Skip to content

Computers · single-board computer

SpacemiT K3

Hacker Approved

Fast enough for everyday desktop use, with RVA23 vector support and strong multi-core speed. Critics say it costs too much for what it delivers.

Summarized from 34 comments.

Fast enough for everyday desktop use, with RVA23 vector support and strong multi-core speed. Critics say it costs too much for what it delivers.

recommend
12
criticize
2
months recommended
8 of 13

Why people love it

  • Strong multi-core speed beats Pi · 5

    It's quite pleasant, and if I use all 16 cores (8x X100 and 8x A100) then it builds a Linux kernel almost 3x faster than my one year old Milk-V Megrez

    Feb 2026 · comment

    It's quite pleasant, and if I use all 16 cores then it builds a Linux kernel almost 3x faster than my one year old Milk-V Megrez

    Feb 2026 · comment

    It has single core performance about the same as a Pi 4 but with multi-core performance of more than double the Pi 4.

    Feb 2026 · comment
  • RVA23 and SIMD vector support · 4

    If you have a higher budget, I'd recommend the SpacemiT K3, which is the fist RISC-V SBC with RVA23 support.

    Jul 2026 · comment

    SpacemiT K3 based machines are probably your best bet when it comes to RISC-V processors with SIMD support

    Jul 2026 · comment

    The SpaceMIT K3 is exciting because it may still be the first RVA23 hardware

    Jan 2026 · comment
  • Fast enough for everyday computing · 4

    These won't be the fastest CPUs available, but they'll meet the "fast enough" criteria for many uses and users.

    Apr 2026 · comment

    They are quite close in feel for general use, web browsing, code editing, watching YouTube etc.

    May 2026 · comment

    dramatically faster than earlier chips, enough for most people's everyday computing needs

    Mar 2026 · comment
  • Much faster than K1 predecessor · 2

    in fact significantly faster than the previous generation K1 chip

    Jun 2026 · comment

    The SpacemiT K3 is 4 times faster than the K1 for example.

    Aug 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

Every quote

The 29 most detailed of 34 comments. Each links to the original.

  1. It's quite pleasant, and if I use all 16 cores (8x X100 and 8x A100) then it builds a Linux kernel almost 3x faster than my one year old Milk-V Megrez

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Jupiter 2 – RVA23-compliant SBC features SpacemiT K3 octa-core RISC-V AI SoC”

  2. It's quite pleasant, and if I use all 16 cores then it builds a Linux kernel almost 3x faster than my one year old Milk-V Megrez

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “RISC-V is coming along quite speedily: Milk-V Titan Mini-ITX 8-core board”

  3. It has single core performance about the same as a Pi 4 but with multi-core performance of more than double the Pi 4.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “RISC-V is coming along quite speedily: Milk-V Titan Mini-ITX 8-core board”

  4. These won't be the fastest CPUs available, but they'll meet the "fast enough" criteria for many uses and users.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Proton Meet Isn't What They Told You It Was”

  5. If you have a higher budget, I'd recommend the SpacemiT K3, which is the fist RISC-V SBC with RVA23 support.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Inevitable: State of the Union Keynote Argues”

  6. SpacemiT K3 based machines are probably your best bet when it comes to RISC-V processors with SIMD support

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Inevitable: State of the Union Keynote Argues”

  7. already faster than a Pi 4 and even substantially faster than a Pi 5 for multi-core and vector stuff

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"”

  8. They are quite close in feel for general use, web browsing, code editing, watching YouTube etc.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “RISC-V and Floating Point”

  9. dramatically faster than earlier chips, enough for most people's everyday computing needs

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “The RISE RISC-V Runners: free, native RISC-V CI on GitHub”

  10. The SpaceMIT K3 is exciting because it may still be the first RVA23 hardware

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “RISC-V is coming along quite speedily: Milk-V Titan Mini-ITX 8-core board”

  11. The K3 scores higher than a 2017 Macbook Air for multi-core on Geekbench 6.

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “RISC-V is coming along quite speedily: Milk-V Titan Mini-ITX 8-core board”

  12. seriously cool stuff coming like the SpacemiT K3 with 1024-bit vectors

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “AVX2 is slower than SSE2-4.x under Windows ARM emulation”

  13. in fact significantly faster than the previous generation K1 chip

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “The MilkV Jupiter 2/SpacemiT K3 (RISC-V vector compute)”

  14. The SpacemiT K3 is 4 times faster than the K1 for example.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"”

  15. fast enough for everyday desktop use

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Inevitable: State of the Union Keynote Argues”

  16. It is one of the most interesting developments for me hardware wise in the last decade, and I definitely want to show my support by buying one or more of the boards.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Sloooow”

  17. That new SpacemiT K3 chip which started shipping last month is certainly impressive.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “"RISC-V Is Now" – RISC-V Summit Europe 2026 (YouTube) [video]”

  18. If it were less expensive, the K3 would already be good enough for many people.

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “The RISE RISC-V Runners: free, native RISC-V CI on GitHub”

  19. We have one in house (as usual, cannot discuss benchmarks, but it's good)

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Sloooow”

  20. Look up the fab process node and die area of that chip, and think again.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Inevitable: State of the Union Keynote Argues”

  21. Even the SpacemiT K3 has better AI performance than an Apple Silicon M4.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Sloooow”

  22. even the K3 has faster AI than Apple Silicon or Qualcomm X Elite

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Sloooow”

  23. SpacemiT K3 is about the same performance as a Rockchip RK3588

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “RISC-V Is Sloooow”

  24. You buy a https://www.spacemit.com/products/keystone/k3 board.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “RISC-V and Floating Point”

  25. doing around 7 tok/s on 32B models while using 14W of power

    Recommends · Jun 2026

  26. It's an extra 40% of scalar processing power, for free.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “The MilkV Jupiter 2/SpacemiT K3 (RISC-V vector compute)”

  27. on some things the K3 wins from having lots of cores

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Initial Benchmarks of the SpacemiT K3 RVA23 RISC-V CPU with the K3 Pico-ITX”

  28. Kind of slow, but using only 14W of electricity

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork”

  29. The SpacemiT K3 is faster than QEMU.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “The RISE RISC-V Runners: free, native RISC-V CI on GitHub”

Counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, Nov 2025 to Nov 2026. How we count · Report a mistake