Orange Pi 5: Excellent RK3588S Octa Core SBC

[@Chris.Wiley.]

Thanks for demonstrating the difference between the RK3588 and RK3588S. That is very helpful!

[@ExplainingComputers]

I thought it was worth highlighting, as they are often equated . . .

[@mctt]

14:08 NVMe Speed difference is substantial. (For anyone else who just want the answer).

[@m8hackr60]

Agreed, definitely above and beyond the call of duty.

[@ThePantygun]

Cut to the NPU testing. @@ExplainingComputers

[@ectonomics]

Mine came with Android pre-installed and now I'm struggling to use the tools to install Linux from a Windows which doesn't detect the mask ROM I've seen a lot of orange pie fives when I Google search them I hear a lot of talks about an m.2 slot which I'm completely lost and I can't find a way to boot into SD or USB I was expecting it to operate like a raspberry pi but since I can't figure it out I might toss this one in the trash I can't even locate the drivers when I look it up on the internet I get other models but not mine and the information isn't very explanatory

[@anthonyfmoss]

I realise this is a somewhat off the wall comment. In times past, countless English people used to go to Evensong at church and hear the vicar dressed in black intone the familiar words of the service. They knew the exact form of the words and where they would come. This was a source of great comfort to many. Nowadays, I an Englishman - and many others across the world - go to KZbin on a Sunday evening to watch and listen to a man dressed in black, with a serious face and glasses intone very familiar words each week. We know whereabouts in the liturgy they come, especially the "blessing" at the end of the "service": "Thats it for another.........very soon". Am I the only one to find this very comforting? I particularly like the "sermons" on SBCs Rev Barnatt. Good one tonight vicar!

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@antoniosandoval8383]

Love when you call Mr. Scissors, brings me calm feelings, like if I was watching a Mr. Rogers episode. Great show! Love your content!

[@climbeverest]

Great hairstyle! What a lovable guy! Thanks! Love the knowledge you disseminate, I love your intonation!

[@lesliedeana5142]

Jumped out of bed to be here with everybody! Keep your eyes averted!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Leslie -- with eyes closed.

[@garysuarez9614]

Ha! Nice Monty Python reference!

[@JeffGeerling]

The main thing Orange Pi is doing that *could* differentiate themselves from the rest of the Pi clone crowd is maintaining their own Orange Pi OS. I wish them luck, and hope that the OS is well maintained. Having a first party OS that "just works" would be a huge advantage compared to the "here are 6 OSes that all work... more or less (usually less)" which is the status quo in the space :(

[@ExplainingComputers]

Hi Jeff -- I agree. We just need on well-supported OS. So it is strange that Orange Pi OS has been late to the table for both the Orange Pi 800 and Orange Pi 5.

[@Remigrator]

Then you should start developing that operating system right away! I will check on your progress tomorrow. 😁

[@JeffGeerling]

@@ExplainingComputers I feel that they don't see how much of a competitive advantage it would be to have their OS be maintained to a similar degree as Pi OS. As it is, industries and organizations (where Pi sells like hotcakes) are loathe to start adopting those boards mostly because of that lack of support. I won't hold my breath, but I really do wish they would do better!

[@hiiaminfi]

@@Remigrator very interesting take: Person A: Well there is this problem with product X Person B: Why don't YOU fix that problem? Just a little food for thought: If they want a community backing such an OS they will have to prove to a group of people that it is actually worth sinking time into a first party OS for OrangePi's instead of ... you know buying a RPI, flasing RPI OS on it and calling it a day

[@horseradishpower9947]

@@JeffGeerling I agree. One of the things I look at when SBC reviews appear is what the OS/software support is like. And this is where they invariably fail to motivate me to buy their product. The only one that is a notable exception is the Rock 5B, which looks great on the hardware and software side of things.

[@andrewd4906]

I have a 16GB version and have been very impressed. I added a USB wifi dongle and that sorted the lack of onboard allowing an nvme drive to be used. I run Ubuntu. I was also impressed by the online manual. As always excellent video. Thanks

[@chriskaye1997]

Dear Chris, I really like your content and delivery, it brings back memories of the BBC when it used to provide amazing programming like Tomorrow’s World many years ago.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@perrymcclusky4695]

Once again, another Orange Pi product that is impressive with it’s early software not being disappointing! I like the way SBC,s are heading, Really looking forward to your “Raspberry Pi 4 Alternatives” video. I’m very interested in how software development has improved on some of the boards you have reviewed in the past. Looking forward to your next video!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Perry. There certainly seems to have been a sea change when it comes to software at Orange Pi.

