News ODROID-H2+ An x86 Board to Challenge Raspberry Pi?

[vov4ik_il]

But that's still about 2.5 Gbps.

And why do you need it to do VPN at those speeds, anyhow? What kind of ISP do you have???

I did not get your math about 2.5.
AT&T Fiber (1G). I have a few boxes to benchmark things w/o ISP.

Oh, a more expensive, higher-TDP CPU is faster? Go on...

That is an example of what does it take to achieve those speed numbers.

 

[fmyhr]

The anti-realtek posts on many forums are usually people parroting what other people have posted and usually are more anecdotal (" I once had a problem and it must have been the realtek..." etc.). My experience has been realteks work from pfSense to unRaid without issue though again, ideally, I also err on the side of intel almost superstitiously.

Heh. Your comment prompted me to check my notes to see if I'd personally encountered any trouble with Realtek NICs. The worst I found was that, years ago, I had to mess with patching in / compiling Linux drivers while the Intel drivers were already included in distro packages. I dimly suspect that besides that, I actually did have some sort of trouble that was cured by switching from Realtek -> Intel, but can't find any such notes at the moment... and my memory is hardly infallible, and in this case... only vague. I DO remember having problems (like, system lockups) trying to use a Marvell NIC a long time ago. At least for 1 Gbit, I look for Intel -- never had a problem with those. I'm OK with calling this superstitious bias, unless I can document specific problems. 10 Gbit, as I've only recently found out, is a different story -- may well want Mellanox there.

 

[fmyhr]

Even some basic celeron laptops (like N3050 or better) also make solid home network DIY routers with a USB 3.0 Gigabit 2nd Ethernet adapter - and again, you can pick up used examples almost for a song.

I've considered such setups. I'm curious -- does the USB vs. PCIe interface introduce additional latency or jitter or other problems? (Other "issue" is that AFAIK none of the USB NICs use Intel chipset. 😉)

 

[vov4ik_il]

I'm curious -- does the USB vs. PCIe interface introduce additional latency or jitter or other problems? (Other "issue" is that AFAIK none of the USB NICs use Intel chipset. 😉)

I did try USB NICs (I believe ASIX) a long while ago, they used lots of CPU by the driver.

 

[bit_user]

I did not get your math about 2.5.

You were listing specs in MB/sec. 300 MB/sec * 8 bits/Byte = 2.4 Gbps.

AT&T Fiber (1G).

So, the point is you only need VPN @ 1 Gbps. Therefore 300 MB/sec would be overkill.

I have a few boxes to benchmark things w/o ISP.

That is fine and good, but if you're benchmarking scenarios you can't actually utilize in practice, then it's kinda moot.

That is an example of what does it take to achieve those speed numbers.

Yeah, it's fair as a point of reference. Ideally, it would be good to know if it's running at standard TDP (15 W) or at TDP-up (up to 25 W).

 

[bit_user]

Heh. Your comment prompted me to check my notes to see if I'd personally encountered any trouble with Realtek NICs.

Back in 2004, I had a laptop with a Realtek 10/100 LAN. After running bittorrent (on Windows) for a couple days, the netork connection would just die and the machine would go offline - you couldn't even ping it. However under Linux, I never had such a problem.

IIRC, that's what pushed me to buy my first wi fi router. I didn't want to simply run Linux on it, since Windows had better media playback support, at the time.

That's basically the only problem I've had with a LAN chip other than some (I think Intel) integrated Gigabit chip in a Dell workstation auto-negotiating down to 100 Mbps, under Ubuntu 16.04. It could not be explained by a cabling problem, bad switch port, etc. I never got to the bottom of it, actually.

 

[d3bug]

A small single board computer that has plenty of uses in the home and in the office.

ODROID-H2+ An x86 Board to Challenge Raspberry Pi? : Read more

I see they are comparing Apples and Tomatoes again. Unless this board is at the same price point, then the answer is NO. Simply NO. That is like saying "Can this brand new Lykan Hypersport beat this Tata Nano?" well of course if price is no object. These nonsense articles are stupid to say the least.

 

[wskinny]

A small single board computer that has plenty of uses in the home and in the office.

ODROID-H2+ An x86 Board to Challenge Raspberry Pi? : Read more

Not worth it compared to the price of the Atomic PI, unless you really need SATA, MSATA and/or RAM over 2Gb and no need for WiFi/Bluetooth...

 

[bit_user]

I see they are comparing Apples and Tomatoes again.

I'm gonna have to disagree. Unlike the industrial SBCs they've recently been mis-reporting as pi-competitors, this one is actually within spitting distance. You can thank the Pi for breaking their long-time price barrier of $35, but you can equip this with 8 GB for less than twice the price of an 8 GB Pi v4.

And for the extra money, you get a massive performance boost in GPU performance, I/O, networking, etc.

This is a viable (and superior) option, for many things people are doing with Pi's.

Unless this board is at the same price point, then the answer is NO.

