[HN Gopher] A new RISC-V Mainboard from DeepComputing
___________________________________________________________________
A new RISC-V Mainboard from DeepComputing
Author : jiripospisil
Score : 427 points
Date : 2024-06-18 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (frame.work)
(TXT) w3m dump (frame.work)
| COGlory wrote:
| What is awesome is that I can pick up one of these and put it in
| my existing Framework 13.
| jballanc wrote:
| Yes! I don't currently have a Framework 13, but this is making
| it reeeallly hard to hold out any longer. Yes, upgrading parts
| instead of buying a whole new laptop is more economical, and
| more environmentally friendly, but I think the real killer
| feature is that it has the potential to democratize new ideas
| around computer architecture.
|
| It sort of reminds me when you actually had a choice of whether
| you would set up a Token Ring or Ethernet network, before the
| option was taken away by the overwhelming ossification of
| existing hardware.
| freedomben wrote:
| I've had three FW 13s (a first-gen for myself, a second-gen
| for my wife, and a third-gen for myself) and I suspect you
| will be pretty happy with it. What OS do you plan to run?
| jballanc wrote:
| We're getting a factory seconds one for my son (he loves to
| tinker, so the fact that it'll need various upgrades is a
| feature, not a bug). If I were to get one for work, I'd
| likely start with Ubuntu, but I've really been looking for
| an excuse to run Nix for my main dev machine.
| jarbus wrote:
| > We're excited to share a preview of a Framework Laptop 13
| Mainboard with a new CPU architecture today, and it's probably
| not the one you think it is.
|
| Hahaha. Really curious if they'll announce a snapdragon x elite
| board. I love the idea of RISC-V long term, but would love an X
| Elite board for the near future.
| freedomben wrote:
| I think that would be cool too, and I would guess is in the
| oven currently, though personally I'm much more excited about
| RISC-V. Not for what it is today, but for what it can be
| tomorrow.
| marius_k wrote:
| I did not expect RISC-V to be ahead of ARM for framework. Is this
| is because of freedoms RISC-V brings for manufacturers?
| CarVac wrote:
| Or because it's basically a way for a board maker to have a
| laptop form factor available for their device.
|
| It's a way for other companies to piggyback off of Framework
| rather than the other way around, while strengthening the
| Framework ecosystem.
| freedomben wrote:
| That's my perception as well. TFA is clear this is a partner-
| driven thing, so I suspect DeepComputing drove most of this
| (obviously with some collaboration from FW though). Win/win
| for all involved!
|
| It's great to see partner ecosystem developing! Framework is
| such an exciting company.
| rjsw wrote:
| Maybe just the availability and maturity of that particular
| SoC, the PineTab-V tablet uses the same one. An obvious ARM SoC
| to use in a laptop is the RK3588.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > An obvious ARM SoC to use in a laptop is the RK3588.
|
| Yup, I've got the RK3588 module preordered for my Reform and
| I'm looking forward to it. Would be neat to see an RK3588
| board for the Framework too.
| binary132 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with a little hype-chasing.
| bangaladore wrote:
| An end goal of targeting RISC-V is better for everyone than
| targeting ARM or x86. No licensing fees, manufacturers could
| design their own silicon and be completely royalty free, etc...
|
| Right now we are nowhere near that. RISC-V software and
| hardware is not very mature at all. But much of this can change
| very quickly once products launch.
| loughnane wrote:
| Practically speaking, what am I going to be able to do w/ a risc
| v board? I imagine a ton of software will have problems with it,
| at least for now.
| antonly wrote:
| I think part of the point is to find that problematic software,
| and contribute patches to make it work (or whatever you do for
| closed source software). In my mind this is a board to
| legitimise early adopters' requests, so that they can say "hey,
| this doesn't run on this very real laptop from a brand that you
| may have heard of".
|
| I think this is a crucial step on the way to getting an
| actually good experience on RISC-V based platforms.
| chrisldgk wrote:
| It's not super practical yet, a lot of software won't run on it
| and they even write in the article that processing power wise
| it will probably be worse than their x86 counterparts. As they
| write in the article, the point is to make developing for
| RISC-V more accessible so that it can find wider adoption and
| get over those hurdles at some point to become more mainstream.
