ASUS today announced the all-new Tinker Board 2 series, Arm®- based, embedded single-board computers (SBCs) that pack serious performance into a package that’s barely bigger than a credit card — making them the ideal platform for makers, IoT enthusiasts and hobbyists to bring their tinkering ideas to life.
Ultimate CPU and GPU performance for IoT devices
Powered by Arm 6-core system on a chip (SoC), with the new 64-bit Armv8 architecture — the Rockchip RK3399 — Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S offer significantly improved performance compared to other popular SBC boards.
The new Tinker Board 2 series also features Arm big.LITTLE™ technology, which is a heterogeneous processing architecture that pairs two very different processors together in a single SoC. The big.LITTLE software automates task allocation, ensuring the right CPU core for each process. The upshot is that Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S deliver 1.5X more performance than the original Tinker Board and are significantly faster than many competing SBCs.
For serious graphics grunt, the Tinker Board 2 series includes Mali-T860 — a multi-core GPU that is the highest performance model built on Arm’s Midgard architecture. Specifically, Mali-T860 is designed for complex graphics use cases, and offers full support for OpenGL ES 3.0/3.1, OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL and other frameworks for next-generation and legacy 2D/3D graphics applications. Compared to the original Tinker Board, Tinker Board 2’s Mali-T860 GPU accelerates graphics performance by up to 28%.
Pro-grade admin with ASUS IoT Cloud Console and firmware-over-the-air updates
The new Tinker Board 2 models can be controlled by ASUS IoT Cloud Console (AICC) 1 a unified platform for managing and analyzing big data collected by IoT devices running different operating systems. This provides a one-stop shop for quick troubleshooting, remote restart or updates and a simple dashboard for monitoring and analysis. Firmware-over-the-air (FOTA)2 roll-out is also supported, enabling embedded systems developed using Tinker Board 2 or 2S to be updated remotely with the latest Android firmware, operating system and drivers.
Rich connectivity and support for dual displays at up to 4K UHD resolution
With HDMI, DisplayPort over USB-C and DSI all integrated Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S offer superb display flexibility and include the ability to support dual displays at up to 4K UHD resolution for compelling visual output. 1 Support for AICC is expected to be ready by the end of November 2020. 2 Support for FOTA is expected to be ready by the end of January 2021.
The new boards are also stacked in the connectivity department. Both USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C ports are onboard, along with WiFi 5 and 2x2 dual-band 2.4/5 GHz antennas to deliver wireless transfer speeds that are up to 10X faster than previous WiFi standards. Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S also benefit from latest Bluetooth 5.0 technology built in, so for transfer speeds that are up to 2X faster and with up to 4X-greater range. Integrated Bluetooth also opens up the convenience and freedom of wireless connectivity with a wide range of devices, including speakers, headphones and game controllers. Tinker Board 2S additionally offers a microSD card slot on the underside of the PCB.
Easy setup tool and monitoring for perfect operation
Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S include a flexible setup tool to help tune every aspect of the system, enabling users to tweak performance settings to perfectly match the task at hand. This includes the ability to set the maximum and minimum frequencies for both the CPU and GPU, and a monitoring panel for keeping an eye on these key stats during operation.
Support for Android 10
Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S are engineered to run Android 103 opening up the tinkering world to a raft of exciting and interesting features that aren’t unavailable on some competing SBCs.
AVAILABILITY & PRICING
ASUS Tinker Board 2 and Tinker Board 2S will be available in the UK soon. Please contact your local ASUS representative for further information.
