News Raspberry Pi 5 squares off against a scrawny Intel CPU — Intel N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N chip proves to be a strong competitor

[Admin]

Explaining Computers looks at the Raspberry Pi 5 and how it compares to his N100 mini PC.

Raspberry Pi 5 squares off against a scrawny Intel CPU — Intel N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N chip proves to be a strong competitor : Read more

 

[subspruce]

I bet the N100 is great for basic use.

 

[bit_user]

This is a silly comparison, if you've been following the tech in any depth. By my estimates, the Pi 5's Cortex-A76 cores are roughly on par with Sandybridge cores, at least in terms of IPC. And yet, we know that the N100's Gracemont cores are roughly comparable to Skylake cores. So, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

the N100 has more to offer in the way of connectivity.

That's an understatement. It has x9 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity, compared to the Pi's x1 lane. This will make a big difference on storage-intensive tasks, although a x1-connected NVMe drive is plenty of performance for casual usage, as it will still typically outperform SATA drives in those scenarios.

More importantly, the N100 gives you a Gen12 iGPU that's far beyond the capabilities and performance of the Pi 5's.

 

[bit_user]

I bet the N100 doesn't even boot Windows.

Huh?? For sure it does.

 

[LuxZg]

While I love ARM and Pi for tinkering, and AMD for PCs, N100-N305 lineup is providing great CPUs for mini/micro PCs.

N100 is as good as Skylake desktop CPU I used until a year ago (!!) and does it with 10% power (6W vs 65W).

Also, we were looking for new signage PCs and we were looking at Pi briefly, but OS we use doesn't support ARM. So after a while I found decent N100 PCs on Amazon and ordered one for 175$. That's whole PC! RJ45 for gigabit LAN, 2x HDMI, 2x USB 3.1, 2x 2.0, and USB-C with DP capability. RAM is soldered but 16GB. It's a beast vs RPi

So we asked for an offer in factory. 8GB RAM and no SSD (PXE boot) - 100$!

So while RPi is getting more expensive every gen and harder to buy, N100 crew is cleaning up with 100$ hardware.

Note that's normal PC, for extra 7$ they offered 256GB SSD, and it has case, power supply, and even VESA mount. While you need to add so much to RPi to make it functional

So if you need PC, I can recommend these. As long as you don't need to connect weird I/O the way RPi offers expansions for tiny robotics and sensors, N100 mini/micro PCs are the way.

We're now waiting for 100pcs to arrive

 

[ezst036]

The computing performance has come a long way for ARM for general use though.

It would be a shame if the day never comes when we could have general purpose ATX boards (and all the sub-categories) from many vendors and socketed ARM CPUs. Memory slots, multi PCI-E, any and all computer cases I could choose from virtually any vendor, and the whole getup.

That would make moving to ARM a massive step back if its just soldered on junk. Color me uninterested, I'll keep my x86, my modular boards, and the whole environment, thank you very much. Same goes for RISC-V. So far the core CPU-tech looks real promising, but the environment is a terrible nightmare. It's just soldered on junk.

 

[bit_user]

N100 is as good as Skylake desktop CPU I used until a year ago (!!) and does it with 10% power (6W vs 65W).

I wish people wouldn't keep repeating this myth. The N100 has a PL2 of 25 W. That's when you hit 3.4 GHz. At 6 W (PL1), they only guarantee base clocks of 800 MHz.

Introduction - 001 - ID:759603 | Intel® Processor and Intel® Core™ i3 N-Series

edc.intel.com

By contrast, the i7-6700 has a base frequency of 3.4 GHz at 65 W. From what I can find, it seems the turbo frequency of 4.0 GHz is reachable within an envelope of just 81 W (base power + 25%). So, that's only 3.25x the boost power of the N100. A sustained, all-core workload at base power could run the N100 at just 0.8 GHz, and you best believe a N100 at that speed is nowhere near as fast as a i7-6700 at 3.4 GHz!

