Thursday, June 29th 2023
Banana Pi Announces BPI-R4 Open Source Router SBC With WiFi 7 and 5G Capabilities
Banana Pi recently released the specifications of their upcoming BPI-R4 router SBC with a host of new connectivity and features over the last generation BPI-R3. The new BPI-R4 adds dual 10GbE via the SFP ports, with a second board design offering 10GbE+2.5GbE instead, as well as a large daughterboard addon that enables 36 Gbps tri-band WiFi 7 and fits to a pair of mPCIE connectors on the bottom. There is also now support for 5G cellular via a M.2 B-Key port laid over the top of a trio of NanoSIM card slots. Enabling this improvement in connectivity is the updated MediaTek 'Filogic 880' MT7988A SoC which features four Cortex-A73 cores at 1.8 GHz as well as a host of dedicated improvements specifically tuned for high speed networking which combines most functions into the single SoC. Now instead of surrounding the main processor with a host of co-processing chips like the BPI-R3 did, the BPI-R4 simply surrounds the SoC with 8 GB of DDR4 and an 8 GB eMMC flash module. The remaining wireless logic now lives on the NIC daughterboard. The BPI-R4 does give up one of its gigabit RJ-45 ports despite the topside space savings, but reuses this empty space by offering an optional plug-in POE module, and both a 12 V power input as well as 20 V USB-PD with the added Type-C port.
Features retained from previous generations are the M.2 M-Key for SSD storage expansion, a microSD card slot, rear facing USB 3.2 Type-A, the bootstrap toggle switch, and 26-pin GPIO. The BPI-R4 retains roughly the same physical dimensions as the BPI-R3 except for the additional height from the WiFi 7 module which hugs the bottom of the main board when installed. The BPI-R4, like its predecessors, will support Debian Linux and OpenWRT at launch with images available on the Banana Pi wiki product page. Banana Pi hopes to launch the BPI-R4 by Q1 2024 and has yet to announce any pricing. Our hope is that pricing stays roughly in line with the BPI-R3 which launched at just shy of $90 USD. Given the swath of new technologies on the BPI-R4 it's a fair guess that it is going to be over the $100 mark.
Features retained from previous generations are the M.2 M-Key for SSD storage expansion, a microSD card slot, rear facing USB 3.2 Type-A, the bootstrap toggle switch, and 26-pin GPIO. The BPI-R4 retains roughly the same physical dimensions as the BPI-R3 except for the additional height from the WiFi 7 module which hugs the bottom of the main board when installed. The BPI-R4, like its predecessors, will support Debian Linux and OpenWRT at launch with images available on the Banana Pi wiki product page. Banana Pi hopes to launch the BPI-R4 by Q1 2024 and has yet to announce any pricing. Our hope is that pricing stays roughly in line with the BPI-R3 which launched at just shy of $90 USD. Given the swath of new technologies on the BPI-R4 it's a fair guess that it is going to be over the $100 mark.
39 Comments on Banana Pi Announces BPI-R4 Open Source Router SBC With WiFi 7 and 5G Capabilities
While I really like the R3 and currently use it as daily driver... it has some weird choices made, and this router has them even more, regarding PCB design and features. At least I hope they didn't gimp on proper CPU PMU on this one.
Messing with those SFP+ transceivers are a very expensive proposition, and I've read MANY reports of BASE-T transceivers having significantly less 'range' over 4p8c.
All I want is 10G over CAT6A (or better). No wi-fi. No Cellular. Just a friggin router I can configure and deploy for my SOHO LAN.
Edit: I don't want to get started but 10Gig routers that can actually handle such traffic with complex rules are quite expensive. That $100 mark is there for a reason.
I howevr like the option to put my own WiFi and 5G modems there.
Most 5G cells can do way over 1Gbps, let alone the WiFi. You could do lot of good with 2.5GbE ports!
I'd much rather have routers make the jump to all-port 2.5gbit, at an affordable rate. Something like a 2.5gbit version of the hEX with a heavily upgraded CPU, for at most $100.
Problem is, I just don't have any hope for 2.5gbps anytime soon, either. Intel's first NICs for that spec, didn't exactly inspire confidence in "widespread adoption". 10gbe OTOH has been around and reliable for 'ages' in-industry.Agreed, but.
If there's not financial incentives in it, ya can't expect companies to bother. -it used to allow for other companies and startups to 'fill that niche'. 'IDK what's going on' these days in corporate culture and investment strategies. I'd be happy w/ a company that was willing to tear-down retired 10gbE, and 'kit bash' it into/onto their own PCBs. (Kinda like those 'import x99, etc' boards that use salvaged server chipsets)
IMO, If they could give a decent warranty and provide actual documentation... At least, no one would be forgetting their name anytime soon.
