AAEON, a global leader in embedded computing, has released the EPIC-RPS9, the latest addition to its 4″ EPIC Board portfolio, and the smallest SBC to support up to 65W socket-type CPU from the 13th Generation Intel Core Processor platform.
The board is compatible with i3, i5, i7, and i9 CPUs from both the 12th Generation and 13th Generation Intel Core lines, ranging from 35W ~ 65W, which offer up to 24 cores and 32 threads of performance alongside a number of the newest Intel technologies. While all three of the EPIC-RPS9’s SKUs are 12th/13th Gen Intel Core CPU agnostic, they are differentiated by their chipsets, with models equipped with Intel R680E, Q670E, or H610E chipsets available.
The board offers up to 64GB of high-speed DDR5 memory via two dual-channel SODIMM slots, with the Intel R680E SKU supporting ECC. This speed will certainly come in useful given the EPIC-RPS9’s high-speed interfaces, which include a total of four LAN ports, three of which run at 2.5GbE. Enhancing this is real-time performance via Intel Time Coordinated Computing on the board’s Intel R680E SKU, making it particularly suited to running applications that rely on time-sensitive task execution.
For internal connectors, AAEON’s intention to direct this towards the industrial sphere is clear, with the board armed with two COM connectors for RS-232/422/485, an 8-bit GPIO, and SMBus. I2C function is also available when running Windows 10, rather than Ubuntu, and can be changed by BOM.
The EPIC-RPS9 is equipped with a 6-pin DC power connector to provide adequate power budget when it is paired with a 65W CPU, an addition that AAEON have said is to match the potential maximum peak requirement for optimum CPU performance.
Storage comes in the form of a 2.5” HDD for SATA 6Gb/s, as well as an M.2 2280 M-Key (PCIe 4.0 [x4]) for NVMe, along with the choice of using its PCIe 4.0 [x8] slot for additional SSD storage with RAID support. The EPIC-RPS9’s PCIe 4.0 [x8] slot is incredibly versatile, given the board’s extremely high processing capacity, facilitating the integration of AI accelerator modules or graphic capture cards. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi and 4G/5G expansion are available via the EPIC-RPS9’s M.2 3052 B-Key and M.2 2230 E-Key, while there is also an FPC connector (PCIe 3.0 [x2]) for further expansion available.
The EPIC-RPS9 is tailored more towards industrial use, rather than markets such as digital signage or kiosk applications. However, it nonetheless has a well-rounded selection of display interfaces, including HDMI 2.0 and eDP 1.4, both offering 4K at 60Hz, alongside VGA for 1920 x 1080 display resolution.