| nrp wrote:
| We're being deliberate on positioning this as a Mainboard for
| enabling developers and tinkerers, not a consumer-ready
| product. As other commenters noted, the idea is to help
| accelerate the maturity of the RISC-V ecosystem to prepare it
| for consumer access in the future.
| jimbobthrowawy wrote:
| How much involvement did framework have in this becoming a
| thing? I'm asking because I want to get a feel for how long a
| decent (probably third-party) ARM mainboard might take.
| freedomben wrote:
| TFA does say they've been working with Red Hat and Canonical to
| ensure a good base experience. I'm planning to buy one to run
| Fedora, knowing that a lot of packages may not be available,
| but hopefully enough so that I can build my own software on it
| and ship RISC-V binaries/packages.
|
| Currently I'm using qemu for that, but for someone who doesn't
| live and breath qemu it's an uphill battle.
| sprinkly-dust wrote:
| Well, it's not the only option so no one's being forced to buy
| it. The same thing could've been said about ARM laptops just 5
| years ago, before the launch of M1. Now, with Windows embracing
| ARM for real this time, it's properly established across all
| major platforms.
|
| The neat thing about this specific implementation is that it
| can be dropped right into an existing Framework laptop -- a
| very viable hardware platform. Thus, it will allow developers
| (presumably mainly on Linux) to test and iron out issues in
| their software, the only way to fix those software problems you
| speak of.
|
| It represents a strong leap forward for RISC-V and open ISAs in
| general.
| mejutoco wrote:
| It could be educational to learn assembly, for example.
|
| (I know you can use a virtual machine for that)
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Proprietary software mostly will require emulation or other
| similar techniques and WILL be problematic.
|
| Anything else can generally be re-compiled. Several
| distributions support RISC-V already. Alpine has a total of
| 11378 aports, of which 850 are marked explicitly as "doesn't
| build for riscv64".
| Muromec wrote:
| All the stuff you were able to do with ARM boards before
| mainstream adoption, which is mainly: become involved in driver
| development.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > what am I going to be able to do w/ a risc v board?
|
| Be the coolest kid in the block.
|
| Now, seriously, people buy RISC-V boards in order to use RISC-V
| boards. If it were to do something else, you'd probably be
| better off with an x86 or ARM design.
| shrubble wrote:
| I am assuming (hope I am right!) that the RISC-V board doesn't
| have the equivalent of the IME on it and thus will be open-
| source "librebootable" from the start, with no binary blobs.
| cesarb wrote:
| > I am assuming (hope I am right!) that the RISC-V board
| doesn't have the equivalent of the IME on it
|
| Actually, it does! Check the block diagram on the first PDF
| linked to by this article, it has two RISC-V "monitor cores",
| a 32-bit one and a 64-bit one, besides the four 64-bit main
| cores.
|
| > and thus will be open-source "librebootable" from the
| start, with no binary blobs.
|
| There's always going to be a small bootstrap ROM, to
| configure everything to the point where code can be loaded
| from the external flash; but other than that, I agree with
| you: I also hope that the bootstrap code, and the code which
| runs on these "monitor cores", will be open-source from the
| start.
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| There is already a Debian port available for RISC-V platforms
| including 99% of its packages: https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V
|
| IIRC even a port of Fedora Linux.
|
| So you could use it as a daily driver already -- unless you
| need a bit more computing power. A YouTuber made a nice video
| on how he edited a full episode on a RISC-V SoC using Kdenlive
| on Debian some time ago:
| https://youtu.be/7ke7d0iO_-0?si=-rjXdTxfYd_jLQuU
| topspin wrote:
| If you're worried that it won't just slot into your electronics
| ecosystem with zero friction then it's not for you. It's for a
| small cadre of early adopters that will suffer the papercuts
| and then cajole, shame and badger an even more minute group of
| firmware and kernel developers into making everything work.
| After enough of this has gone on you'll be able to safely get
| aboard.
|
| It's not pretty, or fair, but that's how it all actually works.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| This sounds really great, I hope that some day we will get an
| alternative to x86 that is not ARM.
|
| The new ARM processors like Snapdragon X elite and the M
| processors from apple sound promising, but I don't know what I
| should think about the company "ARM".
