images but various issues reported from
| no display output, to only 1080p supported. To this image or that
| one working.
|
| Important note, the later images require an updated to uboot and
| SPL, either with the bootrom or a serial connection.
|
| It's a mess at the moment!
| andrekandre wrote:
| > It's a mess at the moment!
|
| yea, thats for sure, but i think a lot of promise too...
|
| from my cursory testing it seems gui performance is much better
| than hifive unmatched (window manager, apps, web browser)
|
| [edit] add geekbench
|
| https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
| fathyb wrote:
| > 1 Processor, 1 Core, 4 Threads
|
| Any idea why StarFive went with this choice for an SBC? I
| remember POWER7 also having 4 SMT, but it felt right for a
| superscalar multi-core CPU.
| photonbeam wrote:
| It has 4 cores with 1 thread each, rather than 1 core with
| 4 thread
| rwmj wrote:
| The link in the GP comment is wrong - both SoCs have 4
| cores, each with a single thread.
|
| The reason why this SoC is faster than HiFive Unmatched
| seems to be down to architectural improvements.
| fathyb wrote:
| Ah, makes much more sense. Thanks!
| smoldesu wrote:
| Hah, reminds me of my disappointment with the original Pi.
| Here's hoping they sort it out as fast as they did for ARM!
| NoNameHaveI wrote:
| Likewise. I believe mine arrived about the 29th. Haven't broke
| the shrink wrap yet.
| Klasiaster wrote:
| Does is have UEFI boot support? I guess through u-boot?
| bullen wrote:
| HN is tanking the RVSpace forum too.
|
| Just go here and buy one instead:
| https://www.waveshare.com/visionfive2.htm?sku=23875
| sylware wrote:
| [flagged]
| kfihihc wrote:
| SDK:https://github.com/starfive-tech/VisionFive2
|
| Docs: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/visionfive_2.html
| progbits wrote:
| Looks pretty good opensource-wise, right? Some linux fork with
| ton of patches but hopefully most of that will get upstreamed,
| and except that I found no weird blobs or proprietary crap.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| I haven't looked at the v2 but they seemed to be doing an
| alright job at getting things upstreamed with the v1. the
| only thing i remember seeing that wasn't very good in that
| regard was the neural net stuff that they had and that seemed
| more from just issues getting the hardware working than any
| nda or lack of desire to do it. I'd hope that the v2 is
| similarly worked through even if it needs some non-upstream
| patches at the start just because it's new hardware and it
| takes time.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| It seems like many SoCs (also in ARM space) advertise '2
| TOPS' or however many TOPS neural processors integrated in
| the silicon... but the actual number of SoCs where those
| coprocessors can be used in Linux seems to be very low.
| kfihihc wrote:
| I think it will push to upstream ASAP.
| swetland wrote:
| Still no sign of an actual Technical Reference Manual or any
| other detailed documentation on the SoC (registers,
| peripherals, etc). A big pile of Linux patches, while better
| than nothing, is a poor substitute for actual documentation.
|
| SiFive does provide docs for the core complex (processors,
| cache, irq controller, etc), but that doesn't cover any SoC-
| specific peripherals.
| progbits wrote:
| Agreed. But I feel like that is still a step ahead of RPi
| where you get random firmware blobs for the GPU without
| which it won't even boot.
| swetland wrote:
| It's definitely nicer to have source than a bunch of
| opaque binaries. (Is there source for the full boot path?
| Sounds like they have patches for OpenSBI and u-boot --
| didn't see if there was source or docs for the on-die
| boot rom.)
|
| I just find the "all you need is Linux patches" approach
| annoying. There are BSD variants and little experimental
| and homebrew OSes out there that would be fun to run on a
| capable RISC-V SBC and even if you are using Linux it's
| still nice to have some documentation to refer to beyond
| whatever the silicon vendor implemented in various driver
| patches.
| davidlt wrote:
| Upstreasming status: https://rvspace.org/en/new-
| page/JH7110_Upstream_Plan
|
| StarFive Tech. have been upstreaming on kernel, OpenSBI and
| U-Boot from several weeks now. Of course this is still
| weeks/months away (if not more, for all the features) from
| landing in stable releases. Even more for distributions to pick
| those up.
| Klasiaster wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230111211739/https://rvspace.o...
| UltraViolence wrote:
| Don't buy from this company. They can't even keep their website
| up from the strain of a few HN readers.
