Orange Pi 3B: Low-cost M.2 ARM SBC

[@bsmorgan2]

With regards to your sysbench results on Debian and Ubuntu I think you will find that the file /etc/default/cpufrequtils is limiting the max frequency to 1296000 when the board is capable of 1800000. With that one change my sysbench result was 6.7982s. The OPi OS image appears use the 1.8GHz frequency without any changes.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this, which makes total sense. I'm pinning your comment for others, as it is very helpful. I should have thought of something like this going on. I guess I assumed that all of the supplied OS took full advantage of the SoC. :)

[@BerkayOzdenoglu]

It possibly can handle 2GHz with a heatsink.

[@davocc2405]

With that higher clock did you still notice the sluggishness in menu responsiveness? That seemed quite at odds with the video decompression in the browser.

[@v8racerman]

There is a CPU setting option with the OrangePi. orangepi-config. With this you can set the max/min cpu frequency as well as the governor algorithm (i.e. power, performance etc). I suspect the cpu will need a heatsink if you do this, though.

[@upsangelhk]

​@@v8racerman❤

[@WalterW]

“I disconnected it just so I can have the pleasure of reconnecting it later.” A classic Chris maneuver!

[@kwacker45]

And he used Mr Scissors..we are blessed

[@WalterW]

@@kwacker45 TWICE!

[@TAP7a]

I have only had the privilege of connecting one WiFi card’s antennae in my time. If I ever do it again, it’ll be too soon.

[@RoboNuggie]

That's a pretty crowded board... plenty of features and at a very reasonable price. Thank you Chris, your videos are always appreciated!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for your support -- here we are again! :)

[@erikl5340]

Mr. Scissor has been busy today! Armbian seems the logical choice for this board at this point. Thank you for the video.

[@ypat90]

There is a place price-wise for the RK3566. However, I have grown to love the extra performance of a RK3588S SBC. I still use Raspberrry PIs but as a near-desktop replacement, the RK5388 makes for a leap ahead in UI pleasurability. I hope designers and manufacturers focus on the RK3588 or better SOC for power, while keeping costs competitive of course. As usual, thank you for the presentation of this product.

[@impuls60]

One can get a complete retro handheld with RK3566 with 3.5 Ips screen, battery and microsd card for 50usd. These cards are redicoulously expensive for what they are.

[@JazzTechie]

I think there’s some degree of “everything is a nail” when looked at from the perspective of personal desktop as a benchmark. A more fitting perspective is “what kind of things can I invent with the resources available”. Example: With a pico W, I can build a robot with motor control, several sensors, and network connectivity. With a pi 3b, same thing, but with a full blown OS to run services on. Orange 3b, same thing - but without a sketchy slow sd card storage, flexible antenna placement, and can even run AI models. Pico: I can build a sign with a flashing marquis; raspberry I can build a sign that has video; orange I can build a sign that shows video based on what ballcap you’re wearing when you look at it lol. That sort of thing.

[@ultrafax]

Great video as always. I bought a OrangePi 3b few months ago to build a home print server. I found the use of armbian more and more performative than the suggested os.

[@kevinshumaker3753]

Got confused in the title, with the Apple Arm M2 vs the M.2 SSD connection. Had my hopes up there and then to dash them to the ground... Good video as always, Chris, thanks.

[@ticler]

Orange Pi has been a life saver. RPi supply was hard to get even before the coof in my third world country. But OPi was in stock with local suppliers.

[@danielrichardson5160]

Thanks Chris. Enjoyed the video. Wanted to mention Armbian released a version for the 3B. Love Armbian. Also with, my monitor and my eyes, 720P looks as good as 1080P. I'm not picky. On that setting, the Radxa 3A, 3C and OPI 3B are much better at playing video. Even with OPIos not having hardware accelerated playback, it was quite good. Have a great day. Dan

[@SchoolforHackers]

My wife, listening to Chris every Sunday: “He explains everything in the same pleasant voice, like ‘Now remove the screws and apply the anti-gravity beam...’”

[@CCoburn3]

This is just the thing for the Christmas presents I’m building this year. Thanks for the video.