|
| Though what I find a bit weird is that this board only has 4
| cores, as this is intended for developers which probably need to
| compile many things which could benefit from more cores.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I think performance of that chip is maybe raspberry pi 3
| levels. I expect it will be painfully slow. Still cool as a
| technology demonstrator though
|
| Edit: looks like Jeff Geerling tested this same SOC in the
| vision 5, TLDR; slightly slower than a pi 3B+
|
| https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/risc-v-business-testi...
| SushiHippie wrote:
| > Still cool as a technology demonstrator though
|
| Yes that's for sure, and it's amazing that Framework created
| this, so people which already have a Framework 13 could
| easily swap their mainboard.
|
| But slower than a pi 3b+ is a bummer, I'm not the target
| audience for it, but I think this may be a show stopper for
| developers who want to port software to risc-v and use it for
| testing. Or at least it would not be a great experience
| (apart from all the other problems you'll have with a
| relatively "new" ISA like risc-v)
| gregwtmtno wrote:
| I have a Framework 13, and I'm excited about this. I've been
| looking forward to moving to RISC-V for years now. I'm one of
| those weirdos who is willing to pay more for less performance. I
| guess they know their customers.
| kibwen wrote:
| There are dozens of us! As far as I'm concerned, CPUs were Fast
| Enough as of 20 years ago, it's time to start shifting our
| priorities.
| vaylian wrote:
| I'm curious how battery life is. Please report back once you
| have done some field testing!
| roughly wrote:
| Hey, y'all weirdos are the ones who pave the way for the rest
| of us. I'm not going to buy this - I've got a large enough
| hobby project graveyard to know where I sit on the
| customer/nerd spectrum, but I'm stoked it exists. I like the
| idea of RISC-V, and the easier it is for people to develop on
| it, the closer it comes to being useable by upright apes like
| me.
| justin_kempton wrote:
| I also have a Framework 13! About a year ago or more I put out
| a request to get an ARM based processor. My reasons being the
| battery life on x86 are so weak, it almost defeats the mobility
| aspect of a laptop. I was using linux, and spent far too much
| time tweaking settings to get the longest battery life
| possible. When I compared this to a MBPro with the M1, which I
| use for work, it became nearly impossible to get my mind off of
| it.
|
| Arm processors are way better with battery. There are these new
| Snapdragon X Elite Laptops, which verify the better battery
| life. I think to be competitive with Apple, the battery life
| must improve.
|
| Also, the speakers are weak, likely due to none glued
| construction. I can live with that. Love how easy it is to swap
| stuff out. Screen is awesome, would love OLED if possible.
| Also, the bigger size 16, would better fit my needs.
|
| Currently that computer is sitting on a shelf. Very cool
| technology. Love Framework!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Odd, I've got a zenbook flip OLED and after some tweaking on
| Linux, I've been enjoying not thinking about battery life at
| all. I think on any modern device most of the power is
| consumed by the screen, which is not really a problem as much
| with OLED+linux (since the terminal background is black).
|
| That said, it is pretty rare for me to go more than 10 or so
| hours without any access to electricity.
|
| At the moment most of my power appears to be going to
| Bluetooth and wifi, which seems hard to blame on the
| instruction set.
| bogwog wrote:
| This is interesting, but it'll have a JH7110 and microsd for
| storage, so it's basically just a RISC-V SBC but in a Framework
| mainboard form-factor. SBCs with that specific processor seem to
| be pretty cheap, like the Milk-V Mars which is selling for around
| $40 currently.
|
| The idea of a RISC-V laptop sounds cool, but this feels like just
| grabbing a raspberry pi and sticking it in a laptop chasis. It
| doesn't seem like this is going to really offer anything new in
| this space other than maybe some increased visibility for RISC-V
| (esp. if Linus Tech Tips covers it), and a neat project/option
| for people with existing Framework parts.
|
| As far as development purposes, I don't see what this offers over
| an existing SBC or even just a VM. From what I've seen of people
| running Linux on these things, it is definitely not something
| you'd want to develop on... plus, it seems like DeepCompute sells
| their own RISC-V laptops which are (probably) more powerful than
| this thing: https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-
| riscv-laptop...
| pikminguy wrote:
| I think visibility is probably the primary goal which is not a
| bad thing.
