LattePanda Announces Sigma, a 'Hackable Single Board Server'

I still like the Odroid stuff - Even the most expensive version(1) is still a lot cheaper then most other stuff ($165) That gets you:<p>1. Quad-Core Processor Jasper Lake N6005 2Ghz&#x2F;3.3Ghz boost<p>2. Up to 64GB Dual-channel DDR4 PC4-23400 with 2 SO-Dimm Slots<p>3. 2 x 2.5Ghz Ethernet<p>4. SATA-3&#x2F;HDMI 2.0&#x2F;DP 1.2<p>5. Intel onboard GPU<p>I have multiple of the predecessors (H2) and LOVE them. Kitting out a node with 16G and a cheap Sata SSD puts you around $250. They&#x27;re fast enough to run multiple USB cameras for OctoPrint. I believe if you check the forums, they can run windows as well, but I&#x27;ve never tried. And they are totally silent!!<p>1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hardkernel.com&#x2F;shop&#x2F;odroid-h3-plus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hardkernel.com&#x2F;shop&#x2F;odroid-h3-plus&#x2F;</a><p>edit: formatting

Aside from the dual NICs and dual m.2 slots, with no out of band management and no ECC memory this just seems more like a NUC to me.

I&#x27;d love a NUC-performance single board computer with proper GPIO+SPI+I2C to use for prototyping projects in place of slower ARM64 SBCs, and at first glance, this looks like that. But reading the description, the GPIO isn&#x27;t memory-mapped on the real CPU, but is exiled on the wrong side of a horrible microcontroller bottleneck. :(<p>From time to time, I search around for something like a PCI-express card to expose a bunch of 3.3V GPIO, SPI and I2C lines, but all I&#x27;ve been able to turn up expose old-fashioned 5V logic levels, no SPI&#x2F;I2C, and at distinctly &#x27;industrial&#x27; price points.

Basically a NUC with no case. I guess 3D printing your own case is the &quot;hackable&quot; part.

I wish there was something similarly affordable that came with ECC ram.

James Hamilton of AWS fame touched on this in 2022 (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zfjFHa5wY0E">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zfjFHa5wY0E</a>). He has a thesis that servers will move towards single board PCBs similar to how mobile devices. This feels like the first step in that direction so look forward to seeing what&#x27;s next.

I am working on a project which needs lots of RAM. It is just a search engine which needs lots of RAM to provide quick responses. I was planning to stack such boards and have a cluster so I can horizontally scale the search engine. Are there any recommendations for such boards which support lots of RAM. The only things that the board needs to support are a low-med end CPU such as i3, RAM (more the better), one SSD and an ethernet (100Mbit should be enough). Ideally I am planning to have a lots of such cheap boards and cluster them.

I feel like most SBC servers should have ARM or RISC-V CPUs these days. x86&#x27; primary advantage right now is proprietary graphics hardware, of which a server ought to have none. I&#x27;m not implying this isn&#x27;t an issue on SBCs also, just that x86 probably isn&#x27;t particularly advantageous for SBC servers.<p>This would be cool if it had new Intel ARC graphics that could encode av1 (av1 live server for everyone coooool! wow could be super next-gen!), but unfortunately it doesn&#x27;t have that, just old intel integrated graphics. Bummer. Probably sticking with Odroid stuff like mech422 said.

Would be nice if the regulator sets the competition rules such that IBM&#x27;s open POWER architecture is available in the market at this price point and packaging for comparison to Raspberry Pi 4, and re-packaging with car battery size casing for industrial use. Traffic light control boxes have multiplied over the years on the streets going against the trend of miniaturization of parts for control and storage density. Opportunity for innovation or reinvention.

Seems rather expensive for an x86 with an i5.

How does this compare to a Beelink or a Minisforum NUC with similar specs?<p>How about a framework board since both share the board form factor?

But it&#x27;s not as &quot;hackable&quot; as &quot;hipsterable&quot; if you can say so (and you can, of course).

I just bought a couple of the predecessor (Delta 3) boards last week. One interesting thing about LattePanda boards is that they are among the cheapest, most direct ways to run Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise IoT with a legitimate license.<p>Booting up a LattePanda board is a real breath of fresh air, compared to the thermonuclear tire fire that retail Windows has become. As far as I can tell you lose absolutely no functionality with LTSC IoT.