Is The Orange Pi 5 Plus The Best Value For Money SBC Available?

[@GustavoMsTrashCan]

I'm a tinkerer/power user and seeing it running 4k videos with so little issues is a relief. I will definitely buy it.

[@dav1dsm1th]

Be interesting to see someone build a NAS (with media capture as an added bonus) based around this board. Thanks for the review.

[@MichaelKlements]

This board would be great for a NAS with the dual 2.5G Ethernet ports. It's also got the M.2 port on the bottom and two USB 3.0 ports for drives to be connected to.

[@dav1dsm1th]

@@MichaelKlements exactly.

[@Cynyr]

It's kind something like this as a Nas, however PCI support for things other than SSDs tabs to be pretty bad on SBCs in general. An m.2 to x16 adaptor, an external PSU, and LSI hba may not really play well together. The e key slot is pcie2.0 X1 (yes really). So this likely wouldn't be good for much in the way of a redundant Nas. I don't see how you connect 2 drives to it.

[@DavidSiebert]

@@Cynyr You can get a m.2 e card that supports 2 SATA ports and they make an M.2 m card that offers 5 sata ports. They also make M.2 to PCIe adaptors so you do have some options.

[@DJDocsVideos]

@@Cynyr you can use a external 4 bay 3.5" HDD enclosure (JBOD no hardware RAID needed) on the USB 3 port. Something like a Icy Box IB-3640SU3 or FANTEC QB-35US3-6G. I currently run a Raspberry Pi 4B (8 GB) with both of those under OpenMediaVault 6 in a SnapRAID config with 3 data and one parity disk. One is loaded with 4 xToshiba MG09ACA18TA (18 TB) HDDs. I just added those a month ago. The other runs 4x Seagate IronWolf 8 (8 TB). This one is running with no errors since June 2020. Note: I replaced the stock coolers of the enclosures with NOCTUA ones. Really thinking about replacing the Raspi with the Pi 5 Plus (16 GB) adding a Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD as cache to profit from the faster NICs.

[@TT-it9gg]

I have it. And love it. No more RPi4B!

[@BrianThomas]

I love your videos. I look forward to all of them. Thank you.

[@MichaelKlements]

Thank you!

[@stonededge]

Really hope we get vulkan support even in the form of a binary blob would be great.

[@junovicz]

Yeah, that's the only thing missing in these low cost SBCs, apart from proper software support.

[@sbmb9613]

What do you mean it doesn't have it, I see version 1.2 there

[@nick9323]

rockchip kernel is hundred patches away from mainline - good luck with building your one uboot and preferred distro

[@wyattliu3637]

I use it as a kodi device for my tv. Its future proof 8k 60Hz is amazing, running 4K 60Hz is easy

[@edrd6257]

Thanks for a nice video. A comparison review Raspberry Pi 5 vs Orange Pi 5 would be nice. With both boards running the latest OS/softwares.

[@martijnstam6186]

What Raspberry 5? Raspberry doesn't have a RK3588 board.

[@edrd6257]

@@martijnstam6186 that's why a comparison review would do nicely. Comparing an SBC running on BCM2712 vs another SBC running on RK3588.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

This could be a nice little board for a firewall ! Nice work !

[@Assembled-Saints]

i use a pi4 for a dns

[@metamud8686]

3:40 you must be one of the last people to still pronounce Linux as Lie-nux. It's not a lie, it's for real.

[@chuckles1808]

I've been wanting to build a cyberdeck with 16 gigs of ram for modded minecraft, this board looks great for that.

[@matlilly8795]

I had to use a Dremel to get my heat sync to plug in. That audio Jack is kinda silly.

[@marcinoo97]

it does run windows well. any rk3588 board does tbh.

[@jimakos75]

The big issue is the software, it is so powerful and we cant watch 4k60fps because of the gpu hardware acceleration. i have the same with case thermopaste and samsung m.2 nvme 980 and i would like to install android arch in order to see the performance about gpu but i dont know how to do it. I hope from you to upload a video saw us how to do it now they have released the orange pi os arch. Thank you!

[@MichaelKlements]

I have seen that they have recently launched the Orange Pi OS image base don Arch Linux - I'll be trying this out over the next few weeks. I do agree though, these boards are generally let down by their software support - the hardware is really capable.

