Radxa Launches the ROCK 3 Model B, a Pico-ITX Single-Board Computer Offering Mid-Range Performance
Originally announced in 2021, this board launches with weaker specs than the ROCK 5B — but a much lower pricetag.
Embedded computing specialist Radxa has launched a lower-cost single-board computer (SBC) for those who want the convenience of a Raspberry Pi-style general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header but in a pico-ITX footprint compatible with small form factor (SFF) PC cases: the ROCK 3 Model B, or ROCK 3B.
Radxa's original ROCK 3 family was focused exclusively on offering an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, gently borrowing the familiar layout to offer a credit card footprint single-board computer with improved specifications. In 2021 the company pledged to build a modified version dubbed the ROCK 3B, which took the 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header of a Raspberry Pi and placed it on a Pico-ITX motherboard compatible with small-form-factor (SFF) PC cases — dubbing it "the perfect SBC form factor."
Now, the company has finally launched the device — though it comes at a time when many have moved from the ROCK 3 platform, and the Raspberry Pi 3 which inspired it, to the ROCK 4 and ROCK 5 successors. Specifications shared by Radxa, brought to our attention by CNX Software, show a board based on the Rockchip RK3568 system-on-chip offering four Arm Cortex-A55 cores running at up to 2GHz, an Arm Mali-G52 graphics processor, vision processing unit (VPU) with 4k60 H.264/H.265/VP9 decode and 1080p60 H.264/H.265 encode, and an neural processing unit (NPU) offering a claimed one tera-operations per second (TOPS) of INT8 compute and support for INT16, FP16, and BFP16 precision modes.
To this, Radxa has added a choice of 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 memory, a 4k60 HDMI 2.0 port, two MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) connectors offering one four-lane and one two-lane connections, an Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) connector, and a touch panel connector, a single MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI) input, two gigabit Ethernet ports one of which supports Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) with an optional accessory, two USB 2.0, two USB 3.0 ports, a ream-time clock, and microSD for storage with the option of an eMMC module — and three PCI Express M.2 slots, one M-key for NVMe storage, one M-key for Wi-Fi, and one B-key for cellular connectivity.
While there's a Raspberry Pi-style 40-pin GPIO header on the board, though, the layout is a lot bigger than its predecessors: it follows the Pico-ITX standard, at 100×75mm (around 3.94×2.95") — making it compatible, as promised back in 2021, with a range of third-party SFF PC housings. There's also an on-board real-time clock (RTC) with optional backup battery, an infrared receiver, on-board RGB LED, fan header for active cooling, and a 3.5mm analog audio jack.
The delay between announcement and launch, though, mean the board is easily outclassed by Radxa's own ROCK 5B — a device which uses the same Pico-ITX form factor but which use the considerably more powerful eight-core Rockchip RK3588 system-on-chip with an Arm Mali-G610 MC4 GPU and six TOPS NPU plus up to 16GB of RAM. Lower specifications, at least, mean a lower price: the 4GB version of the ROCK 3B is priced at just $55, a considerable discount over the same model of ROCK 5B.
More information is available on the Radxa website; the company has partnered with ALLNET China for the launch, with prices starting at $45 for the 2GB model or $59 for a version rated for an industrial-grade operating temperature range of -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F.)