[@perrymcclusky4695]

@@ExplainingComputers Hoping to see that change continue.

[@Okurkaarrgghh]

What is an SPC?

[@perrymcclusky4695]

@@Okurkaarrgghh LOL I’ll have to correct that! It must stand for Stupid Person at a Computer.

[@mardicas]

I have now experience with Banana Pi Zero and Orange Pi 5(of course variety of Raspberries, but we know why those are out) - I think for these boards we should not hope to rely on manufacturer support for entire operating systems. Just like with Linux and desktop hardware in the early days. They will lack support in the long term for sure and that makes financial sense too. There is also a ton of SBC-s on the market now so they are bought by smaller amount of users. When Raspberry came out they were the only one doing it and got massive community - and support from it. So the long term answer has to be community support. One step to that direction is Armbian Linux that tries to cover all the SBC-s(except Raspberry Pi) and give a unified experience regardless of what SBC you buy. In case of Orange Pi 5 they have a trunk release that works great and has good support in forum. A very positive aspect is the OS behaving the same regardless of the SBC. Switching from one SBC to another is much easier. It was a bit of a pain to switch from the Raspberry pi zero to the Banana pi Zero. So I think in the long run we will end up with some Linux Distro that support many SBC-s and it's cheaper for the manufacturers to add support to it rather than release their own Distro.

[@ulrichcordes375]

Thank you for your demonstration of Orange PI 5. I have RebornOS installed on my PI4 (4G) and searched now a good replacement for my old laptop computer. Your Video helped me to decide to purchase a 8GB Orange PI 5 from AliExpress with a big cooling fan heat sink. I will try to install RebornOS, which is also available for the Orange PI 5 an will install it on a NVMe drive. Go on with you videos, I am impressed of your detailed work. Thank you 👍. Greeting from good (c)old Germany.

[@thewiirocks]

Thanks for reviewing this board Chris! I do think you should have highlighted the different memory configurations a bit more. Having a 16GB version available for such an incredibly low price is a real game changer. In many ways, I think this is far more important for real-world use than having a faster NVMe drive. There's a point past which more NVMe performance doesn't do anything useful if the rest of the system can't keep up. Altogether, I love the starch out of this board. It's fantastic out of the box with excellent software support. Community support is ramping up quickly with Armbian providing their own OS image *with* 3D acceleration support. The system has enough grunt to be a daily driver desktop, but also makes an excellent server platform with some truly impressive thermals despite the incredible power of the system! At times like this, I'm reminded of how the quad core Banana Pi was simply uncoolable, managing to burn myself on my attempts. Apparently they have a giant heatsink for the tiny board now that I'd like to try out. But you compare that to the Orange Pi 5 which is software decoding KZbin without a heatsink or fan. That is *impressive* to say the least!

[@darkobelisk4076]

Agree. I don't think I've ever been bottlenecked by I/O, just inconvenienced on the rare occasion I move a big bunch of files around. Eagerly watching Discord to see when it's ready for prime time as potentially a great home server.

[@dang48]

Nice. They keep getting better. And when you mention Audacity, it reminded me of a project I did in college. We took a song, adapted it and I really like the result.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

17:26 "G-Granville? How do you spell p-p-p-p-pepper? Is it six Ps or seven?" Anyway, very nice board! It was also good to see Mr. Scissors. :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! Such great old TV references. Thanks for your support as always.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@ExplainingComputers Hi, Chris, and thank you! :3 Next week, I ought to make an attempt at a Blake's 7 joke! 😅

[@horseradishpower9947]

Thanks for this video. Your Raspberry Pi alternative video is one I am looking forward to. I am sure you will give us some very thought provoking alternatives to consider.

[@brianwood5220]

Great video Chris. I know where not playing spot the difference, but the item you pictured @ 17:28 was a Green Pepper (Not an apple). Ha Ha. These comparisons are really helpful. Thanks for sharing

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greeting Brian! :)

[@drummindog]

Thanks for your awesome content. I was watching on a phone and got a chuckle. Those apples looked like green peppers. Keep up the good work, sir!

[@theodorechryssanthidis]

Thanks for this review Christopher!!! It is about time for the SOCs to get a market share of the desktop! Not all of us need to keep on having such huge desktops!!! Very good point to show us the I/O throughput difference with the RK3588 chip! Waiting for your Raspberry Pi 4 Alternatives video!

[@vincei4252]

Very cool. I was able to score a couple of those 16G versions on Amazon before they went out of stock a couple weeks ago. I knew it was only a matter of time before you'd review it!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Mine got stuck in customs for about three weeks! But it arrived in the end.

