Chinese chip maker Rockchip started talking about the RK3588 octa-core processor more than two years ago, but due to a series of delays it has yet to actually ship.
That could change soon. The company shared detailed specs and benchmark results for its highest-performance processor to date during the 2021 Rockchip Developer Conference. And at least two companies are planning to launch single-board computers with RK3588 processors in 2022.
The RK3588 processor’s feature set includes:
- 4 x ARM Cortex-A76 CPU cores at up to 2.6 GHz
- 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores at up to 1.8 GHz
- ARM Mali-G610 MP4 graphics
- NPU (neural processing unit) with up to 6 TOPS of AI performance
- Support for up to 8K/60Hz video decoding
- Support for PCIe 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1, and dual Gigabit Ethernet
While those specs won’t be enough to make this processor competitive with the latest ARM-based flagship chips from Qualcomm or MediaTek, the new chip should offer a major performance boost over older Rockchip processors like the popular RK3399, a hexa-core chip found in a number of older Chromebooks, single-board, computers, and and even some laptops like the PineBook Pro low-cost Linux laptop.
In benchmarks provided to CNX-Software, the RK3588 offers a 2.7X single-core performance boost in Geekbench 4, and a 3.4X improvement in multi-core performance. It also offers up to 6X the graphics performance.
According to Pine64’s Lukasz Erecinski, the new chip brings “entry-level desktop-class ARM CPU performance and plenty of IO options,” and it’s likely that upcoming single-board computers and other products from Pine64 could use the new chip. The upcoming Radxa Rock 5 Model B is also expected to use the RK3588 processor.
You can find more details about the RK3588 processor at CNX-Software, including the full 35-page datasheet and a roundup of key details.
These systems are not used as mobile devices, why not ditch or reduce the efficiency cores for more performance ones?
Some SBCs using just the performance cores would probably appear in the future, like maybe a Raspberry Pi 5 with four A76 cores, but it probably won’t use a Rockchip processor…
Check out https://ameridroid.com/products/rock5-model-b for more details
WiFi6E, nice!