[@jimakos75]

I agree, thank you very much for your try

[@rsphinx2151]

​@@MichaelKlementsplease, try to test the recent Ubuntu image for OPI5+. It includes 4k HW acceleration

[@qzorn4440]

Most exciting SBC. I am running OpenCV and TensorFlow Lite on the Orange Pi5 16gb Debian-Bullseye with much better results than the RPi4 of course. However, where are the examples and videos to run robot and drone GPIO PWM servo motors and DIY hobby I2C projects? The manual has lots of information more for if you already know what you are doing. Thank you.

[@MichaelKlements]

In my experience, Orange Pi have always been a bit behind in the GPIO project space. You can get individual GPIO pins working in the terminal but they're quite poorly supported for Python projects etc.

[@gotatribu]

FYI: I just returned the card after trying several Linux and Android operating systems, including the different Orange OS. The hardware is impressive but the software is not mature enough for everyday use. Things will probably improve over time, but at this point this is an sbc aimed at developers and not end users. That's the problem with being on the frontier with hardware, software is lagging behind 😕

[@ezekielrobinson7897]

Answer- yes. Unlike the Radxa Rock5b the orange pi has software support that actually works well. Radxa can’t say that about the Rock5b

[@Arkadietza]

Can you run plex server and try streaming 4k video so can handle ?

[@r.c.847]

Could I install win 10 on that? To run standard microsoft office programs

[@TehMagilla]

Two questions: 1) how fast were subsequent boots? 2) how fast is boot from m.2?

[@MichaelKlements]

1) Subsequent boots are around 18-20 seconds to desktop. 2) I haven’t tried this yet on this board. I suspect this would be similar to the Rock 5 Model B, so around 13 seconds.

[@TehMagilla]

Awesome, thank you for the replies.

[@arsicpedja]

This hardware should play 4k without droped fraimes. But hey Orange Pi is famous for bad or non implemented drivers/hardware acceleration. This is the case when software lets down hardware.

[@AndrewTSq]

Agree, I had to try my 4 year old Chromebook I bought for $199 (with 14" 1080P screen 8GB ram and 128GB SSD,) its got an old Intel 2 cores cpu @2.3GHz and uses up to 15watt. Connected it to my 4k tv, and played this big buck bunny video at 1080P... no dropped frames.. 1440P no dropped frames.. 4k had 12 dropped frames on whole video. Something is wrong with todays SBCs in terms of performance.

[@arsicpedja]

@@AndrewTSq drivers, or lack of proper one.

[@ChefEarthenware]

Is it actually the same processor as the Orange Pi 5B? I thought that the B had the Rockchip RK3588S, whereas the Plus model had the full-fat Rockchip RK3588. Was I mistaken? Thanks for the real-time power consumption figures. Useful.

[@MichaelKlements]

This doesn’t have the same processor as the Orange Pi 5B, that’s got the “S” version as you’ve said. The board I was comparing specs to is the Rock 5 Model B which has the same processor as the Orange Pi 5 Plus - the RK3588

[@ChefEarthenware]

@@MichaelKlements I see, thanks.

[@joeyjojojr.shabadoo915]

If I wanted to use an Orange Pi as a part-time desktop in order to get more comfortable with Linux, how much RAM should I be looking at ? I see something like the Pi800 that has 4GB standard, but that seems too little to my 'Windows PC' brain to comprehend, for an enjoyable Desktop experience. In that case, is an 8GB board suitable ? or is it better to simply order a 16GB model and never look back ? In my case, would there be a specific Pi 5 model that would be more advantageous as a pure Desktop host ? 5, 5B or 5 Plus ? Storage seems to be the main difference that I can see between the 3 models (card vs emmc vs nvme capability + dual 2.5Gbit Lan) Does that sum it up in a nutshell ? any advice is greatly appreciated.

[@MichaelKlements]

I would go with as much as possible, for the price difference I think the 16GB version with "no regrets" is the better option. You might not need more than 8GB but it's good to know its there if you do, particularly for web browsing etc. which can be quite RAM intensive. The Orange Pi 5 and 5B have a different processor to this 5 Plus, they have the slightly cut back RK3588S processor. The main difference is a reduction in PCIe lanes (4 vs 1)

[@tomgoffnett5624]

And always go big if you can. RESELLING it will be much easier.

