RISC-V SBC VisionFive 2 Officially Shipped

https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/new_details/976

by britneybitch • 4 years ago

144 103 4 years ago

starfivetech.com

PaulHoule• 4 years ago

I am waiting to get mine.

kfihihc3• 4 years ago

SDK：https://github.com/starfive-tech/VisionFive2

Docs: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/visionfive_2.html

progbits2• 4 years ago

Looks pretty good opensource-wise, right? Some linux fork with ton of patches but hopefully most of that will get upstreamed, and except that I found no weird blobs or proprietary crap.

kfihihc3• 4 years ago

I think it will push to upstream ASAP.

simcop23872• 4 years ago

I haven't looked at the v2 but they seemed to be doing an alright job at getting things upstreamed with the v1. the only thing i remember seeing that wasn't very good in that regard was the neural net stuff that they had and that seemed more from just issues getting the hardware working than any nda or lack of desire to do it. I'd hope that the v2 is similarly worked through even if it needs some non-upstream patches at the start just because it's new hardware and it takes time.

swetland3• 4 years ago

Still no sign of an actual Technical Reference Manual or any other detailed documentation on the SoC (registers, peripherals, etc). A big pile of Linux patches, while better than nothing, is a poor substitute for actual documentation.

SiFive does provide docs for the core complex (processors, cache, irq controller, etc), but that doesn't cover any SoC-specific peripherals.

_joel2• 4 years ago

Explaining Computers "StarFive VisionFive 2 RISC-V SBC review, including a demo of an engineering release of Debian, and of Python GPIO control"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKnc86UtXg

geerlingguy2• 4 years ago

It's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in software' is an achievement for an SBC. But I do applaud StarFive for actually seeming to throw some support behind their boards.

We have been spoiled with Raspberry Pi the past few years prior to the shortages. I wish another vendor could get close to Pi's position to give more competition in terms of support and documentation.

phkahler• 4 years ago

> it's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in software' is an achievement for an SBC

Yeah, but with an OS and MMU you don't get to just write to a port or other registers. The plumbing has to be in place.

mikerg87• 4 years ago

We should remind ourselves that Raspberry Pis are in abundance, just not in the hobbyist channel. Current situation is not unlike the graphics card shortage when crypto miners were on garaunteed purchase contracts

This board has so much going for it. The native M.2 is a highly desireable feature. The only knock is the lack of wifi/bluetooth which can at least be solved with a dongle.

philliphaydon• 4 years ago

I don’t know much about this stuff. But Khadas has some stuff. They provide quite a lot of docs. Even cad model so you can design cases for their stuff.

I just got an Edge 2. Damn so much faster than my pi4. The downside is I think it’s hard/impossible to get an OS on it other than the ones they provide. ubuntu/android.

sargun• 4 years ago

Does anyone know if this SBC contains RISC-V Worldguard capabilities (https://www.sifive.com/technology/shield-soc-security)? I've been looking for a RISC-V SBC with a way to protect asymmetric keys. The new ESP32 has a dedicated key storage.

The SoC docs indicate: • 512 × 32-bit (2 KB) of OTP for key data on-die storage

But, that sounds like it's for the likes of secureboot.

aseipp• 4 years ago

No, and there aren't any (public) cores deployed with Worldguard support that I'm aware of, at least none with user-controllable software, nor am I aware of any alternative implementations to Worldguard e.g. FPGA designs for prototyping. Seems like a fairly involved product.

If you just want some kind of trusted key storage/signing inside a secure enclave style design, to keep things secure from the OS/hypervisor, something like Keystone may be more your speed. It largely just re-uses the existing M-mode privilege level to enforce separation from the OS and userspace stack. It isn't 1-to-1 with Worldguard, but it's a start, and in theory you can "just" patch the SBI implementation to support it: http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting-Started/H...

Anything implemented today is probably going to be missing some key features of a complete stack, but the parts are all mostly there, and still moving.

psychphysic2• 4 years ago

I received mine weeks ago.

There are several desktop images but various issues reported from no display output, to only 1080p supported. To this image or that one working.

Important note, the later images require an updated to uboot and SPL, either with the bootrom or a serial connection.

It's a mess at the moment!

andrekandre2• 4 years ago

  > It's a mess at the moment!

yea, thats for sure, but i think a lot of promise too...

from my cursory testing it seems gui performance is much better than hifive unmatched (window manager, apps, web browser)

[edit] add geekbench

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...

fathyb2• 4 years ago

1 Processor, 1 Core, 4 Threads

Any idea why StarFive went with this choice for an SBC? I remember POWER7 also having 4 SMT, but it felt right for a superscalar multi-core CPU.

tw1984• 4 years ago

sadly, just half of the speed of the 3 years old raspberry PI 4 ...