|
| As for actual use the potential lies in the modularity. You
| could work primarily from an x86 laptop but swap the RISK-V
| board in for testing. And whichever board isn't currently in
| the laptop can be even be loaded into the small desktop shell
| Framework makes. If the price is right an existing Framework
| user could possibly get a RISC-V machine for less money than
| one of the dedicated laptops from DeepCompute without needing
| to buy another screen, keyboard, battery, etc and end up with a
| better build quality to boot.
| rbanffy wrote:
| What if, with the space you have for the motherboard, you add
| not one SoC but, say, seven, all connected through an in-PCB
| network. One has the external ports while all others are
| headless. A small cluster in the shape of a laptop.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This would be super cool. I don't know if it would have any
| actual use in industry. But it would be really neat for
| people learning MPI/cluster computing. He said, while waiting
| for a run to go through SLURM.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I've been thinking of doing something with Octavo parts,
| because my electronic design skills are totally obsolete
| now and they are simple to integrate. My idea is a board
| with 16 parts (for 32 cores) with red LEDs lining up one
| side mimicking a Thinking Machines CM-1 cube. Not a CM-1,
| but a lot of nodes if you join 16 boards per cube.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Are they selling a service of, like, building a multi-
| chip package where you pick the chiplets? That seems
| crazy futuristic.
| rbanffy wrote:
| No. They sell bundled parts where they integrate SoC,
| memory and passives so that you can just connect power
| lines, an SD card, and start running it.
| crote wrote:
| Putting that many nontrivial SoCs into a laptop-sized chassis
| isn't really possible - just look at how busy this single-SoC
| motherboard already is[0].
|
| It would make far more sense to go the traditional Raspberry
| Pi cluster way, either as discrete nodes[1],
| daughterboards[2], or as blades[3].
|
| [0]: https://deepcomputing.io/a-risc-v-world-first-
| independently-...
|
| [1]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/tutorials/cluster-raspberry-
| pi-t...
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecdm3oA-QdQ,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6zt8KeXFdA
|
| [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKDGlpnP-vE
| rbanffy wrote:
| I was thinking more like this [0] or [1] but laptop.
|
| [0] https://deskpi.com/products/deskpi-super6c-raspberry-
| pi-cm4-...
|
| [1] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Clusterboard
| bityard wrote:
| > like the Milk-V Mars which is selling for around $40
| currently.
|
| Or was, apparently? Seems to be out of stock and there's no
| restock or backorder date shown.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> it 's basically just a RISC-V SBC but in a Framework
| mainboard form-factor._
|
| As someone who's been looking for an excuse to get a Framework,
| I'm thrilled at the idea that if this doesn't pan out, I can
| just swap in a different mainboard and convert it to a full-
| featured x86 laptop, and then donate the RISC-V mainboard to
| the tinkerers at my local hackerspace (who are more than
| capable of 3D-printing a nice enclosure for it).
| speed_spread wrote:
| You don't even need to 3D print anything, just get the
| official mainboard enclosure
| https://frame.work/ca/en/products/cooler-master-mainboard-
| ca...
| gtirloni wrote:
| Going from a regular Framework mainboard with x86 to this
| RISC-V will be quite the drop in performance. It's really
| huge. You don't need to guess.
| Zambyte wrote:
| They didn't say anything about performance though?
| packetlost wrote:
| It's a chip that you could buy over 2 years ago. It's a
| JH7110 SoC which you can buy for like $40 in one of
| several SBC:
|
| https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/boards
|
| https://pine64.com/product-category/star64/
|
| https://milkv.io/mars
|
| I happen to have 2 of them and they're dog slow, pre-
| vector extension RISC-V. You cannot do much useful with
| them, they're slower than a Raspberry Pi 3.
| Zambyte wrote:
| I meant kibwen, not the OP.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Which says everything that needs to be said
| Zambyte wrote:
| I meant kibwen didn't say anything about performance, not
| the OP.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| > grabbing a raspberry pi and sticking it in a laptop chasis
|
| OT, but does something like that exist for the Pi 5? I actually
| loved the Pi 400 Desktop Kit (I hope they make one for the Pi
| 5!), and I saw quite a few laptop shells for the Pi 4, but I've
| not seen anything announced for the Pi 5 except for various
| ridiculous "desktop" cases (like the Pironman 5 that I've
| actually ordered).