Not everyone is so budget-constrained. Maybe they have other priorities.

"Can this brand new Lykan Hypersport beat this Tata Nano?"

I don't know what those are, but unless one is $75 and the other is $142, then I don't think they're relevant.

These nonsense articles are stupid to say the least.

the answer is NO. Simply NO.

That's like saying they shouldn't compare a workstation motherboard to a desktop board, because they're in different price brackets. But, maybe someone who could benefit from the advantages of a workstation board and could afford one, would like to see how it compares with a desktop board, in order to help them decide which they should get.

This is a good product, and it's good value for money. Sorry if that offends you, but I simply cannot agree with your position.

If you wanted to rant about this subject, you should've complained on one of the Axiom Tek or similar boards they reported, in previous weeks. Those cost probably in excess of 10x as much as a pi, and some with even fewer features than this product.

 

[bit_user]

Not worth it compared to the price of the Atomic PI, unless you really need SATA, MSATA and/or RAM over 2Gb and no need for WiFi/Bluetooth...

Or CPU performance, or GPU performance, or 2x Ethernet, or 2.5 Gbps, or NVMe, or USB ports, or HDMI 2.0, or DisplayPort, or audio ports, or dual-channel memory.

If the CPU cores in Atomic Pi are equivalent to Core2, then the Gemini Lake-R in this model would be Sandybridge. That's roughly how big the performance difference is between Silvermont and Goldmont+.

If Atomic Pi meets your needs, go for it! But, in my opinion, you really get quite a lot for the additional cost of the H2+. For many people, it will be money well-spent.

 

[vov4ik_il]

You were listing specs in MB/sec. 300 MB/sec * 8 bits/Byte = 2.4 Gbps.

The values are in Mbps in the first place, if I stated otherwise - it is a typo.

So, the point is you only need VPN @ 1 Gbps. Therefore 300 MB/sec would be overkill.

I am not sure which niche it is supposed to fill. My best guess is a low-end firewall appliance. And yes, 300mbit per client is a lot, but 10 Mbit for 100 clients is next to nothing.
My point is that:

• It does not have nearly enough processing power to utilize 2.5Gbps interfaces as a firewall appliance (SMB, I am not talking carrier-grade). It is not even close to getting up to 1Gbps in a typical firewall application that requires high PPS values, SPI, VPN, and other CPU heavy features, and not just traversing jumbo frames in a synthetic point to point bandwidth test. As for a low-end (SOHO devices), it has some excess features and price is a bold one of them.
• As for NAS, it is probably able to utilize fast network interfaces but has a limited number of storage interfaces which makes it a questionable solution.
• For tinker-board with GPIO and I2C it is far too expensive.
• For STB, it is more expensive than most rivals that are capable of doing at least the same.

And so on...

P.S I would get one for 75-80$, that would be my price tag for it. The other 200$ will be spent on casing, memory, maybe WiFi, power brick, and other things it is missing to even start tinkering.

 

[bit_user]

The values are in Mbps in the first place, if I stated otherwise - it is a typo.

You consistently capitalized the B, which indicates "bytes" instead of "bits".

I am not sure which niche it is supposed to fill. My best guess is a low-end firewall appliance. And yes, 300mbit per client is a lot, but 10 Mbit for 100 clients is next to nothing.

Who is using it for a 100-person office? Like @Reginald_Peebottom said, that's already at the scale where you use a commercially-supported appliance, or at least proper server-grade hardware.

The niche targeted by this product is DIY embedded/robotics, home microserver, and everything in between.

• It does not have nearly enough processing power to utilize 2.5Gbps interfaces as a firewall appliance

That's not why they're there. They're clearly for transferring data over fileserver & data backup protocols, such as for those wanting a DIY NAS.

• As for NAS, it is probably able to utilize fast network interfaces but has a limited number of storage interfaces which makes it a questionable solution.

2x SATA gives you RAID-1. Or, you could just use the M.2 NVMe slot. This is fine for a small media or backup server.

If you want more drives, then you can actually buy SATA controllers on a M.2 board, which easily nets you another 4 ports. However, now we're talking about a serious number of drives, and no suitable enclosure. At that point, maybe look to a proper mini-ITX board and a PC case that has enough drive bays. I would also use an i3 or a Ryzen board that support ECC memory, as well.

So, IMO, the number of SATA ports isn't an issue b/c the drive costs take you into another price bracket and you have to deal with housing and power issues.

• For tinker-board with GPIO and I2C it is far too expensive.

You presume too much. You don't know what someone is tinkering with. Maybe they need some real compute muscle behind it.

• For STB, it is more expensive than most rivals that are capable of doing at least the same.

It games better than cheaper rivals and it's x86. Another win, on the gaming front.

You could run full-blown Win10 on it, if you so choose.

P.S I would get one for 75-80$, that would be my price tag for it. The other 200$ will be spent on casing, memory, maybe WiFi, power brick, and other things it is missing to even start tinkering.