[@tupmankolanks2638]

There is a CONFIG file associated with the Android Installer RKDEV tool. You can edit that CONFIG file with a text editor. There's a place where you can change the language - I believe it is default 1 for Chinese and you can change it to 2 for English. There might be a list of other languages. But even if you don't change the language, the manual for the Orange Pi 5 Plus (if the 3B manual doesn't show the same thing) shows how to use the tool. The text in the manual is English, even if the pics they show of the software show the Chinese language. And it's only like 3 buttons to press in the software needed to complete the whole process.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Useful, I will try this. Thanks.

[@MarcusPHagen]

​@@ruirosado6289that's correct! I found the same fix while working on my Orange Pi 5 Plus. Had to check the messages before posting, to find that two others had already provided the answer for Chris. Well done!

[@ruirosado6289]

@@MarcusPHagen And i did the exact same thing you did. :)

[@Wythaneye]

It just wouldn't be a Sunday without a cameo from Mr. Scissors.

[@abagatelle]

Aside from anything else Chris, the audio quality of your videos is excellent.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :) I spent many hours each week working on the audio.

[@bobwong8268]

​@@ExplainingComputersThanks for your unweavering dedications! Looking forward to learning from You, as always😉

[@SchoolforHackers]

Add my appreciation, Chris. It’s great not to struggle to hear.

[@klaustrussel]

Some people are naturally born teachers. Chris is the best! Cheers from Italy

[@DocuFlow]

Confession: came to watch the SBC content, stayed for Mr. Scissors. Great review as always, thank you!

[@KameraShy]

And were duly rewarded with an encore from Mr. Scissors.

[@mcgrath16511]

i ordered one of these a few days ago,, looing to control my ham radio with it.. since raspberry pi's have gotten out of control with pricing! another great video! what i like about your videos is no nonsense, cut to the chase!

10 years of alternate ARM SBC development and we still haven't reached software parity with the Raspberry ecosystem. I wonder if RISC-V can finally bridge the gap in this regard.

[@tonysheerness2427]

Risc V will be worse as extensions will not be standardised.

[@richardahlquist5839]

Honestly, I think one of the biggest issues there, is we have a diversity problem with too many SBC designs, which are diverse enough that you cant successfully just build one fork of any major distro with minimal work and have compatibility. Sure the cores are ARM 5x in most cases, but the remaining differences cause issues that the Raspberry Pi foundation has minimized with very few diverse cpu/gpu/peripheral combinations.

[@Oktokolo]

That custom distribution got snappy GUI interaction by _disabling_ hardware accelleration. That's insane. It basically means that the Mali GPU driver ist just a steaming pile of crap. It also means that SBC CPUs are fine for light desktop use with browsing now. We need a free and open GPU so drivers can be part of the Kernel and get good maintenance.

[@Psychx_]

And yet the RPI still hasn't got VDPAU or VAAPI and relies on external patches to provide hw accelerated video decoding i.e. in Chrome. IMO the Rockchip SOCs that are on the market long enough to have received mainline kernel support are a much better choice. You get all the same interfaces as on a desktop platform and don't rely on applications needing out-of-tree customization.

[@rolyantrauts2304]

I don't think we are that far off with the new Rockchip rk35xx series as they have had a huge effort to get mainline support and then Arm has announced it will work with Collabora to create opensource GPU drivers. We need to get away from direct plug hats and get used to jumpers so that any pin mux can be wired to any board. Raspberry had a lead but with what they have done with stock and how they turned thier backs on makers that isn't true anymore. We need mainline support and jumper based boards and we have parity.

[@TingFeng77]

heads up! I noticed that the Orange Pi 3B received a major hardware revision If you visit their website, you will see the revision has changed from 1.1 to 2.1 Notable changes include the M.2 port turning into a 2280 port and a different wifi chip, as well the board size changed resulting in old cases being incompatible

[@montecorbit8280]

The orange pie is purdier....it's blue!! 💙

[@andy.3407]

Another great video…. Looks like raspberry pi is still the king even though it costs a little more! Thank you so much for your wonderful videos

[@jimlynch9390]

As usual very good video. This promises to be a valuable card, if they can work out the bugs. I'm very surprised at the cpu performance. While the hardware acceleration issue is fixable since it's most likely a software mod, I don't think the cpu problem can be a software issue. It will be interesting to find out if and when they address it.