[@vincei4252]

@@ExplainingComputers Yeah, customs is always a pain!

[@care_packages]

Chris, another good video! I've had one of these myself for a few weeks now, and after installing the panfork gpu driver, to get proper hardware accel, it's screaming quick! - far snappier in UI response with lots of web tabs open than my 2015 Macbook Pro, which would have cost well over twenty times as much. (granted, a laptop includes a display, keyboard, speakers, battery, etc) I do wish you'd tried that webGL test again with the hw-accel enabled - I doubt your audience who might buy SBCs are intimated by adding a PPA repo.

[@ExplainingComputers]

This I must try -- thanks for the info. :)

[@BillyRazOr2011]

Very excitement of Orange Pi 5! Great job Chris! And also Happy Lunar New Year! 👍🏻

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Thanks, Chris, for another Sunday video, Great stuff! I especially like your tutorial videos to help us actually use this stuff if we are fortunate to have it, yesterday for example I watched your video about setting up Open Media Vault on a Raspberry Pi and I used the information you gave to set up Open media Vault on an Atomic Pi (bit of an old SBC) it was collecting dust in the cupboard because it's not quite up to running a desktop but for Open Media Vault it does fine for a simple home NAS system.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Hi Susan, great to hear this. I can imagine that OMV runs great on an Atomic Pi. A good use for it! :)

[@brianthorburn4957]

What a great review , the normal standard from Chris ..very professional , great detail

[@ExplainingComputers]

Much appreciated!

[@merthyr1831]

Interesting choice to ship Debian AND Ubuntu, especially with both using XFCE. As for performance, I'm very impressed! My Raspberry Pi 4B costed upwards of £100 just to get the 8GB model (before we consider heatsinks and external peripherals) and runs Plex Media Server, Sonarr, Radarr, Qbittorrent, Nextcloud all concurrently with no issues using DietPi Linux (Which I think you should do a video on sometime, Chris! it's a beast beginner homeserver OS). This is cheaper and is a big step up in CPU performance out of the gate. Even without GPU acceleration it could easily become a homebrew netflix setup without making a peep of sound from cooling (the main downside of x86 boards is their noisiness and power draw imo). Looking forward to more RISC-V and ARM excellence this year!

[@pccsrr]

Great Video, I'm a big fan of these videos with SBC.

[@walterpark8824]

Ywt another excellent review, with swlwxt detail of essential comparisons. Thanks!

[@IvanHernandez-ck5vv]

Thanks!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support, most appreciated. :)

[@therealjackfisher]

Keep them coming. Raspberry is slowly dragging away and becoming irrelevant. By the way I'm a big fan of your videos. The first one I saw I was cursing and ranting, because I was made aware that no matter what I do, my data is no longer safe and that the storage devices are not built to keep the data for tens of years like we used to have back in the days where we were kids. I learned allot from your videos. Thank you for that. Big respect.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks Jack. :)

[@therealjackfisher]

@@ExplainingComputers ❤❤❤

[@joeg3950]

Great content. I look forward to your RPi Alternatives video. All the best!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks Joe.

[@TheGregEgg]

I was really disappointed to see the board isn't orange in color.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I agree.

[@coronelkittycannon]

Really disappointed it doesn't taste like orange

[@OW79]

I agree with you on the placement of that NVME connector, very counter intuitive and impractical!

[@mikefinn2101]

Very nicely done I hope Raspberry Pi can catch up I am using the Pi-400 as my main computer and love it. I hope to upgrade soon. Like the keyboard and mouse combo. considering a Orange Pi. Thanks again for sharing I always enjoy watching your videos. can't wait for more.

[@srtcsb]

Always like the SBC features. Thanks for another great video Chris. 👍

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks Steve. I hope that all is well with you.

[@amcadam26]

Living near Cambridge, I want to support the raspberry Pi foundation by sticking with the "official" pi SBCs, but given they've messed around home users for so long now and not kept the technology up with demand, allowing competitors to pull ahead, my allegiance is sliding to any company that can provide good products and this one looks great.

[@bossu2005]

I'm done with RPIs - The $40 - $50 - $60 computer that costs you $200 by the time you buy all the things that a computer needs. Cases, heat sinks, fans, power supplies,a clock,a BIOS and bootloader that is accessible and visible and not secret/cryptic. E-Waste.