| sitkack wrote:
| When the CM5 module comes out, your problems will be solved.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| Good point, the form factor of the regular isn't suited.
| But I do hope that someone will actually make a laptop
| shell for it.
| raunakchhatwal wrote:
| "From what I've seen of people running Linux on these things,
| it is definitely not something you'd want to develop on"
|
| Can you please elaborate? I'm a programmer with a linux
| framework laptop (NixOS specifically).
| theodric wrote:
| It's slow to the point of being outpaced by an ARM SBC from
| 2016, and it's not even current with today's RISC-V spec.
| This is a curiosity, nothing more, but it will still be far
| and away the nicest (but not the only!) RISC-V laptop. Give
| me a Pi CM5 + 16GB RAM Framework motherboard carrier and I'll
| get out my credit card.
|
| Benchmarks of the CPU in question:
| https://www.phoronix.com/review/visionfive2-riscv-
| benchmarks...
| aseipp wrote:
| The JH7110 is a multi-year-old SBC that is slower than a
| Raspberry Pi 3 is. It does not have many extensions for
| things people today take for granted (no hardware crypto for
| instance is in practice a massive loss.) So, if you're OK
| with that, then it will be fine. But most people probably
| aren't interested in making their expensive laptop perform
| worse than a 15-year-old device in every way.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Wonder if the price will be hundreds or thousands?
| nrp wrote:
| The Mainboard itself is going to be a lot more accessible than
| you (apparently) think! We'll have more to share on pricing as
| we progress with DeepComputing on the program.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Is it too late to suggest a cluster of JH7110's on a single
| board? Each SoC has 2 GbE interfaces, so it could even be two
| networks to make everything speedier.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| > it is focused primarily on enabling developers, tinkerers, and
| hobbyists to start testing and creating on RISC-V. The peripheral
| set and performance aren't yet competitive with our Intel and
| AMD-powered Framework Laptop Mainboards. This board also has
| soldered memory and uses MicroSD cards and eMMC for storage
|
| Not for me, but I will absolutely switch over to the first board
| that is consumer-focused, assuming it is competitive on
| performance and battery life.
| Arcuru wrote:
| The "first ever partner-developed Mainboard" is a huge win for
| Framework! Congrats!
| nrp wrote:
| This is definite validation of our product philosophy, and
| we're using this partnership to help develop documentation and
| processes to make it easier to support more partners in the
| future.
| skyyler wrote:
| It's pretty rad to see! I think my next laptop is going to
| have to be a Framework, once I can afford it ahaha
|
| This 2015 Macbook Pro is getting rather dated.
| coldpie wrote:
| I got an Intel 13 a few months ago, and I'm very happy with
| it (I'm using Arch Linux on it). I'm also happy to see news
| like this, other companies buying into the ecosystem.
|
| The only suggestion I'd make is to get the upgraded screen
| (sorry, even more expensive). The default screen is OK, but
| it has a fairly distracting "dot pattern" over it in
| certain lights that I wish wasn't there, and the lower
| resolution is tough to go back to after using high-dpi
| displays. I'll probably get the upgraded screen at some
| point, but it's tough to justify buying a new screen for a
| brand-new laptop. Wish it had been available when I bought
| it, but that's life sometimes :)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > once I can afford it ahaha
|
| The one downside to Framework is that they're nice laptops
| and (precisely because they're repairable and upgradable)
| they hold value really well... which means the second-hand
| market exists but isn't an easy way to score dirt cheap
| hardware. I can drop $200 on eBay and get a good thinkpad;
| I can't get any Framework anywhere close to that.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Eventually it should be possible to get the expensive
| components secondhand at good prices. It would be cool if
| Framework started selling a bare-bones kit where you
| could add your own mainboard, screen, etc. That should be
| possible to do now by buying parts individually, but I
| don't think it would be a good experience (or cost-
| effective).
|
| Framework does sell factory seconds for as low as $500
| right now, though they need a few more components to be
| functional.
| cge wrote:
| A potential problem for the used market is that, as
| people upgrade individual components, they are left with
| used individual components, which are potentially harder
| to sell than an entire laptop. And as, so far, the major
| component upgrades have been of the mainboards, it seems
| like there could be a glut of those, while it seems
| possible that a used chassis may never be easily
| available.