[@Darkk6969]

Yep. Probably needs further optimization in the Debian kernel to take full advantage of it.

[@goku445]

It's already "fixed". Look at the pinned comment. The CPU clock was set lower.

[@robrockman]

I always watch this guys videos on 1.5x speed, just so he talks at a normal rate :) No seriously....thanks for your vids theyre very informative and great content. Just that small constructive criticism :)

[@PS_Tube]

Greetings Chris B. RPi competitive boards that boast significant features while still at neighbouring prices is a pleasant change. And thank you for including more and more such devices in review vids. Love to see what's in the kitty for next week.

[@dantevortex]

I'm glad to see that Raspberry Pi is getting some much needed capable competition. This board features more gadgets and functions than it should technically fit and at a much lower price. Surely the CPU performance is lacking, but that NVMe slot and eMMC slot make up for the Raspberry Pi's lacking storage capability. You have convinced me on this one. I'm going to get myself a few Orange Pi 3B boards to play around with. Exciting little devices for sure.

[@kwacker45]

Agree given the cost of pi now

[@Drak976]

@@Not_Sure-i6o Prices aren't going back down for a long time. $10 only ever got you a pi 0 w with 1 core that was barely functional. Mine used to make this annoying snapping sound through the audio it was always garbage. For a similar pi board right now you'd pay $100 instead of $55.

[@impuls60]

@@Drak976 Id rather buy an Intel N100 instead then.

[@blender_wiki]

😂😂😂 CPU power ??? You need to make a fluid simulation??😂😂😂🤦🏿‍♀️🤦🏿‍♀️🤦🏿‍♀️

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@Not_Sure-i6o You can get a zero 2, that has the power of a Pi 3 for $15.

[@SirTodd]

That RK3566 chip is incredibly powerful. I love it

[@mikefinn2101]

Nice video of the Orange Pi, glad to see your demonstration saved me some $ I was planning to purchase one, but I will still stay with Raspberry PI-400 I currently use. Love single board computers with Linux. Thanks for a great adventure watching your exciting channel. Always a great pleasure to watch Peter. Thanks Mike

[@stephensu4371]

hi Chris, i recently found the orange pi 5 and 5B not bad at software, but it still be very good for the rk3588s using on it, the major different between the normal RK3588 and the RK3588S is RK3588 is with pci-e 3.0, but the RK3588S doesn’t having one and rk3588s (17*17mm) is much more compact then rk3588 (34*34 i remember), so in my opinion is if you wish to having an arm board with powerful extension, go to rk3588, if you wish to have more portable go for the rk3588s, i will run my server and development tool on my orange pi 5B. and also the orange pi team pushing out the new board call Orange pi zero 2W with the allwinner h618 with up to 4GB ram, and it has wifi, i pre order one for myself

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Oh nice a low cost orange pi theses machines wont stop to impress me crazy how much we can do in 2023

[@petersmith5199]

Chris. 90% of your videos go over my head, maybe old age is against me! But I wanted to say how much I love your content in every way. Could it be I'm green with envy that you understand what I would love to understand! Please please keep up the good work, some of the content will sure to sink in eventually!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching. :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for watching. :)

[@Antti_Nannimus]

Explaining Computers, also known at my house as: SBC Central Station! Thank you once again, again.

[@Kw1161]

Thanks Chris for this video, mine Orange Pi 3B is due on Monday,so Serendipity has happened again, :) Have a nice week.

[@ExplainingComputers]

There seem to be so many people in these comments who have either just received an Orange Pi 3B, or are about to do so! :)

[@superangrybrit]

I am just glad they included 40 pins GPIO again. RPi HaT compatibility is important. 😉😉

[@MultiGood2]

Thanks video. Good to have more small computers these days.

[@Mohadi23]

Thanks for the video, and for the android installer you just make " Selected=2 " in the language option in the config file so that the app language will be in English.

