Another mini-computer board emerges, but this one allows for upgrading the memory and storage.
The Raspberry Pi was a magical innovation with its highly-compact form-factor, but what if you made it bigger in order to give the thing more flexibility? That’s exactly what Gigabyte has done with a new mini-computer board, the larger size of which grants the benefit of selecting your own memory and storage (and indeed potentially upgrading these components at a later date) .
Gigabyte has just revealed the specs of the GA-SBCAP3350, which has dimensions of 146 x 102mm (compared to the Raspberry Pi 3 at 85 x 56mm) , and it comes with an Intel Celeron N3350 processor (dual-core with a clock speed of 1.1GHz and Turbo to 2.4GHz, with integrated HD Graphics 500) . However, that CPU can’ t be changed.
But you are free to employ whatever (supported) memory stick you want in the single channel DDR3L SO-DIMM slot, up to a maximum of 8GB (the CPU can’ t cope with any more RAM than that) .
And you get a mini PCIe slot to fit your choice of mSATA SSD, with a second slot for a half-length Wi-Fi card.
Connectivity includes dual Gigabit Ethernet connectors and a pair of USB 3.0 ports, and there are a further four USB 2.0 ports available via internal USB headers (along with various other headers including SATA, LPT/GPIO, LVDS and serial port headers) .
For video output, you get a VGA port and HDMI, with the latter supporting 4K resolution at 30Hz.
Gigabyte also boasts that this miniature PC benefits from a 2X Copper PCB design and there’s a large aluminum heat spreader on the underside of the board, a combination that provides effective heat dissipation and better long-term reliability and lifespan.
While the company is pitching this board at commercial usage, looking at the full spec (and also considering that emphasis on reliability) , there’s certainly no reason why this won’ t make a great versatile board for the enthusiast computer tinkerer at home.
Unfortunately, there’s no confirmed launch date or price for the GA-SBCAP3350 just yet, but hopefully it’ ll hit the market soon enough, and we can see how much it costs compared to the other Raspberry Pi-alikes out there (which are plentiful in number these days) .
Via: Liliputing
