Banana Pi launches new Raspberry Pi alternative SBC with octa-core ARM CPU and plenty of connectivity
A brand new Raspberry Pi alternative is here, from the well-known brand Banana Pi. Although not yet available for purchase, the single-board computer (SBC) has been revealed fully, and is named the BPI-F5. Equipped with a pretty decent Allwinner SoC, the SBC also features an onboard NPU as well as dual gigabit Ethernet ports.
To be specific, the Banana Pi BPI-F5 is powered by the Allwinner T527 SoC featuring an octa-core setup consisting of Cortex-A55 cores, paired with 2 GB or 4 GB of LPDDR4X memory. The G57 MC1 iGPU handles graphics, and NPU capable of 2 TOPS (INT8) is also present for lightweight inferencing. Storage requirements are handled by eMMC storage, up to 32 GB. Expandable storage is thankfully present, courtesy of a microSD slot.
The SBC also features 40-pin GPIO header, which is definitely essential for an SBC, and the same goes for its dual MIPI CSI-2 (V1.1) for cameras. Plenty of other connectivity options are present as well, including dual USB 2.0 ports, a single USB 3.0 Type-C port, a USB-C PD port, M.2 B slot, as well as a SIM card slot. Networking requirements are taken care of by dual gigabit Ethernet ports, WiFi 6, as well as Bluetooth 5.3. Other notable features are as follows:
- HDMI 2.0b output, eDP 1.3, 4-lane MIPI DSI (Display Serial Interface)
- Support for Vulkan 1.1 to 1.3, OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.1, OpenCL 2.2
- RISC-V microcontroller unit at up to 200 MHz
- HiFi4 DSP
We do not have any pricing details regarding the Banana Pi BPI-F5 SBC as of this writing, although more details should seep out eventually. Folks on the lookout for an even smaller SBC should look for something like the Raspberry Pi Zero (currently $21.39 on Amazon).
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