Banana Pi BPI-R4 Wifi 7 Module design

You will not be able to use hardware acceleration on this combination.

The mcpie connections used here are using 2 lanes each (not standard pinout). Any adapter you find pcie to mpcie will only be 1 lane. So theoretically you will not reach full speed.

Also looking the price of 2 special adapters and the price of a R4 main board…

isnt it possible to connect the two adaptors in different connectors? like this image (low budget edit please dont judge me) EDIT: i know we can connect the PCIe X1 to an PCIe X16

The mpcie to pcie adapters only have 1 lane.The wifi card uses 2 x 2 lanes. It may (or may not) work only using 2 x 1 lanes, who knows… But definitely slower.

Also hardware offloading wifi to lan cannot be done (if you want to use it) on the x86. All through the cpu then.

Probably also all lan to lan traffic will go through cpu on your x86. While on R4 it will go through the dsa switch, without bothering the cpu too much. Even routed wan to lan should be able to be hardware offloaded (hw-nat)

All that and considering that 2 mpcie adapters is already half the price of a R4 board.

ARM chip on R4 can even compete with a modern high speed x86? Hmm very much doubt it.

ASIARF now offers complete solution…

Yes:

let @a_human to learn lesson by his own experience - things will work, just not as perfect as they could. you can dig hole with hands or with shovel , both ways works :slight_smile:

some input after tinkering a bit with the board: I was surprised how good HW NAT offloading works on bpi-r4(maybe because I first time have some hands on it). 0 CPU usage with full 1Gbit traffic in any direction, no interrupts on CPU are generated and low latency - if compared with x86 system with intel CPU and enabled P-states. 3 port LAN switch also works very well from latency perspective ~0,100ms ping between 2 hosts (same as dedicated network switch with ASICs)

I have hope that WiFi chip will integrate also quite nicely in whole picture with all offloading futures.

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Your question is not sensical when spoken out of context.

A PC as router/WiFi AP running 24/7 consumes much more power than a router board like R4.

Powerful Xeon PCs are usually deployed as a router for 100Gbps+ aggregated traffics 24/7.

For home/SOHO use, it’s a dumb idea to use a dedicated PC for routing. There are nerds out there using virtual machine as a router. That’s because they’re already running electricity guzzlers for their ginormous storage server or whatever ‘homelab fantasy’.

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Haven’t looked seriously into the WiFi modules until now. Is the module in the following photo the final design of its version? Will it fit in the official R4 case ?!

Yeah, although you can pay for and purchase it, AsiaRF won’t ship the product and will refund you instead (after a few weeks) - they don’t post this info publicly anywhere :man_shrugging: Rather annoying, honestly; product should not be listed for purchase - I would not attempt to order from them.

Yeah that’s pretty bad…

haven’t you watched ghostbusters? b33cb3975, when someone asks you if you are a company, say YES :smiley:

for anyone not knowing ghost busters and that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCe5vfQx50c :wink:

When I clicked on AsiaRF’s purchase “router board + wifi 7 module”, it brought me to their homepage. Also the graphic of “router board” is b/w drawing. All indicate it’s not available for purchase.

What surprised me is their estimated price, such as combo would price at $500. I guess they’re targeting enterprise applications.

The business practice is understandable. Personally I think nothing dubious. Because there are way more problematic practices (both in America & Asia). I would suggest remove the email screenshots but summarise the status in a short paragraph instead.

When I clicked on AsiaRF’s purchase “router board + wifi 7 module”, it brought me to their homepage. Also the graphic of “router board” is b/w drawing. All indicate it’s not available for purchase.

Yes, their site is seemingly built by someone in their teens/twenties, lacking VanillaJS familiarity - it requires a few hoops to be jumped through in order to navigate through the haphazardly assembled ~10mb pile of framework spaghetti acting as a sales funnel. At the moment, I can see that it is still possible to get the product into a cart and through the checkout flow - that said, you’ll still be up against documentation requirements that may come up when importing an uncertified radiocommunication device for corporate use (and providing details that will pass a basic sniff check like confirming your incorporation can pass basic verification/due diligence. Personally, I’m not looking to be a viable target of attempted corporate espionage - happy using my QCNCM865 based wifi 7 ap on 6.10-rc1).

What surprised me is their estimated price, such as combo would price at $500.

Precisely $713.27 after conversion.

I would suggest remove the email screenshots but summarise the status in a short paragraph instead.

5 sentences (with 3 questions and their answers) is already the equivalent of a short paragraph - it is better to have the exact context and wording that was used, rather than a (probably hallucinated, based on your request for brevity) condensation. Rather, your response could have been your desired summary/interpretation.

While you covered your own arse, I disagree that AsiaRF deserved your public ‘shaming’ and exposing staff identity.

exposing staff identity

Come on - AsiaRF Co., Ltd. | LinkedIn :

deserved your public ‘shaming’

If transparency into what happens when someone places an order with a company is shaming them, then perhaps their processes are shameful? Someone shouldn’t need to spend ~$700 for a listed product, be informed that their order has been received + is valid + will be shipped out, before being asked for additional information under the guise of providing better service, then be refused service + not refunded for multiple weeks based on honestly answering with otherwise entirely innocuous details.

Hello,

I do not want anger with someone, but this this is the “BPI-R4 Wifi 7 Module design” - chat.

The Asia RF WiFi 7 Modul has its own chat!:

It would be nice to hear from all of you with your comments about the modul there :wink:.

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I very much doubt that there is another smartass dedicated so much time to jump through the loop hole and placed an order. Perhaps in the process you got irritated by the time you wasted? Let it go. Do the honour while covering your own ass, cover the staff identity at least. Grow up, young man

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Some time has passed, how are things going with the wifi 7 module with 14 antennas?

i guess those will not arrive before end of the year, if at all. the current 6-antenna-cards are already sold, the new batch is coming in about 6 weeks. and all this is still in testing. if you are familiar with debian: “its done when its done”.