[@yagoa]

Great video ! Imo the most important spec is OOE and the number and size of buffers, hence apple silicon sweeping the floor with everything else

[@BharatMohanty]

Greetings sir .....nice to see Mr scissors....orange pi is really doing some crazy stuff. I guess within 6 month they released 3 sbc... latest is orange pi zero w with pi zero form factor.

[@StepDub]

Disappointed not to see Stanley the Knife making an appearance, but maybe next time.

[@joeg3950]

Thank you, this informs my decision of SBC development that may work for me in the future. Cheers!

[@loginregional]

I'm convinced. I'll be ordering my Raspberry Pi 400 tonight

[@essetee]

On Aliexpress I bought a motherboard with xeon 2667-v4 cpu + 32 GB ddr4 ram @ 32000 for 110 euro. With proxmox on it I don't need any sbc anymore. I just use my pi-zero2-W to run pi-hole.

[@avejst]

Great video as always Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us 🙂

[@gavinskurrie]

YAAAAAAAAS! MR SCISSORS!

[@MicrobyteAlan]

So many SBCs, so little time. Very informative and well presented, thanks.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings my friend!

[@chainreaction8977]

Always bringing the cutting edge fire content. o7

[@horusfalcon]

Thank you again, sir, for an understandable and honest presentation of this boards strengths and weaknesses.

[@leskaighin8903]

Thanks for another great review. Great connectivity, let down by software. Disappointing about the dropped frames.

[@drallersouldust3054]

it's already out but right now we don't have it in our own online market but I know it will sell pretty good like most of their device

[@donaldduck5731]

I'm saving all my money for the PI-5 now.

[@John.0z]

That has a *lot* of very desirable features; strange that it's Debian performance is a bit low. I think they missed the opportunity to use an orange-coloured board. 🤔🤣 It is good to see those larger RAM options. The better WiFi antenna would also help.

[@laskaofalaska]

Notification gang. Orange Pi is really tempting right now. Especially when Raspberry is heavily overpriced here

[@srtcsb]

Really hoping the next new RPi board has some (or maybe even one?) of these extra storage options. Thanks for another great video. 👍

[@seguramlk]

Incredible SBC Connectivity wise. Go Linux Go Go 🐧

[@bobwong8268]

Raise the Sword of Honour in due respect to Chris 👍👍👍👍👍Thanks for continously creating Great videos! Hmmm... performance of the orangePi is a little disapointing though, hopefully it's but a s/w issue that they can fix in an update. Cheers, for Good Health, Pal 🍷🍾🍷🍾🍷🍾

[@perrymcclusky4695]

Definitely it is a well equipped board. Amazing one can get so much tech into an affordable SBC. Looking forward to your next video!

[@Quemedices684]

M.2 it’s essential for any serious application, more than any cpu speed increase. But should be well built, remaining under the sbc

[@estusflask982]

Orange Pi 5 Plus has dual 2.5Gb ethernet, and PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVME for 2,000MB/s storage. Makes for a great little NAS.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, a great ARM SBC.

[@ianhollis51]

Hello Chris. I thought I’d let you know on this video that I splashed out on an Orange Pi 3B 8GB with 256 EMMC flash storage. If all goes well this will turn my Pi-Top [3] laptop into a very useful (perhaps fully functional) regular laptop with 13” screen and WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. This will save me many, many mor dollars by not having to buy a new laptop. And, I’ll get more familiar with Linux and open source software into the bargain. Just the ticket for a retired brain. 😁

[@umitkabuli7717]

Hello from Turkey. I always watch your youtube channel

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! And thanks for watching.

[@rigorobles3991]

Great video Chris, as always

[@Drak976]

Thanks for showing all of these. I originally used to get so excited at the idea of SBC before I ended up thinking they were just scam vaporware. It's nice to see some companies step up and make actual boards instead of just selling coffee cups and pretty chargers and other extraneous crapola.

[@treelineresearch3387]

I've been buying ARM SBCs for 10+ years and the ONLY one I've ever had a problem getting is the Raspberry Pi. Everything else you just order one when you want one.

[@sid_gm1949]

And here we meet again for some pi On another Sunday. Greetings !

