PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
ASUS’ all-new Tinker Board 2 series, Arm-based, embedded single-board computers (SBCs) pack high performance into a package that’s barely bigger than a credit card — making them the ideal platform for makers, IoT enthusiasts and hobbyists.
Powered by Arm 6-core system on a chip (SoC), with the new 64-bit Armv8 architecture — the Rockchip RK3399 — Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S offer significantly improved performance compared to other popular SBC boards.
The new Tinker Board 2 series also features Arm big.LITTLE technology, which is a heterogeneous processing architecture that pairs two very different processors together in a single SoC. The big.LITTLE software automates task allocation, ensuring the right CPU core for each process. The upshot is that Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S deliver 1.5X more performance than the original Tinker Board and are significantly faster than many competing SBCs.
For serious graphics grunt, the Tinker Board 2 series includes Mali-T860 — a multi-core GPU that is the highest performance model built on Arm’s Midgard architecture. Specifically, Mali-T860 is designed for complex graphics use cases, and offers full support for OpenGL ES 3.0/3.1, OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL and other frameworks for next-generation and legacy 2D/3D graphics applications. Compared to the original Tinker Board, Tinker Board 2’s Mali-T860 GPU accelerates graphics performance by up to 28%.
Pro-grade admin with ASUS IoT Cloud Console and firmware-over-the-air updates
The new Tinker Board 2 models can be controlled by ASUS IoT Cloud Console (AICC)1 a unified platform for managing and analyzing big data collected by IoT devices running different operating systems. This provides a one-stop shop for quick troubleshooting, remote restart or updates and a simple dashboard for monitoring and analysis.
Firmware-over-the-air (FOTA)2 roll-out is also supported, enabling embedded systems developed using Tinker Board 2 or 2S to be updated remotely with the latest Android firmware, operating system and drivers.
Connectivity and support for dual displays at up to 4K UHD resolution
With HDMI, DisplayPort over USB-C and DSI all integrated Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S offer superb display flexibility and include the ability to support dual displays at up to 4K UHD resolution for compelling visual output.
Read the latest edition of PCR’s monthly magazine below:
Like this content? Sign up for the free PCR Daily Digest email service to get the latest tech news straight to your inbox. You can also follow PCR on Twitter and Facebook.