[@joshuarowe8410]

​@@bossu2005 you purchase a BIOS and bootloader?? This board costs $83 USD according to the video description as well so it's not like you're getting some super cheap device

[@bossu2005]

@@joshuarowe8410 It is cheap in a way - junk

[@maxdiamond55]

Thanks Chris , really in depth review. Exactly what we like 👍🏿

[@ExplainingComputers]

No problem 👍

[@Razor_Burn]

This was one of the best reviews of the Orange Pi 5 as you explained the difference between the RK3588 and slimmer S variant perfectly so thanks 👍 I hope to see a future review of the Rock 5A that was just announced with hope's it's as good if not better than the Pi 5...? 🤞

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this feedback. The Rock 5A does indeed look like a great board that I will certainly look at on the channel. :) Due to ship Q2 2023 (which probably means Q2 or Q3 in today's world!).

[@rootpotato]

Another excellent review, from the master . . . Thank you Dr. Chris!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@alanthornton3530]

Thanks Chris for the Rock Pi 5 video, it's an interesting board at a reasonable price & Ubuntu seemed to run well on it. At the end of the day it's all about the manufacturers support that makes or breaks it! I'm looking forward to seeing the revisit of Raspberry Pi 4 alternatives, a nice desktop replacement would make my day 😊.

[@allmac7504]

I was/am considering buying so firstly thanks! I’m going to watch this a few times ,as usual you cram in so much important relevant info I need time to revisit and figest.

[@McRocket]

14:39 - I really appreciate this warning (in addition to the whole video). ☮

[@MichaelOlsonJr]

Thanks for the review, I suggest adding some discussion of mainline kennel support. Most regrets people have with these boards are because they end up stuck with old releases and/or have flaky kernels.

[@seguramlk]

Man, is the SBC scene looking good. Powered by 🐧 Awesome video, Chris 👍

[@qzorn4440]

I ordered 1 orange pi 5 to run some astronomy software that works on the raspberry pi 4. Mmm. Now for a touch-screen and case. Then deal with the nuisance Bluetooth Wi-Fi issue maybe by March when it is to be delivered orange pi will have the rest of the product accessories. 🤔 thank you and nice benchmark info.

[@John.0z]

What an interesting board. It gives me great hope for what might come to the market in 2023. Although as you say, the M.2 connector alignment is more than just unfortunate. Overall I agree, this is an impressive performance SBC - therefore an acceptable desktop. With that exception of no hardware graphics support under Linux. So far this is the Achilles heel on many boards/SoCs. Considering this Chris, when you are doing those Raspberry Pi 4 alternatives comparisons, please specifically test for this support.

[@martinbone]

Armbian is available for the Orange Pi 5 with GPU support. It might not be 100% finished ... but already works pretty well.

[@John.0z]

@@martinbone Good to know. Thank you.

[@peterfrisch8373]

Chris, I just have to tell you that you did not put apples in that GIMP project, but bell peppers. Also I am one that uses PoE to power my RPis, so I am most interested in SBCs that have that ability. I have seen that a number of DBC manufacturers say that their boards do have that ability, but do not specify the HAT/unit that will do it.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, peppers . . .

[@TzaraDuchamp]

Bell peppers to paprikas to peppers, it's all apples to apples.

[@OtterlyInsane]

Never have the apple pie at Chris'

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

Of all people, YOU kind sir were the only one who bothered to tell the differences between the two Rockchip RK3588 variants. Not even handheld gaming console tech KZbinrs were able to report on this, and other Linux channels that covered the FydeTab Duo also omitted the details. Thank you so so much.

[@AndrewJackson2000]

Damn...This is the most accurate tutorial on the entire platform on KZbin...thank you Chris. (I especially writing with one S)

[@sbc_soc_tinkerer]

I knew you would like this board. Some compromises but more than well worth the price. I'm not sure but at 17:28 those "apples" looked more like green peppers. :) Stay well my friend! Until next Sunday... I bid you adieu.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, peppers . . . they were green!

[@zakaria-_1154]

اشتقت لفديوهاتك القديمة في بداياتك❤💙💙 old subscriber thank's for all your explaining

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching. :)

[@rigorobles3991]

Greetings and salutations from México, huge fan of the channel Chris, you always have the best reviews :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@johncundiff7075]

Great video as always Mr. Barnatt!! Keep up the excellent work!!!!!

[@keithmiller9665]

Thanks Chris, interesting video. Nice to see Kdenlive working in Ubuntu. Definitely worth considering. Lack of GPU hardware video encoding / decoding (e.g. h264) is a problem.