What Intel has said about their relative performance is that Gracemont has similar IPC to Skylake. So, that means they need to be running at similar clock speeds to have equivalent performance. If you look at available benchmarks, N100 mini-PCs tend to perform similar to those with an i5-6500T, which is actually a 35 W part (presumably with 44 W turbo limit). Its turbo speed is 3.1 GHz and base freq. is 2.5 GHz.

Fanless Intel N100 Firewall and Virtualization Appliance Review

We test the new Intel N100 Alder Lake-N 4x 2.5GbE fanless firewall and virtualization appliance with a massive generational performance jump

www.servethehome.com

Yes, it's still an improvement, but not by nearly as much as you claimed.

So we asked for an offer in factory. 8GB RAM and no SSD (PXE boot) - 100$!

The 8 GB Pi 5 has a MSRP of $80. Of course, you'll want to budget for the active cooler, as well.

So while RPi is getting more expensive every gen and harder to buy, N100 crew is cleaning up with 100$ hardware.

They claim the supply situation should finally get sorted out soon.

https://www.tomshardware.com/raspbe...i-5s-per-week-will-surge-to-90000-in-february
​

And don't act as though Intel's E-core SoCs didn't have availability problems. Jasper Lake & Elkhart Lake were nearly impossible to source for years. Even Alder Lake-N didn't launch until more than a year after Alder Lake-S.

Note that's normal PC, for extra 7$ they offered 256GB SSD, and it has case, power supply, and even VESA mount. While you need to add so much to RPi to make it functional

Huh? A Pi just needs storage, case, and a USB power supply. Same as your board. It has USB 3, dual-HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and Wi fi.

Don't get me wrong: I neither love the Pi 5 nor dislike Alder Lake-N (except for its single-channel memory interface). I just want to make sure we're all clear on exactly what each is and isn't. At 6W/25W, the N100 can roughly equal a Skylake i5 at 35W/44W. And while you can use a Pi 5 as a mini-PC, that's not really what it's for.

 

[bit_user]

The computing performance has come a long way for ARM for general use though.

Raspberry Pi is a terrible place to look, if you want to understand the current performance of ARM cores. They're made on an old node, using old cores. They're designed to be cheap and flexible, not fast.

To see how fast an ARM-designed core can run general-purpose workloads, look at benchmarks of Amazon's Graviton 3 and (upcoming) Graviton 4. To see what's possible with the ARM ISA, look at benchmarks of Apple's M-series SoCs. All of these machines run circles around the Pi and its low-end SoC. Again, the Pi isn't made to be fast.

It would be a shame if the day never comes when we could have general purpose ATX boards (and all the sub-categories) from many vendors and socketed ARM CPUs. Memory slots, multi PCI-E, any and all computer cases I could choose from virtually any vendor, and the whole getup.

You can get ARM boards in mini-ITX and ATX form factors, with PCIe slots and (some with) standard DDR4 DIMM slots.

Not sure about socketed, though. ARM is likely to make inroads first into the mini-PC market, where BGA SoCs are the norm. Socketed CPUs are more of a high-end thing.

That would make moving to ARM a massive step back if its just soldered on junk.

x86 laptops and mini-PCs are "soldered on junk".

 

[ThomasKinsley]

Chris is a class act and it's always enjoyable watching his detailed videos. While the Raspberry Pi is not a replacement for the N100, its Cortex-A76 cores are quite old. Even Samsung's Galaxy S10 uses modified A76 cores and that phone is nearly 5 years old. More modern ARM and x86 processors make for a better comparison. The SD8 Gen 3, a phone soc, compares well alongside the i7-9700K, which is still a very capable desktop cpu. Later this year Qualcomm is planning on releasing their first Nuvia (aka Oryon) cores in laptops and smartphones. SD8 Gen 4 will supposedly be 40% faster than Gen 3. It just shows how much CPUs continue to progress.

 

[brandonjclark]

Do you guys even Amazon?!?!?!

I've been looking at a $149 BeeLink N100 with 16GB RAM and 512GB M.2 SSD for a couple of weeks now.

I plan on using it to replace an old (and architecturally deprecated) Intel Atom D510 as a dedicated DNS resolver. *I then run my PiHole services on top of that box and point to the internal resolver. Boom! No DNS leakage!

