This board has the StarFive JH7110 SoC. That processor has previously been in very low power single board computers like StarFive VisionFive 2 (2022) and Milk-V Mars (2023), a Raspberry Pi clone that can be bought for as low as $40. Its storage limitations (SD/eMMC rather than NVMe) show how much this isn’t meant for laptop use.
Very underpowered for a laptop too, even when considering this is intended for developers and doesn’t need to be remotely performance competitive. Consider that this has just 4 RV64GC cores, the cheapest Intel board options Framework offers are 12 cores (4P+8E), and any modern RISC-V core is far simpler with less area than even an Intel E core. These cores also lack the RISC-V vector instructions extension.
I’m considering it as a second laptop option, but I have a particular niche use case: I’m a developer who writes developer tools and is currently trying to ensure we have first-class RISC-V support.
It would, but I already have several dev boards I use in that configuration. What I’m looking for now is something I can take with me to use as a semi-daily driver so I can start reporting bugs in real world use cases.
Indeed I bought a Banana Pi BPI-F3 with SpacemiT K1 8 core RISC-V chip,4G RAM and 16G eMMC https://www.banana-pi.org/en/banana-pi-sbcs/175.html for €95.89 including delivery. The form factor is nice though and I do enjoy Framework mission and partnerships. Depends what people need it for, good to have more options than aren’t “just” SBC/devboards. I won’t buy one now but I’ll definitely keep it in mind.
I bought a Milk-V Mars (4GB version) last year. Pi-like form factor and price seemed like an easy pick for dipping my toes into RISC-V development, and I paid US$49 plus shipping at the time. There’s an 8GB version too but that was out of stock when I ordered.
If I wanted to spend more I’d personally prefer to put that budget toward a higher core system (for faster compile times) before any laptop parts, as either HDMI+USB or VNC would be plenty sufficient even if I did need to work on GUI things.
Other RISC-V laptops already are cheaper and with higher performance than this would be with Framework’s shell+screen+battery, so I’m not sure what need this fills. If you intend to use the board in an alternate case without laptop parts you might as well buy an SBC instead.
This board has the StarFive JH7110 SoC. That processor has previously been in very low power single board computers like StarFive VisionFive 2 (2022) and Milk-V Mars (2023), a Raspberry Pi clone that can be bought for as low as $40. Its storage limitations (SD/eMMC rather than NVMe) show how much this isn’t meant for laptop use.
Very underpowered for a laptop too, even when considering this is intended for developers and doesn’t need to be remotely performance competitive. Consider that this has just 4 RV64GC cores, the cheapest Intel board options Framework offers are 12 cores (4P+8E), and any modern RISC-V core is far simpler with less area than even an Intel E core. These cores also lack the RISC-V vector instructions extension.
Pine64 also has the Star64 as will, in 4GB and 8GB for $70 and $90 respectively. They’re not exactly hard to find.
If I was developing for RISC-V, I’d buy one of those SBCs, not a Framework laptop. But it’s cool that it exists, I suppose.
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I guess? But why would you swap to RISC-V from their x86 boards? It’ll be slower and less compatible.
I can see it for devs, but they’re going to want a separate laptop or an SBC, they’re not going to be swapping mainboards on the regular.
I’m considering it as a second laptop option, but I have a particular niche use case: I’m a developer who writes developer tools and is currently trying to ensure we have first-class RISC-V support.
This is probably what I’ll go for if I buy in the next month though: https://liliputing.com/dc-roma-laptop-ii-packs-an-octa-core-risc-v-processor-16gb-of-ram-and-ubuntu-linux/
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It would, but I already have several dev boards I use in that configuration. What I’m looking for now is something I can take with me to use as a semi-daily driver so I can start reporting bugs in real world use cases.
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Indeed I bought a Banana Pi BPI-F3 with SpacemiT K1 8 core RISC-V chip,4G RAM and 16G eMMC https://www.banana-pi.org/en/banana-pi-sbcs/175.html for €95.89 including delivery. The form factor is nice though and I do enjoy Framework mission and partnerships. Depends what people need it for, good to have more options than aren’t “just” SBC/devboards. I won’t buy one now but I’ll definitely keep it in mind.
Yup, I’m happy that it exists, I’m just not personality interested.
I bought a Milk-V Mars (4GB version) last year. Pi-like form factor and price seemed like an easy pick for dipping my toes into RISC-V development, and I paid US$49 plus shipping at the time. There’s an 8GB version too but that was out of stock when I ordered.
If I wanted to spend more I’d personally prefer to put that budget toward a higher core system (for faster compile times) before any laptop parts, as either HDMI+USB or VNC would be plenty sufficient even if I did need to work on GUI things.
Other RISC-V laptops already are cheaper and with higher performance than this would be with Framework’s shell+screen+battery, so I’m not sure what need this fills. If you intend to use the board in an alternate case without laptop parts you might as well buy an SBC instead.
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