As promised, Libre Computer’s latest single-board computer is up for pre-order through a crowdfunding campaign.
You can reserve a Renegade Elite for a pledge of $99 at Indiegogo and if everything goes according to plan, the tiny computer board with a Rockchip RK3399 processor should ship in September. The price includes a case, and Libre Computer says after the crowdfunding campaign concludes, the retail price will jump to $129.
The Libre Computer Renegade Elite looks a bit like a Raspberry Pi, but this little computer has a more powerful processor, more memory, and a few other features to help set it apart, including two USB 3.0 Type-C ports.
The Rockchip RK3399 processor that powers this little computer is a 6-core CPU with two ARM Cortex-A72 CPU cores, four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores, and quad-core ARM Mali-T860 graphics. It’s the same chip that powers some recent Chromebooks including the Samsung Chromebook Plus, Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA and Acer Chromebook Tab 10 (although the Chromebook version of the chip is called an OP1 processor instead of an RK3399 chip for reasons that I’m pretty sure are mostly related to branding).
The Renegade Elite has 4GB of RAM, a microSD card slot and an eMMC 5.x interface for storage, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Etherenet, and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports in addition to the USB Type-C ports (one of which is used to supply power to the board).
It has an IR receiver, a 60-pin PCIe header, and a 60-pin low speed header and a 60 pin low speed header. There’s also a space for an RTC battery.
Libre computer says the system can run Android 8.1 or GNU/Linux distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and OpenSUSE.
The HDMI 2.0 port supports 4K output, as do the two USB-C ports, allowing you to connect multiple displays. So while the Renegade Elite is clearly aimed at makers/hackers it could also be used to an XBMC media center or be put to use for other jobs around the house that require a small, low-power PC with a faster processor and more RAM than a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.
The board measures about 4.7″ x 2.8″ x 0.5″.
via CNX-Software
What’s with the weird PCIe header? Are they gonna release a riser for this?
RockPro64 has a normal open ended x4 slot…
I’m in for one.