[@care_packages]

HW decoding is available. Chromium, Kodi, vlc and mpv etc, all perfectly smooth after installing a gpu driver, which wasn't done in this video. Encoding... is technically available, but the makers don't officially support ffmpeg, apparently due to some licence reason. They want users to use gstreamer 🤢 h265 and h264 real time encoding do work, but i'll wait til a community solution comes up and I can pipe to ffmpeg, and not wrestle with gstreamer.

[@JudgeD-hc9vw]

Yes.....Mr Scissors always makes a video better.....

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@sylvainlathuy2702]

I own an Orange Pi 5. It is now November 2023 and I tested the following Linux images: Orange Pi OS, Debian, Ubuntu. Here is what I found out: None of these are 100% functional right after install. The best right now is the Debian because it is the most fluid interface with GPU acceleration properly enabled and it makes a huge difference on my 4K display. The best environment is XFce and best browser Chromium. Gnome and Firefox are painfully slow in comparison. I tested the power consumption: around 7W when browsing the web with many tabs and videos open. ~10 Watts when recording 2 HD streams (set at 15fps) from v4l USB 4K cameras with "motion" + watching youtube at the same time. Impressive! Perfectly usable as an every day computer if you are not afraid to fix a few configuration issues yourself...

[@USBMEDICMalcolmScole]

I heard that your mate stanley was a pretty sharp bloke so i decided the 88 was better than the 88s and pcie 2 instead of 3 is a deal breaker i am afraid ... Fantastic media and brilliant review as we have all come to expect .THANKS for making our sundays bearable chris .hugz

[@ExplainingComputers]

Stanley says "Hi". :)

[@MrMesospheric]

The 4A power supply requirement for SBCs is a bit of a shot in the foot; it makes things considerably more difficult for field use off a 5V USB battery. Lovely video, as always.

[@billkelly6981]

I am powering my orange pi 5 with the official raspberry pi power supply and it is fine. There is a card in the orange pi 5 box that says do not use a power supply over 2 amps

[@pieterhartman-66]

Maybe it is an idea to include some power consumption tests in the compaison?

To be honest, even my Raspberry pi 3a+ is sometimes going over 4A, although only in short spikes and i have it overclocked to 1,5GHz... Would rather have higher power input than brown outs...

[@Urosaurus]

These are getting fast! Cheers.

[@Psychx_]

Things in the SBC space are getting very interesting now. It won't be long, until there'll be maker boards with Cortex A77 and A78. These have enough performance for use as an every day PC :D

[@pondellojonez]

Thank you for the review .

[@MicrobyteAlan]

Very informative review. It's so interesting to see all the different SBC's being tested. Thanks as always. 👍👍

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings on another Sunday. :)

[@JorgenHenningsen]

I bought this product also and the one thing which impresses me is how cold it is running. I would very much like to see tests for the power usage.

[@paullandry6573]

Another great video! Thanks Chris!

[@ExplainingComputers]

My pleasure!

[@ncm0815]

A great video as usual. Thank you your effort! I have one suggestion for a topic you could address in a separate video, and that is the difference between the interfaces for displays, cameras and other peripherals un SBCs. Or perhaps I overlooked a video from you on that topic? But it would be interesting so see the differences for example on display interfaces so one can find the right display for a project right away. the same goes for cameras. It doese not have to go in every detail, but I could not imagine anyone better that you for a general overview.

[@PeterJasper]

Thanks for the review of the Orange Pi 5 excellent RK3588S SBC ... very impressive and great that it has software support. I think you may have been painting green capsicums rather than apples in GIMP 🙂

[@david78212]

I know Raspberry does off-production making of their chips to keep costs down. But, they had better consider the repercussions of having the Pi out of the retail(?) environment for so long. There are dozens of "Raspberry Pi" alternative videos out already and I have moved on to a board that is powered directly by 12v, mostly because I am NOT going to pay $260 from scalpers for a Pi and directly powered by 12v makes what I am doing easier on me. Pi will still have its following, but a lot of others have moved on. Even printer companies have started making their own powered by 12/24v to make installation easier. Raspberry is not going to have the following they had for so long the longer this keeps being the norm.

I agree, using a phone charger through usb cable to power up a computer is sketchy idea as hell, and it should be avoided long time ago. Only good reason is low cost and ability to sell its own Raspberry power supply (which needs to output 5.1V for RPI to work properly, which proves my point). DC barrel jack with at least 12V input for next RPI would be ideal solution, it does not cost arm and leg, allows for proper input power management and can handle higher current. Other solution would be a quick charge / power delivery usage for power up. Shame on Raspberry for such unreliable solution.

