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Intel challenges Raspberry Pi with Joule 550x SoC

The Joule 550x is a powerful single-board computer, but comes at a high premium. (Source: NewEgg)
The Joule 550x is a powerful single-board computer, but comes at a high premium. (Source: NewEgg)
Intel has released its powerful single-board Joule 550x computer to compete with the Raspberry Pi 3, but resellers are wildly inflating its already high price.

Intel's Joule 550x single-board computer has just started shipping through third party retailers. The Joule 550x seeks to challenge the dominance of the Raspberry Pi 3 with its superior specs—but at up to ten times the price, that may be an uphill battle.

Intel's Joule 550x developer kit is probably the most powerful single-board computer targeted for consumers. It comes with a 1.5 GHz Quad-Core CPU, 3GB LPDDR4 RAM, 8GB eMMC storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and a fair assortment of ports. The main advantages the Joule has over the Pi is that it runs a faster x86 Atom-based CPU and has three times the RAM. However, with resellers NewEgg and Mouser selling for kit for US$291 and US$349 respectively, it's hard to see it as anything but overpriced. Intel's MSRP is US$149-159. 

The Joule can be used as a personal PC or for IoT devices, but PCWorld suspects that Intel is banking on businesses using its single-board computers to automate specific enterprise-scale tasks.

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Douglas Black, 2016-12-20 (Update: 2021-09-28)