Back on topic, the BeeLink minipc's are a steal. Especially the N100 model which can be had for under $200 all day, every day.


*Before you nerds jump on me for not running my DNS services (and pihole) on K8S, I am! This is a backup box (**2nd DNS resolver).

Why don't you load-balance them? ~ Mind your own business!

 

[Amdlova]

Descent usb charger for a pi 20$
Case 10$
Heatsink 20$
Pi 5 80$

Get a used 1L mini PC way better

 

[bit_user]

Descent usb charger for a pi 20$
Case 10$
Heatsink 20$
Pi 5 80$

The official USB power adapter costs only $13.60 at pishop.us. The active cooler adds $6.45. So, that's a total of $110.05.

Again, I'm not advocating for one vs. the other. I just want accurate info. Making the best decision depends on having good info.

Get a used 1L mini PC way better

When it comes to final purchasing decisions, it's worth considering used. However, if we're trying to compare products based on merit, then we should stick to new vs. new.

 

[thestryker]

You can get ARM boards in mini-ITX and ATX form factors, with PCIe slots and (some with) standard DDR4 DIMM slots.

Not sure about socketed, though. ARM is likely to make inroads first into the mini-PC market, where BGA SoCs are the norm. Socketed CPUs are more of a high-end thing.

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=ALTRAD8UD-1L2T

This is the only socketed Arm currently that I'm aware of.

 

[bit_user]

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=ALTRAD8UD-1L2T

This is the only socketed Arm currently that I'm aware of.

Yeah, I was thinking of that, but decided it was niche enough not to risk confusing the discussion. My reference to it being a "high-end thing" was meant to cover it. Suffice to say that only ARM server CPUs will be socketed, for the foreseeable future.

What's interesting is that some ARM boards have the SoC on a daughter card. Nvidia does this:

https://developer.nvidia.com/buy-jetson
​

...but there are others:

https://en.t-firefly.com/product/industry/itx3588j
​

 

[usertests]

While I love ARM and Pi for tinkering, and AMD for PCs, N100-N305 lineup is providing great CPUs for mini/micro PCs.

It's all about that N100 and sometimes other quad-core variants as far as I can tell. Although I have seen some N300/N305 laptops under $200 on ebay.

Intel should increase the N200 to 6 cores when they refresh the Alder Lake-N lineup ("Twin Lake"), and make that the volume seller instead of the N100. That would be a nice move.

This is a silly comparison, if you've been following the tech in any depth. By my estimates, the Pi 5's Cortex-A76 cores are roughly on par with Sandybridge cores, at least in terms of IPC. And yet, we know that the N100's Gracemont cores are roughly comparable to Skylake cores. So, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

It's a comparison that needs to be made because RPT billed Pi4 and Pi5 as desktop computers, and an accessorized 8GB Pi5 with case/fan, power supply, microHDMI cable, storage, etc. reaches into the price territory where the cheaper N100 boxes and refurbished 1L OptiPlexes, etc. live. These comparisons can be somewhat unfair, but people need to be taught to buy those far superior x86 products for desktop usage unless they have a good use case for an RPi, such as the size, GPIO, out-of-the-box power consumption, etc.

And the funny part is that it's arguably a half-assed effort by Intel. Alder Lake-N apparently has most (75%) of the die area of Alder Lake-U, is stomped by 2+4 i3-1215U and perhaps 1+4 Pentium 8500, only supports single-channel memory, and Intel is disabling many Alder Lake-N dies by half (they make dual-core N50 from the same die so a 6-core is likely possible). But it's still a king at about $150. I think these cheap chips are keeping their fabs busy.

 

[thestryker]

Yeah, I was thinking of that, but decided it was niche enough not to risk confusing the discussion. My reference to it being a "high-end thing" was meant to cover it. Suffice to say that only ARM server CPUs will be socketed, for the foreseeable future.

What's interesting is that some ARM boards have the SoC on a daughter card. Nvidia does this:

​

https://developer.nvidia.com/buy-jetson​

​

...but there are others:

​

https://en.t-firefly.com/product/industry/itx3588j​

​

Yeah I think it comes down to consumer level SoCs have everything integrated so there really isn't much point in a socketed system. I'd imagine if Arm starts to gain desktop traction the chips would still likely be soldered, but potentially be in MATX/ATX form factor with PCIe slots available.

