Announced Cubieboard 5 / Cubietruck Plus and HDD-RAID Shield

The cubeiboard team announced two interesting gizmos - cubietruck plus and HDD-RAID shield

Cubieboard5 / Cubietruck Plus

The Cubieboard team has announced a new updated version of Cubieboard 3 / Cubietruck, called Cubieboard 5 or Cubietruck Plus (to simplify, I will call it CB5 below).

Let's see what they did:

Comparison of versions 5 and 3

Cubieboard 5 / Cubeitruck Plus	Cubieboard 3 / cubeitruck
AllWinner SOC H8 , ARM Cortex-A7 Octa-Core, PowerVR SGX544 GPU @ up to 700MHz Supports OpenGL ES 2.0 / 1.1, OpenCL 1.1, DX 9_3	AllWinner SOC A20 , ARM Cortex-A7 Dual-Core, ARM Mali400 MP2 Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0 / 1.1
1GB / 2GB DDR3 @ 480MHz (960MTPS), 2GB Default	1GB / 2GB DDR3 @ 480MHz (960MTPS)
HDMI & DP 1080P @ 60Hz display output	HDMI & VGA 1080P @ 60Hz display output
100M / 1000M Ethernet RJ45	100M / 1000M Ethernet RJ45
Broadcom AP6330 Wifi + BT4.0 wireless connection with antenna on-board 1	Broadcom AP6210 Wifi + BT4.0 wireless connection with antenna on-board
SATA 2.0 interface support 2.5 'HDD, (for 3.5' HDD, need another 12V power input)	SATA 2.0 interface support 2.5 'HDD, (for 3.5' HDD, need another 12V power input)
Storage solution: NAND Flash + MicroSD card slot / TSD + MicroSD card slot / 2 * MicroSD card slot	Storage solution: NAND Flash + MicroSD card slot / TSD + MicroSD card slot / 2 * MicroSD card slot
2 x USB HOST, 1 x OTG, 1 x Toslink (SPDIF Optical), 1 x IR, 4 x LEDs, 1 Headphone, 3 x Keys	2 x USB HOST, 1 x OTG, 1 x Toslink (SPDIF Optical), 1 x IR, 4 x LEDs, 1 Headphone, 3 x Keys
Power ： DC5V @ 2.5A with HDD ， support Li-battery & Real Time Clock battery	Power ： DC5V @ 2.5A with HDD ， support Li-battery & Real Time Clock battery
70 extended pins including I2S, I2C, SPI, CVBS output, Low Resolution ADC x2, UART, PS2, PWMx2, TS / CSI, IRDA, LINEIN & FMIN & MICIN, TVIN analog video signal input x4 with 2.0mm pitch header pins	54 extended pins including I2S, I2C, SPI, CVBS output, Low Resolution ADC x2, UART, PS2, PWMx2, TS / CSI, IRDA, LINEIN & FMIN & MICIN, TVIN analog video signal input x4 with 2.0mm pitch header pins

As you can see, in general, the models are identical, there are changes but not revolutionary, but rather evolutionary.
Changes inside:

• Replaced Allwinner A20 (dual-core) with Allwinner H8 (eight-core), is it good or bad - you decide!
• Together with SoC, the video core also improved, it was Mali 400MP2, it became PowerVR SGX544, which should positively affect the performance of the entire video subsystem. Moreover, the manufacturer positions the SoC H8 as the basis for home entertainment centers.
• Updated Wi-Fi + BT chip was AP6210 became AP6330. 802.11a mode was added and, which is not indicated in the updates, but there is an AP6330 in the datasheet on the chip, there is an FM receiver. Now the radio will be easier)

Periphery:

• Video: Instead of VGA, we will now have DisplayPort. HDMI has not gone anywhere and now you can connect two monitors, though they will show the same picture
• Audio: Microphone input added to headphone jack
• Connection: instead of the 54-pin connector - now 70 pins. 54 pins compatible with CB3. Incompatible pins are placed on a separate connector

As for CB3, CB5 claims full support for Android 4.4.4 and Ubuntu Linaro 14.04 (as recalled in the comment for CB3 there is a problem with hardware video acceleration in linux, I hope this is overcome). But no one forbids using other distributions (for example www.armbian.com )

---

HDD-RAID + USB3 Shield

But that’s not all, because together with CB5, the manufacturer announced an HDD-RAID expansion card.

Through this card, you can connect an additional SATA disk and combine them into RAID (possible variations of RAID0, RAID1, JBOD, PM).
In fact, you connect two disks to this board and connect the shield and CB3 / CB5 with the mainboard wire (and yes, the manufacturer claims compatibility with Cubieboard3 / Cubietuck, which I, as the owner of CB3, am glad about.)
This board also carries a USB 3.0 connector , which also can not but rejoice.



PS I, as a user of cubieboard3, are very pleased that the manufacturer, after the release of cubieboard4, nevertheless returned to the true path and did not develop the line of boards without hardware SATA. Because in my opinion good without sata and so enough (all kinds of raspberries, oranges, etc.)

PPS Did you see the inaccuracy? Have a comment? Write! I will be glad to help.