Banana Pi BPI-M4 Super: Raspberry Pi 5 rival launches with PCIe, 2.5GbE and up to 8GB RAM

Banana Pi has unveiled a new single-board computer called the BPI-M4 Super. The manufacturer is certainly not reinventing the device category, but the BPI-M4 Super should nevertheless be a high-performance option for various projects, such as those related to smart homes. However, the BPI-M4 Super can also be used as a more or less conventional desktop computer, as it offers a bunch of ports and connections. The Raspberry Pi 5 competitor is powered by a Rockchip RK3568B2 SoC, which has four Cortex-A55 cores with a clock frequency of 2GHz. Depending on the configuration, the SBC has either 2, 4 or 8GB of LPDDR4x memory on board. Moreover, the Banana Pi BPI-M4 Super has 32GB of eMMC mass storage, but upcoming model variants should also offer 8, 16 oder 64GB.

The SBC measures 3.62 x 2.44 x 0.57 inches and features two Ethernet ports, one of which has a higher bandwidth of up to 2.5 Gbps. Meanwhile, the HDMI 2.0 port supports video output with 4K resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. Two USB 2.0 ports are also available and can be used to connect accessories. Furthermore, the M.2 slot can accommodate full-sized SSDs and is connected via single PCIe 3.0 lane. The storage can also be expanded thanks to a microSD slot. WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 are supported as well, and the 40-pin header can be used for expansion boards designed for the Raspberry Pi  5, but compatibility with the BPI-M4 Super is not guaranteed. Lastly, Banana Pi has not revealed pricing or an exact release date thus far.