I have a hard time seeing how that stuff adds up to $200, unless you're adding NVMe storage (which you might as well, but then it's really not a fair comparison with most others).

I see a nice metal case for $30, 2x 4GB DDR4-2666 for $35, power brick for $13, and a 250 GB NVMe SSD for $40. So, that's only about $120. If you need wi-fi, I wonder why you'd even get the 2.5 Gbps version. You could save a little money and just get the original H2.

 

[vov4ik_il]

You consistently capitalized the B, which indicates "bytes" instead of "bits".

True, typo, had it in one of my posts, corrected.

Who is using it for a 100-person office?

Ehm, I have seen commercially marketed devices that run on Atom C2758 and do offer entry-level remote branch connectivity and SPI. Various tinker boards are widely used in prototyping such commercial solutions.
I even have a couple of Cisco boxes based on an ARM that wait on me to tinker with. Again, I am not comparing it to carrier-grade stuff that runs clustered on multi-Xeon boards.

I have a hard time seeing how that stuff adds up to $200, unless you're adding NVMe storage (which you might as well, but then it's really not a fair comparison with most others).

200$ in toys is a realistic number for tinkering (I got most of this stuff, less RAM, for my RPi so it is a fair comparison):

• 8Gb RAM 35$
• 512Gb SSD 70$ (you can sure buy a smaller one, I tend to buy things I can later re-use. I used this with RPi4)
• Power Brick 40$ (it will probably work with a lower rating too)
• Tinker kit 29$

I see a nice metal case for $30

Total: 204$ (yet no sensors, no IO shields, no tools, etc)

This is my actual Pi sandbox

 

[bit_user]

I have seen commercially marketed devices that run on Atom C2758 and do offer entry-level remote branch connectivity and SPI.

That's not really relevant, other than having a similar lineage of core micro-architecture.

The Atom-branded chips are oriented towards embedded, industrial, and rack-mount "appliances". They feature more cores (up to 16; that one has 8), more PCIe lanes, different socket, and ECC memory.

The Pentium Silver and Celeron-branded processors, on the other hand, are marketed towards consumer tablets, low-end laptops, and mini-desktops. I think a couple SKUs might be tweaked to support lower-cost embedded applications.

Various tinker boards are widely used in prototyping such commercial solutions.

I'm not saying it never happens, but those Atoms have only a little more in common with modern Celerons than they do with a mainstream desktop CPU.

Normally, a company like Intel would sell an eval board for prototyping a product based on something like an Atom SoC. Eval boards often seem like tinker boards, but they're basically a high-cost counterpart that are packed with all the features and peripherals a chip can support. Instead of cutting corners to hit a low price point, they feature the best parts needed to put the chip in its best light.

I even have a couple of Cisco boxes based on an ARM that wait on me to tinker with.

When you can just buy an ODROID C4, N2, or a Pi v4, why bother?

 

[vov4ik_il]

When you can just buy an ODROID C4, N2, or a Pi v4, why bother?

Cisco offered it for free, so I can tinker.

 

[bit_user]

Cisco offered it for free, so I can tinker.

They sent it to you for the express purpose of tinkering?

I might be missing some context, here, but the usual argument against "free" is the value of one's time. If a free piece of hardware offered not significantly greater capabilities than some suitable option I could afford, and looks like it could turn into a huge time sink, I'd happily pay the money.

I used to be a sucker for free hardware, books, etc. It took me a while to adjust my thinking to a mindset of valuing my time above all else.

 

[vov4ik_il]

They sent it to you for the express purpose of tinkering?

No, promo samples to evaluate and keep. It is indeed a huge time sink, but I now have time for it. I do not have a problem it comes to solve at the moment. Last one of similar promo devices took me almost a month worth of time to reverse-engineer, just to keep my tinkering hunger fed.

But that is all off-top. The H2+ would appeal to me (and probably many others) with a sub-80$ price tag.

 

[bit_user]

The H2+ would appeal to me (and probably many others) with a sub-80$ price tag.

Before Intel cancelled their phone SoC line and Edison x86 microcontrollers, you could have something in that range. In fact, I think the Atomic Pi uses one of the former.

I think up-board still makes a product with those chips, as well. It starts at $99, including 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of eMMC.

https://up-shop.org/up-board-series.html​

It's not going to be terribly fast, though. Its x5-z8350 still uses Silvermont/Airmont cores.

Anyway, UP Board is interesting, as they seem to straddle both the tinker boards and proper industrial/embedded SBC segments. It's been a while since I looked them up. I used to be interested in their UP Squared boards, before ODROID launched the original H2.

 

[SSubra2020]

Unbelievable how some people talk without ever even laying hand on the product nor a concept of how powerful the hardware is...

In reality Odroid H2+ does 10 Gbit networking easily as discussed on Odroid forums.
Even a 4 year old Intel Atom Cherry Trail X5-Z8350 4 core performed well as 1 Gbit firewall gateway with large rulesets running everything related to networking.

Bothered to reply to this old thread because it's a first page google search result.