NoNameHaveI• 4 years ago

Likewise. I believe mine arrived about the 29th. Haven't broke the shrink wrap yet.

Klasiaster2• 4 years ago

Does is have UEFI boot support? I guess through u-boot?

snvzz23• 4 years ago

AIUI it doesn't, but there's nothing in the way of it, other than some board-specific porting work.

I believe by the standard boot process, opensbi would jump into uefi instead of u-boot.

smoldesu• 4 years ago

Hah, reminds me of my disappointment with the original Pi. Here's hoping they sort it out as fast as they did for ARM!

bhouston• 4 years ago

Any performance comparisons with Raspberry Pi boards? How does this RISC-V CPU stack up against them?

pmw• 4 years ago

Not great; VisionFive appears to be significantly less performant.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...

CUViper• 4 years ago

There are a few where it does win though -- I wonder what characteristics favor VisionFive in those?

viraptor• 4 years ago

We're still in the early days of risc-v availability. Arm has been widely deployed and the compilers optimised by both individuals and companies. I expect this comparison to look better in a year (not better than rpi4, just a smaller gap)

andrekandre2• 4 years ago

afaict rbpi cpu has vector instructions?

if so, i wonder how much that contributes to the difference...?

snvzz23• 4 years ago

U74-MC performance is not an unknown, and they can do much better than that.

Of course, there's a lot of software factors holding it back, such as quality or lack of drivers.

Benchmarks will be worth re-running in a few months, once some level of ecosystem is in place.

rjsw• 4 years ago

A board that you can buy will perform better than one that is unavailable.

chris_overseas• 4 years ago

For what it's worth, I managed to get an RPi4 at retail price within a few days by setting the appropriate filters on https://rpilocator.com and keeping a watch on it with an Android app called "Web Alert". I've used the same trick to buy out-of-stock cameras and laptops too, works a treat.

_joel2• 4 years ago

Faster than a 3 but slower than a 4 by raw clock speed but ymmv with real world usage

bullen6• 4 years ago

CPU slower than 4 as said, but even Jetson Nano is slower that the mad performance per watt of the 4.

BUT the GPU is apparently better which would make this THE SBC.

I will test my 3D MMO engine and give exactly what is what once I receive mine, should be a couple of days.

The Raspberry GPU has a serious cache problem, it can't render a triangle at 60FPS in 1080p!!!

But 100 non-instanced animated characters (each with a unique weapon in hand) at 60FPS and low res (800x600).

Jetson (1/2 Nintendo Switch GPU) does 300 at 60 FPS in 1080p.

If the Visionfive 2 is either:

  - 100+ at 60 FPS and 1080p
  - 200+ at 60 FPS and 800x600

I'm going ALL IN on Risc-V (my own VM for scripting the engine) and StarFive (buy a few to use as demo for the MMO instead of Raspberry 4/Jetson Nano).

snvzz23• 4 years ago

the mad performance per watt of the 4.

More like bad than mad.

This SoC is far more efficient, using just 4.4w on full load and achieving some 80% of rpi4's cpu performance at a much lower power, with no need for a heatsink.

davidlt• 4 years ago

Upstreasming status: https://rvspace.org/en/new-page/JH7110_Upstream_Plan

StarFive Tech. have been upstreaming on kernel, OpenSBI and U-Boot from several weeks now. Of course this is still weeks/months away (if not more, for all the features) from landing in stable releases. Even more for distributions to pick those up.

Klasiaster2• 4 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230111211739/https://rvspace.o...

kfihihc3• 4 years ago

New: https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan

snvzz23• 4 years ago

Their date format not being the standard yyyy-mm-dd gets on my nerves.

bullen6• 4 years ago

HN is tanking the RVSpace forum too.

Just go here and buy one instead: https://www.waveshare.com/visionfive2.htm?sku=23875

rahen2• 4 years ago

How well are Linux and the BSDs supported?

sacnoradhq3• 4 years ago

Not this board, but a $$ RISC-V from Xilinx's PolarFire does:

- Yocto Linux BSP

- Buildroot Linux BSP

- Embedded Linux from Siemens Embedded

- FreeBSD (coming soon)

https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/syst...

LargoLasskhyfv• 4 years ago

Polarfire FPGAs are not Xilinx! Which means you can't use things like https://f4pga.readthedocs.io ATM, or tools from Xilinx. Instead being chained to whichever proprietary stuff Microchip decides to deliver for dealing with the FPGA-part.

