Rock Pi 4C Takes on Raspberry Pi 4 With Dual 4K, 1440p Monitor Support

Radxa announced during the XDC 2019 conference yesterday that it will ship its Rock Pi 4C single-board computer by the end of October. The new version of the device is based on the 4B model that debuted in November 2018 but adds support for two displays connected via Mini DisplayPort. The computer can support up to one 4K monitor and one 1440p resolution monitor with each running at 60 Hz refresh rates.

Supporting multiple displays is supposed to help the Rock Pi 4C appeal to gamers, Radxa said in its announcement, noting help from the Panfrost driver project that adds support for Arm's Mali GPUs to Linux. We doubt anyone will consider the Rock Pi 4C as their primary gaming PC, but it might intrigue makers looking to build a device that's cheap but also able to run games at somewhat acceptable levels.

The muti-display falls short of matching the capabilities of the Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi 4 is the first Raspberry Pi to support dual monitors. The Pi 4 can support up to two 4K monitors at 30 Hz each, or one 4K and one 1080p monitor at 60 Hz each. 

The Rock Pi 4C was also given a new memory configuration. Rather than offering 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of LPDDR4-3200 memory, the new model will only be available with 4GB of LPDDR4 via a single 64-bit stick. According to the vendor, this is "for better manufacturing and quality assurance." Radxa said the new model is otherwise identical to its predecessor, meaning it features an RK3399 system-on-a-chip and doesn't have any storage included out of the box.

The Rock Pi 4C also offers support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 compatibility and two USB 3.0 buses. Radxa said it won't change the new model's price, so it will cost $75, and it expects to start shipping the Rock Pi 4C "by the end of this month." The company also updated its website with more information about the Rock Pi X--its first x86-based single-board computer--which leaked in mid-September.