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@benlynch7249]

I'll bet Mr Scissors slept well that night!

[@briianhebert]

thanks for the video! It seems to me that the Raspberry Pi alternatives are getting better and better.

[@Psychx_]

These in-order A53 and A55 cores are great for hosting a NAS, print server, homecloud, small website, for home automation and gathering surveillance camera data. For interactive tasks, as in having a display and HID connected to the SBC, I wouldn't recommend them though. They're very slow.

[@trevorford8332]

I was just thinking with all the SBC you got, you could create a cluster with them, would great as a small project. Or have you resold them. 😊

[@richsadowsky8580]

I bought one with 8GB and 3A power supply from Amazon here in the US for about $55. I have not had a chance to play with it or order any additional storage options. For my intended (test) use case I am less concerned about video playback as I intend to use it as an edge node. It's my first Orange Pi product.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Good luck with your new SBC. :)

[@pinrod1]

Im so excited for Mr. Scissors ✂️ so many things to cut! 😂

[@boboften9952]

Thank you Chris Excellent information

[@rs.matr1x]

The built in EDP is intriguing. I can also imagine building a FPGA hat with something like a tang NANO 20K, using the orange pi as the host and passing through controller data and configuration data or flashing the ROM core, using the IO pins, and then displaying the FPGA framebuffer through the EDP and HDMI ports. plugging in an EDP screen directly would make for some interesting options, assuming theres enough IO to handle it all. Could build a tabletop arcade machine with a small LCD screen, or throw a retina screen into an old macintosh classic case and just emulate the mac on the OrangePi..

[@peejae082004]

I wish Orange Pi releases a low cost RK3588 notebook.

[@wktodd]

Any information on that interesting unpopulated ADC port ?

[@judsonleach5248]

“ mr. scissors is having a field day!” (Hahaha!) I’ll bet “Stanley the knife” is getting jealous, Sir! :-)

[@prozacgodretro]

The EDP port is kinda exciting, I have some old laptops that won't boot for various reasons - I think a couple may use EDP displays ... I smell a cool project in my future!

[@tubegor]

Hello Chris, again very nice Sunday with growing family of the ARM SBC. Hopefully software problems will be improved in the future. I am skeptical SoC without a metal cover will cause tremendous temperature problems. It is disappointing that M.2 module is only 30% faster than, RPI 4 with USB 3-SATA adapter. In addition, is the M.2 module bootable?🤔It is gratifying, the great performance of Mr. Scissors was recognized.

[@ShadowzGSD]

landed on this again, did not even realise what the time was.

[@ExplainingComputers]

It keeps coming around!

[@PatrickConstant]

regards to Mr. Scissors. he must be very tired, two interventions in the same video, it was exhausting 😅.

[@johncundiff7075]

Thanks for sharing this with the world! Nice job!

[@JazzTechie]

I told myself I wouldn’t buy one, but I did anyways, and It arrived a couple of weeks ago. I need to order more M2 standoffs and nuts for these SBCs where orange forgets to include nvme spacers. I actually have some wurth SMT spacers that can go there, but haven’t gotten around to purchasing hot air/flux/paste.

[@MohamedMostafa-yo6gz]

Many many sbc witthout good software support

[@shivanSpS]

Hi Chris, i just wanted to mention, i just got my Orange PI Zero 2W, Zero 3 and Orange PI 3B, and to enable the gpu on all of them it seems to be the same, on the official Debian image run "sudo orangepi-config", then on system->hardware enable the gpu item and reboot, after that the Mali shows up in glxinfo.

[@jonathanmason6100]

maybe the chip speed on the emmc module is slower by design? love the presentation here.