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

I am not sure I understand the logic of your argument. The Raspberry Pi is an "anomaly" - I don't think Eben Upton and the Foundation had any idea originally that the Pi would be taken up by the hobbyist community anywhere near as much as it has been - clearly, the original board was aimed at education to bring computer skills into schools in as low cost a manner as possible. In order to pursue that aim, the Foundation had to make commitments to industry to supply boards to them also on the basis that they put up some of the money. The fact that the Pi has taken off so well has meant that there's more money for better support can be given for its primary OS but, of course, that has created supply issues, especially during "the thing that cannot be mentioned". That has created this anomalous scenario. Personally I'd estimate that Raspberry Pi as an SBC probably occupies 75-80% of the hobbyist market, with all other SBCs competing for the remaining 20-25%, as other manufacturers have "followed suit" and released their own boards. So there's the problem, in a nutshell - everyone is setting too high expectations on other manufacturers who are supposed to provide as much support as the Raspberry Pi Foundation does but with less market share, smaller user bases and less income. To me, that's a "user problem" with too many people wanting it all too easy. A "hobby" is a past-time that, by definition, an individual puts in a lot of effort to getting pleasure and enjoyment from it - SBCs are no different because nothing stops you learning Linux well and then having a go at customising your own builds yourself to get the best out of the hardware you are running it on. But that means time and effort on the user's part, no different to a hobbyist custom car builder or someone that sails their own boat for pleasure. If you are not willing to put in that time and effort, then maybe it's time for a different hobby? In simple terms, the success of the Raspberry Pi is entirely the wrong benchmark to measure other SBCs by because the success of the Pi was an anomaly.

[@david78212]

@@terrydaktyllus1320 That's part of what I meant, there is so much "ready made" stuff out there for a Pi, people don't really have to do anything. There are alternatives for the Pi already and the Raspberry Foundation is screwing up giving people so much time to figure that out. I have an alternative for what I needed it for, natively runs on 12v instead of a buck converter. The Raspberry Foundation is giving too many people too much time to figure out that there are alternatives out there already. It's a faster processor and supports eMMC. I get that they are trying to stick to a "price point", but, it's going to cost them in the long run. Instead of "making" something, they are simply assembling off-the-shelf parts to make what they wanted.

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

@@david78212 But you're over-simplifying the situation - it's not just about profit making, there is also a commitment to the charitable works of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and to industry, that presumably put in the original investment. You're simply not comparing "like for like" and I am not shilling for Raspberry Pi either, especially as my competence with Linux (since 1996) means that I am perfectly capable of making the best of non-RPi boards with custom Gentoo Linux builds. Only this morning I have received my new Banana Pi BPI-P2 Zero board and I have an Orange Pi 800 and Orange Pi 5 on order. But to get the best out of any of those boards you need to invest time and effort to do your own kernel compilations and builds.

[@icraftcrafts8685]

I doubt that. The eco system of the pi is complete. Others take a very long time to even get to basics of install in some cases. Unfortunately pi will be even bigger when they fully restock. They will probably come along with some surprise version or price and the market will be flooded with non pi

[@MobiusHorizons]

This was a very helpful video! I had been wondering how the orange pi 5 was so much cheaper than the Rock 5B, and your overview helps evaluate that difference. Thanks very much!

[@novantha1]

Interesting thought: Could you do a video on a simple ARM SBC cluster for code compilation, or perhaps common OpenCL tasks like blender renders? It would be a pretty affordable way to get a very efficient, fairly high core count system going, and is a probably not a huge jump in price once you've already got at least one SBC set up already.

[@123anonymous456]

@ExplainingComputers: Given the current energy price hikes, it would be *very interesting* to see the typical required wattage for different systems (both when idle and under heavy load), especially since you already have _numerous_ (similar) SBC to compare!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Indeed! I did a video on energy use more broadly (including some SBCs) last year -- with relatively little interest: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHi4n6afntukm7c

[@m8hackr60]

Hello again, Chris! I really wish they'd integrated Wi-Fi, but I can understand that in many (probably most) cases, this is simply not required. It would have been nice to have a second M.2 for using both of NVMe and Wi-Fi. Looks like I have a board to get on order. Thank you for thorough review!

[@jayodea503]

Looks a nice board! I have just preordered the 16gb ram version and it cost less than a 4gb RPi4. happy days!

[@Colin_Ames]

Definitely an interesting SBC. I'm glad you pointed out the differences between the RK3588 and the S version.