But, if you just want a 10GbE home network, Mikrotik has some SFP+ only switches and you can get transceivers relatively cheap. By that I mean relative to the cost of putting 10GbE RJ45 ports into your PCs to begin with. CRS305-1G-4S+IN is $149, S+RJ10 transceiver is $69, and 10GbE RJ45 network cards for PCs start at what, $89?
That's why I'd rather have 2.5GbE gain widespread adoption first; there are actually chipsets coming out for that which use low power, and nearly all new PC motherboards come with them too. There's competition and there's a market.
Also keep in mind that at the cheaper end of the networking hardware, 100mbit RJ45 is still common.
Unless there's a consumer networking revolution I doubt we'll see much RJ45 10gb anytime soon. The power consumption is much higher than SFP and enterprise uses fiber for distances so SFP is just far more common. Even the router boxes now coming out of china that have 10gb are older Intel based SFP rather than RJ45.Simply not feasible due to the MediaTek platform only supporting 4x 1gb with the other two ports being either 10gb or 2.5gb.
I use two SFP to copper 2.5Gb transceivers, those are cheap and in the m.2 slot I have put an Intel 225v there, man that IC is a buggy piece of shit. Long story short, just disable any hw offloading and it becomes rock stable. You can use a pcie riser and put a dual NIC. It has two pcie lanes.
So I have 3 2.5Gb ports on BPI R3. It very overpowered router actually and software wise due to the fact that it is Mediatek, it is fine and pretty well maintained with working HW accelerations.
10Gbe is not really feasible for home price and energy wise.
There are no cheap Mediatek switches, so the multiport part is only gigabit. The high speed ports are just direct paths from the CPU, thus it does not need any added parts.
If only this board would put a proper angled pcie port like zima board and quit the monkey show pretending to make this board to be like NAS.
Truly, I'm getting sick and tired of that attitude everywhere.
Here's just a few things off the top of my head:
-Multiple systems w/ Gen3/4/5 NVMe/RAID drives.
-Imaging.
-Game Installs.
-Media transfers.
-(uncompressed, low-latency) KVM/Game Streaming
-On-Property WAN (fibre would be appropriate here)
I have at least 2 dual-RJ45 NICs. I don't think either cost me more than $40. I'd imagine If you got crafty with the 'reverse slot' cards, it could be even less $$.
I just would prefer to not have to pay for features I plan to remove (unless I have a re-purposing in mind for the removed component).
To get the features I desire, at a reasonable price... I'd happily deal with that (minimal) problem :p.
That doesn't include software development, which might cost as much again, if not more.
I'm sure it would be possible to do something around US$100-150 with at least 5 Gbps, now that Realtek is coming out with affordable PHYs, maybe an extra $50 for a pair of 10 Gbps copper ports.Most WiFi 7 routers seem to have support for two to four 10 Gbps ports. Costs are coming down and power usage isn't that bad.
Then again, it looks like 5 Gbps might be viable with Realtek's new chips, which consume just a tad more power than their 2.5 Gbps solution.
Or www.tp-link.com/my/business-networking/unmanaged-switch/tl-sx105/
Prices vary per region, but this one's half the price of the TPlinks online here in Au
Edimax GS-1005BE 5-Port 2.5 Gigabit Switch: Network Switches: Amazon.com.au
This ones got a shitty listingsince its "for use with wifi 6 AP" and it implies it has wifi6
Options exist, just go unmanaged and merge with existing network.
@Mussels
The couple 24-port switches I was looking at for ~$110-140 were not simple plug n play, or easily put into an unmanaged-like mode. IIRC, It looked like they are commonly 'that cheap' precisely because of the unfriendliness.
They have nothing remotely close to this particular offering.
For media transfers, getting above 110 MByte/sec will be exciting for an entire day, after that you realize you just launch the transfer and minimize it and do something else while it is running and won't even notice when it finishes. I'm speaking from experience.
Game streaming wouldn't even push a 100mbit connection.
The rest would not benefit from higher speed networks since they all depend on your internet, which is capped to 1gbit everywhere but a handful places in the globe. From the top of my head there is one ISP in Finland, Spain and Romania, plus who knows how many in South Korea and Japan, where you can get 10gbit lines. Or are you telling me you have an internet line faster than 1gbit?
And if you have multiple systems with gen3/4/5 NVMe drives in RAID, and expect to have them interconnected through a local network so you can transfer stuff between them faster, then you already have a setup in far excess of what most consumers require. You also most likely spent so much money on it that spending an extra $400 on a 2.5gbit or 10gbit switch wouldn't put a dent on your budget. Or do you just want a 10 gbit line so you can watch the speeds go vroom vroom on iperf3 benchmarks? Why do you even have multiple gen3/4/5 NVMe RAID setups, what do you do on them, do you make money out of editing uncompressed 4k videos?The fact that I do have a 10gbit home network. Trust me. It's overkill. If you would truly NEED one, you wouldn't be bitching about the enterprise prices on network equipment.