[@rorytruman]

Hi Chris, have a look at the config file of the android flash tool. You should be able to change language to english. I did this with the opi5b and it worked fine

[@rorytruman]

Config.ini, change the selected language option

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for the info

[@TheZimberto]

I love Mr Scissors

[@sbc_tinkerer]

Blessed Sunday greetings all! Looking forward to your take, Chris, on the Orange Pi 3B. I have had mine for a few days and was curious to see how you have made out and what you did to get it going. I have so far tried Debian Bookworm with XFCE and Ubunutu Jammy with XFCE, both on SanDisk Extreme micro sd cards, and they are usable if a tiny bit sluggish on a 1080P monitor. They are both quite unusable on 4K displays though. Extremely sluggish with screen tearing. Not a great experience. I did give a cursory look at OrangePi OS and found it to be considerably superior to both Debian and Ubuntu especially on 4K displays. KZbin playback via a browser was still iffy but I did not get a chance to try a 1080P monitor for OrangePi OS just yet. I also would like to see if you fitted an M.2 drive and how that worked out for you. Now to watch the video!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! As you will see, I did get an M.2 drive working.

[@sbc_tinkerer]

@@ExplainingComputers Now having watched the video I see that your experience was pretty nuch exactly the same as mine. I did really like the Orange Pi OS with its snappy responsiveness. I never judge SBCs by YT video playback as that was never the purpose of these lower cost devices and I will stand by that statement for all eternity. Still, this board provides good bang for the buck and can be recommended.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I still run the KZbin test because many manufacturers -- including Raspberry Pi and Orange Pi -- do market their boards as potential low cost desktop PCs. And today it is reasonable to expect a desktop PC to be able to stream video -- both to watch online video, and for video conferencing. So given that other basic desktop PC stuff (e-mail, browsing, word processing and local media playback) always work, I like to do the streaming media test. :)

[@sbc_tinkerer]

@@ExplainingComputers Yeah, most reviewers do. I feel the manufacturers are all pushing their luck with video streaming. I would rather keep using equipment that can truly handle it. Less frustrating that way. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks as the saying goes. :p

[@kwacker45]

Enjoyable and informative definitely one sbc I will consider

[@markusklingsiek2366]

Just another excellent review (with quite the unsatisfying result though), and extra points for bringing Mr Scissors to the party. I certainly love your style which keeps me coming back for years now. May I ask, do you plan to review the Orange Pi Mini 3 as well? And probably, as we are on it, the Beagle Play?

[@lorderectus1849]

Looks Chris is favouring oranges 🍊 and pies 🥧

[@Colin_Ames]

Great video, as always.

[@erlinglorentsen4262]

Apart from "larger number - more power" ARM core notation totally eludes me. Perhaps an "Explaining ARM core notation" is too small a subject?

[@ExplainingComputers]

Now this is a great video idea -- noted!

[@danielrichardson5160]

I second that.

[@crom29a]

Really enjoyed the video. Thank You.

[@declanmcardle]

I think I see Stanley the Knife walking down to the Job Center...

[@judsonleach5248]

Hey Buddy! - It's Sunday Morning! - Let's go learn something from "The Smartest Man In England?!! 🙂 (You make Sundays ROCK, Sir!) - Cheers! - Judson & Buddy !!!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings to you both! :)

[@1-eye-willy]

an active heat sync is a must for these SBC's especially if you plan to over clock. i dont know why its sold separately besides maybe cost cutting

[@francis400]

I'm don't hear very much about SBC's out here may be we are a bit behind in Australia.

[@dang48]

As always, great video. Very informative. Thank you.

[@maketheup7659]

Yep, I also tried to use Chromium on Orange Pi 3, and on Orange Pi Zero, and on Orange Pi One. Looks like it is a problem with drivers. I hope they will fix it soon, the HW acceleration is disabled. However, it works well as a server, I like this platform. It is strange that you got 10 seconds in your tests, I guess it is throttling. All my Oranges 3 are pretty hot.

[@jimcallahan448]

Good review sums it up well. This seems to be a retro product designed to fit a price point and form factor of popular, but dated computer. Orange Pi has so many better products including the Orange Pi 800 keyboard computer and the Orange Pi 5 plus SBC.

[@HenryCavillage]

Good Morning my friend....

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@r0galik]

It might be worth retesting the Opi3b as a desktop now because Joshua Riek's Ubuntu 24.04 was released for it (with hardware video acceleration).

[@bullygram]

Orange pi is a cost effective but the down side is it requires a bit of heavy lifting. And raspberry pi is much more user friendly and a strong community support!