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The uConsole is open hardware, meaning it isn’t restricted to a specific chip or platform.
The Clockwork Pi team has worked incredibly hard to provide not just one or two Cores or compute chips. They have a total of four different cores! They provide this summary on their website, but what exactly are the differences between each one? We break them down for you in this article.
Picking a Core
CM4-based (Raspberry Pi 4)
A04 & A06 Cores
While the Raspberry Pi CM4 is indeed ARM64, there are some other non Raspberry Pi ARM cores available for the uConsole. Why would you want to go with these cores over the RPI?
That’s an excellent question, but one factor could be that the Raspberry Pi is not open hardware. In particular, the GPU (VideoCore) is somewhat notorious for being closed source.
There’s an interesting thread on the Clockwork forums that discusses the A04 and A06 cores, the A06 being the more popular option. The A04 is showing out of stock as of this writing on the Clockwork store, so it’s possible there are no immediate production plans for it right now.
In terms of software options, you will be far more limited with these cores.
A-06 Core module (ARM64-bit Dual-core Cortex-A72 + Quad-core Cortex-A53, Mali-T864, 4GB LPDDR4)
A-04
Core module (ARM64-bit Quad-core Cortex-A53, Mali-T720, 2GB DDR3)
(Out of Stock)
RISC V Core
uConsole R-01
(RISC-V 64bit Single-core RV64IMAFDCVU @ 1.0GHz, No GPU, 1GB DDR3)
If you want to go full on into RISC this may be an option, but keep in mind very few users have opted for this core. Most development has been on the CM4 and CM5 Raspberry Pi boards given the wide existing Pi ecosystem.
What about Pi 5?
CM5 is now available and is community supported on the uConsole. There are heat concerns but the performance is excellent. Have a look at the forums to decide if upgrading to CM5 is right for you.
Do you need the Cellular Expansion Card?
The only expansion option sold by ClockworkPi is the 4G Cellular board.
As of this writing, the cellular board can only be ordered as part of your device purchase, and is not sold separately, so keep this in mind in case you were hoping to pick one up later.
Be sure to checkout out our Accessories section to see what 3rd parties are up to with the expansion port!
Which Enclosure Color should I go with?
This one is personal and really up to you! Your options are matte black and matte silver.
The black model is sleek, while the silver option gives it a more vintage look, almost resembling an airline flight computer.
Personally I went with silver as it gives me a little more retro 90s PDA vibes, but the choice is yours!
What are the Shipping Impacts of my model choice?
We’ve heard that the black uConsole enclosure is a bit slower to arrive. I received by Silver CM4 based unit about 6 calendar months after ordering it in January of 2024.
While some feel that you might speed up your order delivery by skipping the CM module, that may no longer have as much an impact with improved lead times of the board.
