Running around in circles trying to choose an SBC?

[Vlaate]

I seem to be running around in circles trying to make a decision about a new SBC to add to the herd.

 

The job is currently being done by an OrangePi PC (H3, 1Gb), and is mostly about generating static web sites, which means rendering static HTML/json/js files and uploading them via SCP to a cheap shared hosting provider (the orange pi does not do the actual hosting).

 

This means daily downloading of data from the web (a few hundred MB) and crunching this data to use it for the site. Currently it downloads my country's official covid cases data and generates per-city-daily-cases-per-capita with rolling averages in HTML graphs, this allows easier comparison across time and across cities, of local covid conditions.

 

The Orange Pi PC does it fine. But then I have other projects and I'd prefer to have a separate "production" SBC, so that I can tinker more freely with the "dev SBC" without fear of breaking things. 

 

And then I think: "well, I might as well get a beefier board, you know? Future-proofing!". 

... Perhaps a beefier CPU? That octacore Nano Fire 3 looks interesting, although might be memory bottlenecked.

... Perhaps more durable storage. The USB Stick will die. My recent PC upgrade just freed a 250Gb Samsung 840 SSD that would likely last longer if used for this. (¿Hopefully trim will work through USB?). I don't really *need* USB3 but it'd be nice to get more juice from the SSD.

... Perhaps 2Gb of RAM will last longer, but then again those boards with 2Gb cost twice as much as the 1Gb boards, without bringing twice the cores nor double the MHz.

 

So I see two things:

 

First there's the cost: prices rise quickly for faster CPUs/USB3, and rather sharply with 2Gb.

 

Then, the faster chips seem to run much hotter. The NanoPi Neo 3 looks attractive at first (1 or 2 Gb, USB3) but reviews and forum posts suggest the RK3328 gets really hot even at idle, and throttles down under load/heat (perhaps failing to get the peak promised performance), with everyone adding active cooling and even huge heatsink-cases. Similar things seem to be going for the Fire 3 SBC, the H6 chip, A9....   It's like the faster SBCs gave up on passive cooling.

 

It can be hot here in the tropics: right now at noon it's 29°C, and the OPi is idle at 42°.

 

I really don't want to add active cooling. The allwinner H3 can be "slow", but they are really cool and draw so little power. Meanwhile I don't like the way my RPi3B (a home nas/minidlna) complained if anything less than 2A was fed to it. And I've seen small house Geckos warm up on the RPi, I kid you not!

 

So I end up going full circle and wondering if all I need is just another H3 OrangePi PC.

 

¿Perhaps you guys know of a "faster" SBC that draws under 1A and doesn't throttle at full load with passive cooling?

[lanefu]

If you want to stick with H3.  Get orangepi plus 2e.  Has 2 gigs of ram, gigabit eithernet, 16gig if performant onboard eMMC.  Its usb 2.0 but each USB port is tied to its own USB so with UAS you'll get the fullbandwidth of the port and get to appreciate the latency.    Ive been running my nomad cluster control plane with them for 3 years.

 

I also really like the Opi 3 w2gig ram and the 8gig emmc.  I used it as a headless workstation with home and docker on USB 3 SSD and it worked great.

 

All those chips are designed to run hot so just let the cooler tables do their job and worse case crank back the governor 200mhz via armbian config.  Also i like the schedutil governor its a little more granualor the clock.

 

Btw there was an issue with armbian and ethernet on opi3 with kernel 5.9, but dont let that deter you.

 

My opi3 is on the bench if you want me to take some measurements

 

Anyway the H6 performance is way better than the h3 and h5 imho.  So id try not to overlook it

[Arvo]

22 hours ago, Vlaate said:

¿Perhaps you guys know of a "faster" SBC that draws under 1A and doesn't throttle at full load with passive cooling?

There is no perfect SBC and even if it happens to be for some moment - that won't last long

For example, Amlogic S905X3 is quite energy efficient CPU, which can run with passive radiator of moderate size. Besides to TV boxes, some SBCs are released with this CPU - like Odroid-C4, Odroid-HC4 (active cooling!) or just released Banana Pi M5.

But it comes with price of 50$ and even 8$ more for USB to SATA bridge.

[Werner]

Stay away from M5. It is basically a clone of the C4 but worse: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/15228-banana-pi-bpi-m5-with-amlogic-s905x3-chip-design/?do=findComment&comment=109756

 

[NicoD]

I would go for the RK3399 of the NanoPi M4V2. 
It is my favorite SBC and can do all what your heart desires. 
Runs great passively cooled with the metal case and base clocks of 1.4Ghz/1.8Ghz. When clocked at 1.5Ghz/2Ghz it does need a bit more cooling from a fan. 
I run my fan at 5V so it doesn't make noise. And it keeps it more than cool.
If you want it to run under 1A you can clock all cores to 1.4Ghz. Then it for sure keeps cool enough, and is still powerful. 
When I'm camping I use my M4V2 all cores at 1Ghz. Saves me tons of energy of my powerbanks. Still plays video perfectly with JMCC's media script. And does browser tasks still well.
It can have a SATA hat, or an NVMe hat or a USB3 hat. 
It for sure isn't the cheapest, or most powerful. But all round it is the best. 
I do love the NanoPi Fire3 its SoC. I've got the NanoPC T3+ with that SoC. Only if you've got multiple tasks to run on different cores I'd advice that. For normal desktop tasks it ain't that good since it doesn't have good single core performance, but one of the best multi-core's with it's 8XA53.

The RK3399 is the best supported SoC of the more powerful ones. Doesn't mean it is trouble free, but you're not going to have such a nice experience with any other board. 
Its USB3 is great with 2 x USB3 controllers, one for the 2 left ports and one for the 2 right ports. Very good power regulation. Very stable. 
The H6 is ok, but hasn't got much future in it. The RK3399 could still be ok in 5 years. While the H6 is already an old dinosaur. 

I'd also stay away from BPi. There seems to be something very wrong with that company. Most disrespectful, unfriendly and stupid group of people I know in this sector. 
They don't seem to have a love for their own products. All they want is selling boards without putting any effort into it. They don't support the community but expect the community to make software for their boards. They keep themselves busy with spamming on Facebook, Youtubers and different fora's. 
I've many times tried to have a conversation with anybody from the BPi team. All I get is BS or no answer. I just don't get it. There is no other maker with such a culture. They seem to close themselves out of the world and live in a BPi fantasy land. Just bizar. They do make some nice boards. But don't seem to have anyone who knows anything of sales or P.R. 

OPi used to be like that, but has made a 180° turn. Tho they did "make" the Armbian build script their own by cloning it and changing every notification of Armbian into -> Orange Pi. It did give them their best software to date for a new board.