[@gogogokalakala3697]

Can I use the Orange Pi 5 for H.264/H.265 1080p60fps video encoding? I want to use it for live streaming IRL as an alternative to the mainstream NVIDIA Jetson Nano solution.

[@MichaelKlements]

The RK3588 chip supports H264 and H265 hardware encoding but it would need to be properly supported in software to make us of it.

[@Backedone-ss5vw]

It's showing 127 to 145 USD on Amazon and can't ship to India and AliExpress not available in India so any Indian options to get it as low as you got it ?

[@MnemonicCarrier]

I like it a lot! They're not that cheap any more - at least no here in the UK.

[@OpenSource-Buddhist]

Hello, Nice video, I have a problem with my root password on my Orange Pi5 running Ubuntu. I have already flashed my system 7 times using the latest image. I have tried both M2 Boot and Micro SD, but the result is always the same. It says "Password successfully changed," but unfortunately, it remains as "orangepi." I have tried the following commands: sudo -i, sudo passwd, or sudo passwd root. Do you have the same problem? lg

[@liriliro9211]

Can you show how i can install nectcloud and how to confogire with orange pi 5 plus? I have the same sbc

[@Sam-ch4jh]

Very detailed, thank you. Is it possible to connect a laptop touch screen with 40 pin interface?

[@MichaelKlements]

The 5 Plus only has a 6 pin touch interface port.

[@rossgeography]

crazy amount of I/O on such a small board

[@uzimonkey]

Wait, this has an HDMI capture device built in? Is it also fast enough to run OBS and stream to Twitch?

[@MichaelKlements]

It does but it is not particularly fast, it's not good enough to livestream gameplay

[@uzimonkey]

@@MichaelKlements Are the hardware h.264 encoders working on Linux?

[@jashmaniar]

hello Michael, does it have support for opnsense?

[@MichaelKlements]

At this stage they only have an image for OpenWRT

[@Peter_Enis]

You ask the right question.......this would make a great firewall-sbc. 🤓

[@sylvainlathuy2702]

Hardware is great but... software is very poor: I own an Orange Pi 5 and I can tell you that you need to know quiet a bit of Linux in order to have a fully functional installation ! The Linux images you can download from their website either miss proper GPU acceleration or are a pain to configure. I finally opted to use the Debian 12 found on the Orange Pi website as it is the only distribution I tested giving proper performance. End even then, the pain starts when you want to disable automatic login and create a new user... No GUI for that, then the sound driver fails to properly load, then the keyboard layout is nearly impossible to change. We are still far away from the Linux distros available on AMD64. Why do I need to download the image specific for my hardware? On AMD64, the same image will automatically detect my hardware and set it up properly... It is not the case for the arm64 :( On the other hand, I have been using it as my main PC for a week now and the user experience is actually very fluid! Perfectly usable for only 7 Watts indeed (I measured), great for running on the battery in a camper van.

[@darknessblades]

If it wasn't for the price, It would have been a great alternative for a raspberry PI, for home-assistant

[@dutamulia]

I haven't looked into SBC scene since RPi betrayed the community. Any suggestion of an alternative that'll stay for good?

[@iepdeklein1701]

I wonder wil it run ROON Server ?

[@sleepwalker29]

Listen PS5 owners. The Nvme SSD in the PS5 is the same that fits this Orange Pi 5 Plus. So you can upgrade the PS5 drive to 2tb-8tb and put the 1Tb drive from the PS5 into this Orange Pi 5 Plus to recycle electronic waste. And you upgrade drives for two consoles. Too bad you can't do this with Xbox X.

[@TrevelyanOO6]

Still waiting for the 32GB RAM version of any opi5, so I can build my k8s cluster, to replace all my home servers.

[@Requiem71450]

Is the orange pi 5 Plus in 16Go version can run Docker container ? of course, the performance depends on the job of each container, but is it a good option to make an ubuntu server for few docker containers (postgres, php, rust and nodejs application server) ? on an RPI, it's very difficult to run containers, perfs are bad...

[@MichaelKlements]

Yes it is capable of running Docker and a few containers. Those would all run on a Pi 4 without any issues and this board is quite a lot more powerful.

[@Requiem71450]

@@MichaelKlements Thanks for your reply, I will try Orange pi, You convinced me

[@zacki5663]

chrome hardware encoding not on?

[@salmanmunawar1]

Hi all, what’s best OS for this board, that would use most of the hardware on this board? Specially, for HDMI in capture.