I've looked at the board, and don't see the appeal in price, for only mediocre CPU-parts, not enough RAM, altough good enough I/O-options. Makes no sense if you don't want to meddle with FPGAs, and just look for a fast SBC with Risc-V.

To me, at least.

snvzz23• 4 years ago

Linux works somewhat, with some duct taped drivers.

Freebsd boots, but that's it.

Of course, as this board is the first large production run, decent spec'd and reasonably compliant <$100 RISC-V SBC, this is expected to improve quickly as they reach developers and quickstart the ecosystem. That's the true intent of this board.

This is an order of magnitude more boards than accumulated RISC-V development boards distributed to date.

rahen2• 4 years ago

Interesting. I see that NetBSD can now boot on riscv also:

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-riscv/

UltraViolence• 4 years ago

Don't buy from this company. They can't even keep their website up from the strain of a few HN readers.

synergy204• 4 years ago

I have a sifive "unmatched" board sitting here collecting dust, cost me $700 then.

Most projects turned out ARM based after I bought it.

The site is not working, any price of this board? What's its market, e.g. ip camera? I'm still interested in lower cost ready to go risc-v boards.

m00x• 4 years ago

Any reason why it's collecting dust? I have a few RISC-V boards and I haven't had any issues with them other than having to compile almost everything from source.

synergy204• 4 years ago

mainly because my projects are now all arm

the fan on unmatched was screaming loud, i bought a quiet one and it worked well.

gurjeet3• 4 years ago

I’m looking to buy these boards; recently I bought one on eBay. I plan on using them to add to FOSS projects’ buildfarms. The first one I got from eBay is now running Postgres buildfarm.

Please let me know if you’re interested in selling me yours.

synergy204• 4 years ago

yes since it is no longer needed for my projects.

dkjaudyeqooe• 4 years ago

$55/$65/$85 for 2GB, 4GB, 8GB plus shipping

tracker1• 4 years ago

Amazon pricing is inflated... best to buy from one of the other sources listed on the main site.

rwmj2• 4 years ago

The Unmatched board is great, a real workhorse for building Fedora packages. It was very expensive at release (as was Unleashed) because of the small run, so we hope the VF2 with better performance far lower price will drive more adoption.

MisterTea3• 4 years ago

Where is the CPU hardware manual that tells me the CPU's memory map and registers?

This is why so much hardware ends up in landfills. No thanks to undocumented junk.

swetland3• 4 years ago

The CPU itself (Core Complex, including cache, irq controller, etc) is documented by SiFive:

https://www.sifive.com/cores/u74-mc

Unfortunately there appears to be no detailed documentation at all (unless you count a pile of Linux and bootloader patches, which I don't) for the peripherals, etc, outside of the core complex on the SoC:

https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/jh7110.html

MisterTea3• 4 years ago

unless you count a pile of Linux and bootloader patches, which I don't

This is what drives me crazy. Vendor claims "open source" which means an outdated linux image and the source code is wrapped up inside of a megalith build monstrosity like penguintronix or yocto. Utter junk these things are.

jacooper• 4 years ago

Good luck using it with docker, many images don't support ARM, let alone RISC-V

sacnoradhq3• 4 years ago

~ 10% $ of Xilinx demo boards.

Curious: Is there a "Ferrari" general RISC-V ISA shorthand or CPU implementation with more extensions including Q B V K H & S ?

mouse_• 4 years ago

Imagination Technologies GPU = no thanks

If your only sell is open hardware, I'm going to wait until the hardware is open to waste my time with it.

snvzz23• 4 years ago

Don't let your out of date[0] knowledge of imatech hold you back.

0. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Open-Source-PowerVR-Vulkan

moloch-hai5• 4 years ago

Do we know what instruction-set profile it implements? Any?

snvzz23• 4 years ago

I understand it's RV64GCB + a few Z extensions.

As RVA22 is not done (although almost there), we can't know whether it's compliant, but we will once it is. Expectation is yes.

Otherwise, most stuff out there will be RVA20 compliant once that's ratified, as that reflects what was already common back in chips designed in 2020, what most have been calling RV64GC.

moloch-hai5• 4 years ago

Thank you. Guessing the Z extensions are AES operations? Supervisor ops?

zu2_3• 4 years ago

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 hart : 2 isa : rv64imafdc mmu : sv39 uarch : sifive,u74-mc

moloch-hai5• 4 years ago

Any clue on Zbb? Zk* and Zbk*?

Can you do regular Linux without S?

RISC-V SBC VisionFive 2 Officially Shipped

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