Radxa CM3: An SBC that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 ecosystem

Radxa has introduced the CM3, a single-board computer (SBC) in the style of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4). Accordingly, the Radxa CM3 measures 55 x 40 mm x 4.7 mm and is compatible with existing CM4 accessories. While the CM4 is more powerful than the Radxa CM3 in some ways, Radxa claims that the latter has some advantages over the former.

Specifically, the Radxa CM3 contains a Rockchip RK3566, an SoC with four ARM Cortex-A55 cores that can boost to 2.0 GHz. The SBC supports up to LPDDR4-3200 RAM and 128 GB of eMMC flash storage, too. On the face of it, the CM4 has the processor-performance edge over the Radxa CM3, while the CM3 supports higher capacity eMMC flash storage.

Additionally, the Radxa CM3 has a peak eMMC bandwidth of 250 MBytes/s, compared to the 100 MBytes/s that the CM4 offers. Likewise, the Radxa supports dual SATA ports, eDP (4K60), 8x UART and 8x PWM channels. Also, the SBC has a neural network engine with up to 0.8 TOPS of performance, along with 50 GPIO pins.

Radxa has manufactured carrier boards for the CM3 as well, despite its CM4 compatibility. Radxa expects to sell the CM3 for between US$25 and US$90, depending on the memory configuration chosen. The company is yet to announce a release date, but you can apply for a free beta hardware kit on its Github page.

Purchase the Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) on Amazon