[@MichaelKlements]

Probably Orange Pi OS since this has been developed by Orange Pi specifically for this board.

[@vincei4252]

Uhh, Amazon lists the 16G variant at $151+$14 for shipping. Not sure where you got $129 from. I saw that and immediately passed.

[@MichaelKlements]

The 16Gb variant is currently $129 on Aliexpress with $10.50 shipping

[@seanburke997]

In addition to what Michael said., you can also get the 8gb with the 64gb EMMC module for $113 + shipping, or the 16gb with the 256gb emmc module for $135 + shipping as a combo deal. The emmc modules shouldn't interfere with an nvme ssd if you want to add one, and of course I would expect a true ssd to outperform the emmc, but it is an option to consider.

[@chuckadams842]

The Amazon $151+$14 includes the power module ("wall wart"). I got one and will do a video in the next week.

[@mrcosminx]

is there any POE support for this board?

[@MichaelKlements]

Not onboard, you'd probably need to use a PoE splitter that outputs to USB-C to power it.

[@hussamanj]

**Apologies for a Noob question** Any chance any one can suggest between 16 GB to 32 GB(out soon) versions of Orange Pi 5 Plus . Usage is mainly emulation and gaming to the highest settings.

[@MichaelKlements]

If you want to play games on it then it's best to future proof and go with the 32GB version, it's not a substantial price increase.

[@jasango]

Has anyone used it for months as a firewall or 24/7 server? is it stable?

[@HorreyForthenewstep]

How install android on orange pi 5 plus, or orange pi os (droid), when I install it on pi 5 plus, it never boot.

[@izri1]

Great sbu, but the gpu with its 600mhz is quite weak.

[@shopsheaven]

WARNING I caught the Mirai virus running on my Orange Pi 5 Plus (Debian 11 image from Orange Pi)

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

I prepared a guide helping to start using Java on the board or similar faster. The guide include Linux and FreeBSD.

[@xiki1506]

Yes for 16GB ram

[@tcpbox]

I didn't research before buying, I believed in these videos, this orange pu 5 plus is very bad, it doesn't work well with nvme, I bought it for that reason the processing speed is great, with sdcard it is more stable but if you open many processes it goes down, crashes. no one raspberry pi of mine has ever crashed so i have had raspberry pi since the raspberry pi 2.

[@andic6676]

Does anyone know if Zoom works well on this board?

[@manuelalfayatecorchete1806]

Without proper opensource graphics support in MESA, no, it's not "the best value for money". I got several RK3588 SBCs (same SOC that the Orange Pi 5 Plus has), and they are currently collecting dust.

[@vali69]

That sounds a little bizarre. I'm new to the whole sbc scene but it sounds quite wrong that just because of gpu drivers(?) you're deeming these boards useless. Aren't there things you could use them for that don't require having those things? What about network related tasks? For example I'm looking into sbcs mostly for the nas and small server capabilities they offer, and this board seems like it would be amazing for both of these tasks at the same time.

[@manuelalfayatecorchete1806]

@@vali69 Not having the possibility of properly using a very important part of the board on GNU/Linux is a major fault. Of course you won't understand that. USA-based, right?

[@vali69]

@@manuelalfayatecorchete1806 no, I had in mind just not having a gui at all... Simply using the command line. I already know how graphics drivers can be a bitch, yeah looking at nvidia right now. Anyhow, I was thinking either arch, maybe even void tho to see how that would fair, and openbsd. Also nope, I'm from a country in east Europe. Edit: also you're talking in a very condescending way yet you haven't said 'I use arch btw'.

[@zionsgame1764]

will you ease try to play games on androis called mobile legends bang bamg to see if tis smooth on onrange pi 5 usong controller

[@MichaelKlements]

I wasn't able to get Android running on the board as there was an issue with their image but as soon as this is fixed I'll give it a try

[@zionsgame1764]

@@MichaelKlements thank u sir

[@Metrowhite]

was the issue fixed? Can you run android now?