|
| As more component upgrades other than motherboards become
| available, however, it may be that a more useful used
| market could develop. And it may be that building a
| 'used' laptop may end up usually involving buying a few
| new parts. For example, having, over time, upgraded the
| top cover, hinges, mainboard, battery, wifi card, RAM,
| and SSD, if I upgrade the display and camera with the
| soon-to-be-available new modules, I think someone could
| build a full laptop with my old parts, a bottom cover
| kit, an input cover, and some fasteners; it may be that
| the bottom cover (and fasteners) are the only parts there
| that would need to be purchased new, as I expect other
| people have replaced input covers (some of my keycaps are
| starting to degrade, but they actually degrade rather
| gracefully)
|
| But still, this would be more complex than simply buying
| a used laptop, and would need a marketplace for all of
| those parts. I know there was some discussion from
| Framework hoping someday to facilitate a used component
| market; that seems like it would be challenging, but on
| the other hand, Framework seems to have been steadily,
| actually pursuing the goals they have laid out.
| weebull wrote:
| It's no different to desktops IMHO. The used market on
| parts is quite healthy.
| llm_trw wrote:
| I've bought three framework laptops.
|
| Please make more weird partnerships.
|
| I'd love to have a pen tablet color E-Ink screen with a
| mechanical keyboard on a 13 inch laptop.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| A laptop with an e-ink screen option would be totally neat
| for those of us that consume primarily text-based content
| Zambyte wrote:
| Have you seen the daylight computer yet? A a daylight
| display for framework would be super cool!
| camel-cdr wrote:
| Honestly, I'm not sure another JH7110 device is a good thing for
| RISC-V publicity. Couldn't they have waited another year? Since
| it's framework, there will be a decent bunch of people buying
| this, that will be very disappointed.
|
| > This Mainboard is extremely compelling, but we want to be clear
| that in this generation, it is focused primarily on enabling
| developers, tinkerers, and hobbyists to start testing and
| creating on RISC-V. The peripheral set and performance aren't yet
| competitive with our Intel and AMD-powered Framework Laptop
| Mainboards
|
| Good that they acknowledge it, but that is putting the
| performance difference very very lightly.
|
| > DeepComputing is demoing an early prototype of this Mainboard
| in a Framework Laptop 13 at the RISC-V Summit Europe next week,
| and we'll be sharing more as this program progresses.
|
| I'll definitely check it out.
| minetest2048 wrote:
| This makes me wonder, if I want to design my own Framework
| mainboard, where can I get the specs? What's the minimum viable
| connectors and peripherals?
| nrp wrote:
| We have a set of documentation on GitHub:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-13
|
| We're using this program with DeepComputing to help develop our
| Mainboard documentation further as well.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| I think you'll find it here:
|
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-13/tre...
| ravetcofx wrote:
| Do you have any experience in this? I've been wanting to work
| on an open board with someone that would use a pi or Nvidia
| Jetson compute module
| tsuru wrote:
| I'm not finding this in the tech specs so far... Does it support
| RVV? If so is its version post-1.0 or pre-1.0?
| camel-cdr wrote:
| It doesn't, it's the same SOC as in the VisionFive 2.
| cge wrote:
| While Framework's blog post and their marketplace don't have a
| photo of the mainboard, Deep Computing's press release [1] does.
| Given the "DC-ROMA" name for the mainboard from DC, and their DC-
| ROMA laptop (not DC-ROMA II) which seems to have similar specs, I
| would guess that this is essentially the mainboard of that
| laptop, in Framework form. For context on price, DC is selling
| the full laptop for $300.
|
| While it's a niche product, it is great to see other companies
| actually developing components for the Framework platform, and
| more, more diverse options for components starting to appear.
| Yes, as people point out, this product doesn't make much sense
| for many people, but it doesn't have to: part of the advantage of
| this platform is that components don't need to appeal to a wide
| customer base. We are also starting to see this now with the two
| screen options, the speakers (choice between louder or more
| accurate), etc.
|
| If, as it seems, this is going to be quite low cost, I might buy
| one just to play around with it. It would be easy to swap with my
| normal mainboard, and when not in laptop form, could go in a
| printed enclosure.
|
| Looking at the photo, it of course has no M.2 for storage, as
| mentioned in the blog post (nrp explains that choice on
| Framework's forum [3]), but does look like it has one for the
| wifi card; the microSD slot is also visible. It also seems to
| have quite a large fan and cooling arrangement for a JH7110,
| compared to other boards with it?
