A new compute module has been unveiled by the engineers at banana piwho have released the few renderings of the new BPI-CM4 compute module board to compete with the likes of the Raspberry Pi CM4. Designed as a specific replacement to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, the small form factor mini PC features plenty of power and features a Quad core Arm Cortex-A73 and dual core Arm Cortex-A53 CPU compared to the RPi CM4 which features a BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 (Arm v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz.
Graphical power is provided by an Arm G52 MP4(6EE) GPU on the Banana Pi BPI-CM4 compared to a Broadcom VideoCore VI on the Pi. The BPI-CM4 is available with either two or 4 GB of RAM and storage is available from 16 to 120GB of eMMC. Other features of the Banana Pi BPI-CM4 compute module include 1 x 4K HDMI output (via carrier board), Wi-Fi 5 and 6 options, Gigabit ethernet via the carrier board and One interface expansion via carrier board.
Banana Pi BPI-CM4 compute module
The team at Tom’s Hardware explain a little more about the two boards and the comparisons.
“Physical compatibility is not the be-all and end-all. To use the hardware, we need software, and the BPI CM4 may physically interface with Pi hardware; the same cannot be said for software. Raspberry Pi OS only runs on Raspberry Pi boards. The only exception is a version of the OS developed for older x86 devices. So what can we use with the BPI-CM4? It’s possible Banana Pi will reuse its existing Linux and Android images, or create new ones to take advantage of the hardware. Looking through the wiki for the older Banana Pi BPI-M5 we can see that there are official OS images for various Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian and Raspbian (note that Raspbian is now very different to Raspberry Pi OS) and an Android release. Third-party images cover more Linux distros, mainly those developed to create appliances or to fulfill a certain task.”
sources : Tom’s hardware : lilliputing
Filed Under: Gadget News