| bhouston wrote:
| Any performance comparisons with Raspberry Pi boards? How does
| this RISC-V CPU stack up against them?
| pmw wrote:
| Not great; VisionFive appears to be significantly less
| performant.
|
| https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
| CUViper wrote:
| There are a few where it does win though -- I wonder what
| characteristics favor VisionFive in those?
| viraptor wrote:
| We're still in the early days of risc-v availability. Arm has
| been widely deployed and the compilers optimised by both
| individuals and companies. I expect this comparison to look
| better in a year (not better than rpi4, just a smaller gap)
| andrekandre wrote:
| afaict rbpi cpu has vector instructions?
|
| if so, i wonder how much that contributes to the
| difference...?
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| a lot.
| rjsw wrote:
| A board that you can buy will perform better than one that is
| unavailable.
| chris_overseas wrote:
| For what it's worth, I managed to get an RPi4 at retail price
| within a few days by setting the appropriate filters on
| https://rpilocator.com and keeping a watch on it with an
| Android app called "Web Alert". I've used the same trick to
| buy out-of-stock cameras and laptops too, works a treat.
| _joel wrote:
| Faster than a 3 but slower than a 4 by raw clock speed but ymmv
| with real world usage
| bullen wrote:
| CPU slower than 4 as said, but even Jetson Nano is slower that
| the mad performance per watt of the 4.
|
| BUT the GPU is apparently better which would make this THE SBC.
|
| I will test my 3D MMO engine and give exactly what is what once
| I receive mine, should be a couple of days.
|
| The Raspberry GPU has a serious cache problem, it can't render
| a triangle at 60FPS in 1080p!!!
|
| But 100 non-instanced animated characters (each with a unique
| weapon in hand) at 60FPS and low res (800x600).
|
| Jetson (1/2 Nintendo Switch GPU) does 300 at 60 FPS in 1080p.
|
| If the Visionfive 2 is either: - 100+ at 60 FPS
| and 1080p - 200+ at 60 FPS and 800x600
|
| I'm going ALL IN on Risc-V (my own VM for scripting the engine)
| and StarFive (buy a few to use as demo for the MMO instead of
| Raspberry 4/Jetson Nano).
| snvzz wrote:
| >the mad performance per watt of the 4.
|
| More like bad than mad.
|
| This SoC is far more efficient, using just 4.4w on full load
| and achieving some 80% of rpi4's cpu performance at a much
| lower power, with no need for a heatsink.
| bullen wrote:
| We'll see, if you need a heatsink for this here is one I
| bought which should fit:
| http://www.enzotech.com/cnb_s1l.htm
|
| Not going to debate the gflops/w yet, but Raspberry 4 cores
| are also around 1W each and they kick ass compared to even
| M1 (much worse OFC, but per $/openess they still win imo)
| snvzz wrote:
| If the SoC in rpi4 was any good, it wouldn't need a huge
| heatsink to not throttle.
|
| The reality is that it draws around 10w more often than
| not.
| bullen wrote:
| I know what 10W feels like because the Jetson Nano draws
| that, and Raspberry 4 is 7W with GPU+4 cores saturated.
|
| You will need a heatsink on the Visionfive if the GPU
| does what I hope it does.
|
| The Raspberry 4 GPU is only 1W vs. 5W on the Jetson Nano!
|
| I'm hoping for a 2-3W GPU on the Visionfive and then
| you'll need a heatsink for MMO gameplay no question about
| it.
|
| Longevity is now crucial as hardware peaks, heat kills
| electronics slowly but oh so surely!
|
| Edit: Do you have a URL for those 3.xW and 4.4W claims...
| Then I think we wont see 100+ but cache can still be
| larger so you can have 100 at 1080p and that is enough
| for mainsteam adoption and replacing all other computers
| (Switch, PS4, XBOX, phones and pads etc.)!
|
| The future belong to those that compile!
| snvzz wrote:
| 4.4 W is the figure given for the SoC on full load.
|
| They also give a lower figure that's 3.x W for full load
| with the GPU off.
|
| It won't need a heatsink, because with its power draw it
| won't get above 70C even on full load, while the chip is
| built for industrial temperature range in operation.
| bullen wrote:
| Do you have a URL for those 3.xW and 4.4W claims?
|
| For longevity 60C is better. I'm talking multiple decades
| at constant permanent full blast here.
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