|
| Battery on the DC-ROMA appears to have been 48 Wh [2], so not
| enormously smaller than Framework's 61 Wh and 55 Wh options, and
| battery life may be comparable plus 15% - 25%.
|
| [1]: https://deepcomputing.io/a-risc-v-world-first-
| independently-...
|
| [2]:
| https://linustechtips.com/topic/1496701-world%E2%80%99s-firs...
|
| [3]: https://community.frame.work/t/introducing-a-new-risc-v-
| main...
| roughly wrote:
| > Yes, as people point out, this product doesn't make much
| sense for many people, but it doesn't have to: part of the
| advantage of this platform is that components don't need to
| appeal to a wide customer base.
|
| I feel like this has been the promise of the modern
| manufacturing era for so long, but it's felt like all the
| momentum's gone in the opposite direction - everyone chasing
| the most beige thing they can to try to get the largest market
| share. I'm excited to see more products and companies pushing
| against that trend, and it's part of what I really appreciate
| about Framework - their product is absolutely a niche product
| and will always be, and they're doing the hell out of it.
| nrp wrote:
| For context on the cooling system, it is absolutely overkill
| for the SoC, but to keep the project simple, DeepComputing is
| re-using the same heatsink and fan from our 11th Gen Intel Core
| Framework Laptop 13. This means that it should be able to run
| fairly quietly.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| I find it really surprising that SiFive doesn't come out with
| their own edition of this but with the latest cores, rather than
| a 3rd party with an old u74
| craftkiller wrote:
| Yes! This is absolutely the right move for SBC makers. It has
| always bothered me that SBCs are sold as entire laptops, which
| were often subpar because its hard to justify an expensive
| screen/keyboard/shell for a single cheap underpowered SBC. Then,
| when you move onto the next SBC, you end up with an entire laptop
| of e-waste instead of just a single motherboard. Framework has
| already done an excellent job creating the physical/human
| interface, so lets just replace the brains inside of it so I can
| keep using the same excellent matte screen, keyboard, and
| touchpad and have essentially the same user experience (but with
| different performance).
|
| Hopefully this board can also operate in stand-alone mode outside
| of the framework shell just like the official framework
| motherboards because then we'd get the best of both worlds while
| also being able to benefit from the coolermaster case.
| Regardless, I'm going to order one when it becomes available.
|
| Also stoked to see the open source CAD files for the shell.
| mikenew wrote:
| They mentioned that it will work in the little Cooler Master
| standalone enclosure, so we're good on that front.
|
| And I totally agree; this is the perfect way to try out
| something like this.
| bee_rider wrote:
| For a while, it didn't make sense to replace a CPU. Screens and
| hard drives were advancing around the same speed as CPUs (if
| not faster, the biggest advances in laptops until pretty
| recently were OLED screens and NVME drives).
|
| CPU competition picked up a while ago when AMD got their stuff
| together, but it takes time to turn the boat around, if it is
| actually turning.
|
| On the other hand we didn't see laptop CPU replacement as a
| really mainstream thing during the 90's/early 2000's era when
| things were really going crazy.
|
| On the other other hand, everybody knew desktop PCs were the
| way to go for performance back then, so tinkering with laptop
| performance would have been a somewhat odd thing to do.
|
| Hard to speculate about or even measure, because people who
| tinker with hardware are in a pretty small niche already.
| Neywiny wrote:
| I don't understand what you mean that SBCs are sold as entire
| laptops. SBC is Single Board Computer. Like a raspberry pi. A
| raspberry pi is not a laptop. If you just look up "RISC-V SBC"
| none of them are laptops. Is the intent that you want the SoC
| to be socketed and easily replaceable like AM4 Ryzen?
| ein0p wrote:
| I have a VisionFive2 board with the same SoC, and this is going
| to really disappoint if you expect laptop grade performance from
| it. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive for what it is (the fist
| such SoC that can comfortably and inexpensively run Linux), but
| in a laptop it will feel glacial, and there are quite a few bugs
| still in its Linux support. I guess they could clock it a bit
| higher, but there's only so much you can do to hide performance
| shortcomings here.