[@mtx512jm]

RK3588 is a capable SOC, some of the things it can do: 1. Decoding & Rendering 16 1080p h264 stream kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6iXi4Cin7h8kKs 2. yolov5 detection object against 3 1080p streams 3. External GPU card via pcie kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKK3lWqCl66Vg68

[@ZeldaSneakyLink]

U have ur heatsink on the wrong way perhaps? Couldve turned it the other way😅

[@r0galik]

I am really puzzled why "playing a KZbin video after installing an OS" has become a benchmark of SBC performance. There are too many variables for it to be meaningful, for example: CPU speed, whether the GPU/VPU acceleration is enabled (it can work on a specific version of chromium, for example) and whether the board supports in hardware the codecs used in the video. It also doesn't seem to be what people usually do with these boards, as it's so hit-and-miss - at least not without at minimal configuration. Can this trend stop?

[@MichaelKlements]

I agree it's subject to a number of variables but it does give a good indication of the stability of the software, how well the manufacturer has configured the software to make use of the hardware, power consumption and the general hardware performance of the board. SBC manufacturers also prominently claim 4K or 8K video playback capabilities so thats something that people want to see.

[@r0galik]

@@MichaelKlements yeah, it's true that some manufacturers claim "8K" without much backing. But all marketers use what's theoretically possible to market a product... Although I don't think it's fair to compare to rock 5b which was released almost a year ago - the software support just got better everywhere for RK3588, and mainly thanks to the efforts of the developer community, not the manufacturers.

[@ksoonsoon]

I think it is.

[@bhok5228]

40 bucks nice board, more is expensive

[@TheEricDangerous]

Shenzhen Xunlong Software CO, Limited is not known for its seriousness when it comes to software support, too bad but it's a waste of money.

[@tcpbox]

I didn't research before buying, I believed in these videos, this orange pu 5 plus is very bad, it doesn't work well with nvme, I bought it for that reason the processing speed is great, with sdcard it is more stable but if you open many processes it goes down, crashes. no one raspberry pi of mine has ever crashed so i have had raspberry pi since the raspberry pi 2.

[@killabyte7397]

Works fine for me 980 nvme samsung

[@Tanguylecoutre]

Does it still work fine? The comment of that guy above scares me idk if I should buy and I need it with a nvme m.2 drive

[@ZenHulk]

Why do people make videos just reading the spec sheet that any 5yr old could download. We are in the age of dumb people, thinking this is really needed.

[@oldNavyJZ]

My experience with knockoffs has been less than stellar.

[@MichaelKlements]

This isn't really a knockoff of anything, it's been designed as a standalone board around the RK3588 processor

[@DivisionStreetDrums]

Please inform us how to get the Dev tools to work, after over a year all I can do is run Ubuntu from the TF card because the other "tools" they provide will not work. Tried writing to the EMMC with the Dev Tool (not Working) Tried to use the Dev Tool to write to the NVME drive (does not work) Tried writing O Droid to the TF card ( Samsung card fast) to burn to the emmc module (does not work) everything ab ends. I am not a novice and I have even read the manual 10 times. I wrote a email to O Pi (not even responded too) this SBC is great unless you want to use it for something. They have no support written. Biggest piece of garbage I have ever seen. Please save yourself some money and aggravation and just buy a Raspberry Pi.

[@MichaelKlements]

All of these boards that use the RK3588 processor rely on the RKDevTool to flash bootloaders and OS images and the process is essentially the same on different brand boards. I'd suggest trying the Radxa manuals, these are better written than Orange Pi's. You'll obviously still need to use Orange Pi's provided images but follow the Radxa instructions.

[@DivisionStreetDrums]

@MichaelKlements Thank You, I will try it.

[@WhoTookKendo]

First

[@lumpython5351]

Just bought 5 Max, their documents is terribly bad, as well as their software, the Linux they offer even doesn’t support exFAT out of box, and the process of install OS is tedious. Their official guide is painful to read.

[@trichert7360]

Company is dead, do not involve !

[@CharlieBravo157]

Not interested in Chinese knockoffs of good hardware at all. Definitely staying away from this trash.

[@euphanasia210]

I’ve found that only noobs complain. 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️

[@christopher480]

had 1....its crap......you want to sell a sbc in n,american then learn some english.....os is chinese and so is the tool to flash it.....why buy a sbc from a company that doesnt even follow our laws.

[@qrdigita]

can you make a case for this orange pi5 plus like that super good looking pi with m.2 that you made a year ago. Will buy buy buy

[@MichaelKlements]

I'll have a look at doing so, it's a little tricky on this board because the ports are on all of the sides but I might be able to make something that works with most ports.