PINE64's Star64, Its First High-Performance RISC-V Single-Board Computer Design, Finally Launches

PINE64 has announced that its Star64 single-board computer (SBC) has, after a series of delays, finally reached readiness — and is now available to order.

The Star64 was formally unveiled back in July last year, based on the same StarFive JH7110 system-on-chip (SOC) as the VisionFive 2. By the time prototypes were ready to show off in August, PINE64 was hoping to begin shipping "in a few weeks time" — but December brought news of a delay "due to various external reasons."

Whatever those reasons may have been, they appear to have been resolved. The Star64 has launched in variants with 4GB of RAM and one with 8GB of RAM. Other than the memory capacities, the two models are identical and match the previously-announced specifications: four SiFive U74 64-bit RISC-V cores running at up to 1.5GHz, an Imagination BXE-2-32 graphics processing unit, and two gigabit Ethernet ports — with a cost-reduced single-port model still planned for the future but not yet ready for release.

Elsewhere on the single-board computer is a single HDMI video output, four Display Serial Interface (DSI) and four Camera Serial Interface (CSI) lanes, an I2C connector for a touchscreen panel, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, a native USB 3.0 port, three shared USB 2.0 ports, general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins with I2C, SPI, and UART buses, and a single-lane PCI Express slot with an open-ended connector for optional add-in cards. For storage, there's a microSD Cart slot plus support for an optional eMMC module up to 128GB.

What you won't get in the bundle, however, is a power supply. PINE64 recommends a 12V 3A supply, or 5A if you plan to use a power-hungry add-in board, with a 5.5mm outer diameter 2.1mm inner diameter barrel jack connector.

The board is available on the PINE64 store in $69.99 4GB and $89.99 8GB variants now.