[@rpavlik1]

Great review! Just had a coworker order one and do some investigation too, though more bleeding edge and graphics focused. Rather strange the Debian issue you had with Kdenlive... Might take a look when I likely get one for work purposes sooner or later.

[@peanut71968]

Good one, Chris! Cheers!

[@domsau2]

Perfect specs!

[@pasqualesorrentino4472]

Believe it or not, in the exact moment the video came out, I was searching for a video about this board

[@ExplainingComputers]

Spooky!

[@Furzkampfbomber]

Why do I have the X-Files melody stuck in my head now? Well, at least it comes along with a mental image of Scully. :)

[@srvuk]

A 5v/3a power supply can be used, which makes local purchase easier, as 5v/4a is not more readily available (PD power supplies are not supported though). I believe that the side USB-C port is USB 3.0, not 3.1. Orange Pi OS is now available and will (like the Android 12 port), have GPU hardware acceleration. It is not quite ready for prime time as it has some bugs but when they do get it right, it will appeal to those who like a Windowed style OS. There is a version of Armbian now that can have the GPU acceleration option, which will improve video playback. There are a variety of OS options available right now as it is attracting a lot of community development. Gamers will love that Batocera is available in a pre-release state and Retropie is apparently going to be worked on too. I'm enjoying mine and constantly swapping OS's around to test new features.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. The USB-C port is specified by Orange Pi as USB 3.1 -- if it were 3.0 it would not support DisplayPort output. It is listed as 3.1 on this page in the table (the labelled image higher up is wrong): www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/details/Orange-Pi-5.html And the specifications for the SoC (link in video description) clearly makes it 3.1. :)

[@srvuk]

@@ExplainingComputers My research indicates that USB 3.0 can support video out. To potentially confuse matters even more, their own user manual has the same image where the pointer to this very port specifies USB 3.0. I want to be incorrect but right now I am not convinced that I am.

[@WalterW]

SBCs just keep getting better. One of my goals is to have all my computers as SBCs. So far about half of them are. Thanks for bringing all the wonderful information on SBCs!

[@ExplainingComputers]

A cool goal. :)

[@WalterW]

@@ExplainingComputers thank you. The big one will be my FX and compositing computer.

[@richardpalmanteer9798]

It will be interesting when you start reviewing some of the SBCs you had done earlier and see how they are now. The Orange Pi 5 does a good job under Ubuntu OS Thanks Chris and have a good one. Till next Friday farewell.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Richard. :)

[@richardpalmanteer9798]

@@ExplainingComputers Hope you have a great New Year, :)

[@igorpecovnik]

Orangepi OS is a fork of Armbian.

[@liontuga155]

Thanks, Chris. Very thorough, as always.

[@nandingpanelo]

Nice. Happy new year

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks, you too!

[@screamengine]

Great little machine for a headless server/gateway! I think there will be a massive demand just for this purpose alone!

[@farazhassan6417]

Lovely, I have already an Orange PI 5 with 16G & Armbian on NVME, already set to replace with X86 Desktop . . .

[@ExplainingComputers]

Ah, I must try out Armbian on this board.

[@gern0tk]

How about GPU acceleration on Armbian?

[@johnvijver3815]

Armbian got also updated i see a new image file.

[@aaroncisneros6044]

Thank you for the information

[@avejst]

Interesting video as always 👍 Good find

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks 👍

[@roberts.3712]

Just got mine up and running. A very promising board at a good price point. 😀

[@nickrhill]

I have one of these boards. I found it operates down to 3.1 volts, and with low system load, consumes 1.5 - 2 watts. I clock it down to 1.8Ghz, which reduces performance by 18% but halves peak power consumption and therefore heat. Peak power consumption when compiling at 2.4Ghz heads towards 12w which makes the chip somewhat toasty. I both use a heatsink and limit it to 1.8Ghz for durability which stops the core getting above 55c. Orange Pi Debian has systemd override files causing auto-login of the orangepi user, which took me a while to figure out. There may also be non-standard configuraiton for NetworkManager which also caused some trouble so removed it and using interfaces file. I'd like a script to build an image from debian sources than rely on a distro with nonstandard changes.

[@nickrhill]

Using DD with a block size of 4k, I achieved a transfer rate of 1Gb/Sec with an NVMe. Perhaps my card has more channels?

[@zbigniewkrajewski7536]

I waited quite abit of time to see Mr Scissors back in action on Your channel, thank you mr Chris :) I wonder about that 16gb variant of Orange Pi, thats alot ram for sbc :O

[@neilthomas6042]

An interesting video, I’ve seen the Orange Pi in AliExpress and wondered what it was like and you gave an answer. Been caught out on a couple of items on AliExpress, so a bit wary of buying stuff on the site. If I do get some extra cash, I could buy one in the future.