| bobim wrote:
| Any way to cram the 64 cores sku from the DeepComputing developer
| box into a laptop?
| ramenbytes wrote:
| Will schematics be available to repair shops for this mainboard
| too? I wonder if it being developed by a partner changes
| anything.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| I know there's quite a big community that buys almost purely old
| ThinkPads for their Coreboot support and lack of Intel ME/MSFT
| Pluton. Considering the processors in those chips are almost 20
| years old now, this RISC-V chip may actually offer comparable
| performance! Would be interesting to see if that groups
| gravitates towards this product.
| aseipp wrote:
| The JH7110 is a superscalar quad-core dual-issue design at
| 1.2GHz and has 2MB of L2 cache. The Core 2 Duo P8600 from late
| 2008 (around the same era you can buy Coreboot-able Thinkpads
| like my old X200) has dual 2.4GHz processors with 3MB of L2 on
| an OoO-superscalar design. It will probably lose handily, if I
| had to guess (strictly speaking, perf/watt may be better on the
| JH7110 due to newer manufacturing processes, but you're not
| using +15yo thinkpads if you care about that.)
| prettyStandard wrote:
| someday, frame.work is going to break my heart.
| topspin wrote:
| That's pretty cool. Kudos DeepComputing, Framework, et al.
|
| Tenstorrent is supposed to be delivering a "high-end" RISC-V CPU
| soon/this year... Don't know what it will look like, but one can
| dream: It's Jim Keller, after all. If RISC-V is going to blow up
| general purpose computing he'll probably be making the
| explosives.
|
| And then one can imagine a Framework mainboard running it.
|
| The DeepComputing launch page[1] reads: WORLD'S FIRST RISC-V
| LAPTOP _GATS_ A MASSIVE UPGRADE AND EQUIPS WITH UBUNTU
|
| Am I suffering a lingo mishap or is that a rather obvious typo?
|
| [1] https://deepcomputing.io/
| transpute wrote:
| Could a future variant of this motherboard include Xilinx or
| Lattice FPGAs? That would enable new board functions based on
| LiteX OSS FPGA toolchain.
|
| Similar to the AMD/Xilinx Zynq family of boards ($150 to $3K),
| https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/device-famil...
|
| Or Bunnie Huang's Precursor dev kit for RISC-V with handheld
| kb/display ($600), https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-
| kosagi/precursor
|
| _> Precursor draws less power than most other FPGAs thanks to
| the "-1L" variant Xilinx Spartan 7-Series at its heart. (The "L"
| stands for "low leakage.") That efficiency -- combined with a
| super-low-power Lattice iCE40 UP5K FPGA for deep-sleep system
| management and a Silicon Labs WF200 with integrated network co-
| processor for Wi-Fi connectivity -- allows Precursor to achieve a
| standby time measured in days and an active screen time of about
| five to six hours._
| crote wrote:
| Don't count on it. FPGAs are stupidly expensive, and those
| vendor-provided devboards are often sold below market price.
| Anything worth your time is stuck behind a proprietary
| toolchain. Besides, there just isn't all that much you can
| realistically _do_ with it. FPGAs shine at realtime processing
| of huge volumes of data, but you lack the necessary IO in a
| mobile form factor to do anything meaningful you couldn 't
| already do with a CPU or GPU.
|
| The Precursor is a neat device, but in the end it's essentially
| a toy. The entire concept hinges on emulating a SoC with the
| FPGA, but a real SoC can offer an order of magnitude more
| performance at a tenth the price. It only makes sense if your
| risk model is a chip vendor putting backdoors in the SoC - but
| at that point why would you trust the FPGA? It's just moving
| the goalposts, really.
| transpute wrote:
| _> why would you trust the FPGA?_
|
| AMD/Xilinx will use US-mainland TSMC fab for some FPGAs.
|
| _> you lack the necessary IO in a mobile form factor_
|
| Framework has pluggable I/O expansion modules.
| johndoe0815 wrote:
| This seems to be a better alternative: a complete 8-core RISC-V
| laptop with an M1 core by SpacemiT - similar performance to a
| Cortex A55 - starting at about $300 (8 GB RAM/64 GB eMMC,
| versions with 16 GB RAM and PCIe SSD are also available):
|
| https://arace.tech/products/muse-book-risc-v-laptop
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