Turing RK1 RK3588 Compute Module is compatible with the Turing Pi 2 Cluster computer

The Turing Pi 2 is a cluster computer board that lets you pair up to four compute modules to create a small, fanless, and low-power system with up to 32 processor cores and 128GB of RAM.

First launched last summer through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign last summer, the Turing Pi 2 is now available for purchase for $259. But in order to actually use the board, you’ll also need one or more compute modules. While the system is compatible with modules including the Raspberry Pi CM4 and several NVIDIA Jetson boards, the makers of the board also promised to deliver a Turing RK1 board with a Rockchip RK3588 processor. Now the company has revealed more details about the Turing RK1, which should be available for purchase soon.

The Turing RK1 is basically a computer-on-a-module complete with a processor, memory, and storage. But it doesn’t have any full-sized ports of its own. Instead it’s designed to plug into the Turing Pi 2 or other compatible carrier boards like a stick of RAM.

Each RK1 modules measures about 70 x 45 x 1.3mm and features a Rockchip RK3588 processor with 4 Cortex-A76 CPU cores, 4 Cortex-A55 cores, Mali-G610 graphics, a neural processing unit with up to 6 TOPS of AI performance and a video processing unit that can handle 8K video decoding.

The module features 16GB of eMMC 5.1 storage and support for up to 32GB of LPDDR4x or LPDDR5 memory. Each board has 4 lanes of PCIe Gen 3 support as well as support for HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 output.

While Turing Pi hasn’t announced when you’ll be able to buy one yet, the company has revealed how much the modules will cost:

• RK1 with 8GB RAM for $110
• RK1 with 16GB RAM for $160
• RK1 with 32GB FAM for $210

Folks interested in picking one up can enter an email address to be notified when they go on sale.

Keep in mind that the compute modules themselves aren’t particularly useful without a carrier board, so you’ll probably want to add $259 for the Turing Pi 2 to those prices… plus double, triple, or quadruple the price of a module if you want to use them as part of a multi-board cluster.

Use four RK1 boards with the Turing Pi 2, for example, and you’ve effectively got a 32-core computer with 128GB of RAM and low power consumption (each RK1 board uses around 7 watts, although adding the Turing Pi 2 and peripherals will drive up the total power usage.

Or you could mix and match modules: the Turing Pi 2 cluster board doesn’t lock you into using the same board. So you could use a Raspberry Pi Compute Module, NVIDIA Jetson module, and RK1 module as part of your cluster to take advantage of each board’s different characteristics.

The Turing Pi 2 cluster board itself has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two mini PCI Express slots, four M.2 2280 ports, two SATA III ports, multiple USB ports, an HDMI port, a 40-pin GPIO header, and a SIM card slot, among other features.

via LinuxGizmos