[@ffieditor]

i real like this board. I don't like there no BT or missing Network but it still a well built made SBC. made the top 100 again!

[@vicmac3513]

Finally a daily drive-ready sbc! Hopefully hospitals, schools etc are moving into these and nerds start building AIO's for their elders. Hopefully Risc V and RasPi can strike back before the end of the year. And pure quality video, as always!

[@MartinBogomolni]

If only it was at the CORRECT price point of a Pi4 4Gb/8Gb. I'd pay that. Cost effective replacement for a Pi4 for industrial computing would be very welcome.

[@fredrik241]

Eben said they won't do a '5' this year but I think probably during 2024. Iv'e just ordered an Orange Pi 5 to tinker with.

[@vicmac3513]

Yes I listened to his interview, but I just jope these other releases makes them to invest money for production. Hopefully CM4 comes back to stock before they're lost in competition too. Hopefully RasPi5 has Risc-V with in-house production in Wales.

[@MartinBogomolni]

@@vicmac3513 why in the name of all that's holy do you think they would switch to a lower-performance RISC-V CPU with less support, larger fabrication process, and less mature code behind it? RaspPi Foundation already has a long-term contract with ARM and the aarch64 CPUs are now up to desktop levels of performance for a fraction of the cost and power of an x86 processor... aarch64 is where it's going to be for a long time, and I'd wager on that.

[@harleyn3089]

@@MartinBogomolni Eben said basically exactly that in the interview, but a little more diplomatically. He basically said "We've got a great relationship with ARM and Broadcom, and a stable software stack, so we have no plans to switch away from that anytime soon." IMO RISCV will be a race to the bottom, because it has no license fees. There is already a 50 cent RISCV microcontroller available. It's only 16 Mhz (EDIT: Actually 48 Mhz), but for certain specific applications that will be useful. I expect multiple Chinese companies to release RISCV SBCs in the under $30 range. Some of them will probably be OK, but it will be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[@ChrisHalden007]

Great video. Thanks

[@jxj2684]

Thank you for another excellent video Chris. I would be interested in a video evaluating a single board computer for use as a "travel PC". I tried that with a Raspberry Pi 4 2 years ago. Using a Pi4, HDMI connection to hotel LCD TVs and a compact bluetooth keyboard. Problem #1 was weak WiFi reception compared with Android phones Problem #2 was the laggy bluetooth keyboard. [I don't want to carry a full sized keyboard when travelling] Problem #3 was dropping the keyboard connection It was also slightly slow, although the 3 problems already described were a bigger issue. best regards Jeff

[@jaffarbh]

That's really cool. It can be used as a web server or a file server for a home or a small office.

[@nicholsliwilson]

Nobody send Christopher a picture of a green bell pepper, it’ll blow his mind. 😄

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Ah man my favorite day and it's about a mini computer a Orange Pi 5 have a nice week

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@Digithalis]

Thanks for demonstrating Captain! 🙂

[@voneschenbachmusic]

Very good performance - seems like the first ~80$ SBC that has good 1080p playback.

[@stefanp4258]

Wrong! It just needs careful optimized software and drivers to use all the potential of cheap SBC's hardware video decoder. Some mediaplayer distributions do that very well, like libreelec, or coreelec.

[@basroos_snafu]

Nice device, perhaps targeting at people interested in security camera systems, seeing the specs. Note that the device is set to China Standard Time, as seen in the demo video playing, speaking of security... This video also illustrates very well that a system performs better living under an orange than a rock.

[@cliff_hewitt]

Painting some apples at 17:26. Awesome. 😉

[@TT-it9gg]

I have a 8GB one with NVMe and USB WiFi. It's really good. Much faster than my Pi4 8GB. The NPU is amazing. Can do restnet18 in 4.8ms.

[@wertperch]

Chris, I enjoy your content, always have. But given the seemingly unending numbers of SBCs, I'd love to see more on what their advantages might be. This one for example, has 6 NPUs and is dripping with monitor and camera interfaces and I'd love to hear your thoughts as to *why* the architects of the system have gone down this route. Even better would be a simple demonstration of specific capabilities of a particular board. As it stands these presentations are getting predictable and even a little dull to me. I' feel you're missing out on explanations if you're not digging a little deeper into some board specifics such as the *use* of the board.

[@ThePantygun]

Expecting something else is a waste of time when it says NPU.