 

[LuxZg]

I wish people wouldn't keep repeating this myth. The N100 has a PL2 of 25 W. That's when you hit 3.4 GHz. At 6 W (PL1), they only guarantee base clocks of 800 MHz.

​

Introduction - 001 - ID:759603 | Intel® Processor and Intel® Core™ i3 N-Series

edc.intel.com

​

By contrast, the i7-6700 has a base frequency of 3.4 GHz at 65 W. From what I can find, it seems the turbo frequency of 4.0 GHz is reachable within an envelope of just 81 W (base power + 25%). So, that's only 3.25x the boost power of the N100. A sustained, all-core workload at base power could run the N100 at just 0.8 GHz, and you best believe a N100 at that speed is nowhere near as fast as a i7-6700 at 3.4 GHz!

What Intel has said about their relative performance is that Gracemont has similar IPC to Skylake. So, that means they need to be running at similar clock speeds to have equivalent performance. If you look at available benchmarks, N100 mini-PCs tend to perform similar to those with an i5-6500T, which is actually a 35 W part (presumably with 44 W turbo limit). Its turbo speed is 3.1 GHz and base freq. is 2.5 GHz.

​

Fanless Intel N100 Firewall and Virtualization Appliance Review

We test the new Intel N100 Alder Lake-N 4x 2.5GbE fanless firewall and virtualization appliance with a massive generational performance jump

www.servethehome.com

​

Yes, it's still an improvement, but not by nearly as much as you claimed.


The 8 GB Pi 5 has a MSRP of $80. Of course, you'll want to budget for the active cooler, as well.


They claim the supply situation should finally get sorted out soon.

​

https://www.tomshardware.com/raspbe...i-5s-per-week-will-surge-to-90000-in-february​

​

And don't act as though Intel's E-core SoCs didn't have availability problems. Jasper Lake & Elkhart Lake were nearly impossible to source for years. Even Alder Lake-N didn't launch until more than a year after Alder Lake-S.


Huh? A Pi just needs storage, case, and a USB power supply. Same as your board. It has USB 3, dual-HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and Wi fi.

Don't get me wrong: I neither love the Pi 5 nor dislike Alder Lake-N (except for its single-channel memory interface). I just want to make sure we're all clear on exactly what each is and isn't. At 6W/25W, the N100 can roughly equal a Skylake i5 at 35W/44W. And while you can use a Pi 5 as a mini-PC, that's not really what it's for.

Ah yes, my bad about 6W, I keep forgetting the marketing. But that's not really all that important for a PC that will mostly be idle (signage, or some light office or home use, and such).

I'm more concerned about price vs performance of N100 vs Pi. You claim price is similar. It is. Sort of (?). Pi is sold for 100€ for 8GB (and not in stock), case with fan another 12€, power adapter 15€. And if you need storage that needs to be added on top and I don't know how good Pi is with storage on v5, but I hated the SD cards unreliability on early models. So we get to 127€ for a Pi, plus storage. But it not being in stock, it is extremely hard to buy 100 pieces for any project. It's often hard to buy just 1 for personal use. So price offered is price you get, no negotiating. On the other hand I sent email to Amazon seller, got through to China factory in a day, they said they have it in stock, and not even really negotiating I got 100$ price. Case, power, whole PC. And it is a PC, nice design, sturdy, silent. For 107$ they were selling me option with 256GB SSD and Windows 11. So, 107$ (dollars!!) for PC you can plug and use, and available in large quantities, vs Pi 5 for ~140€ (euro!) when completed with case, power and SD card. And there's still software availability. We have 100+ existing signage x86 PCs, and while software is Linux, that particular distro doesn't do ARM. Sure we could go for new distro but... Where's the incentive? Remember, plug and use, compatible and less money vs the Pi option.

And sure you can argue this is for 100 pieces. But it's almost the same for single purchase. You can get N100 PCs for 150$ shipped. So that's like Pi, but available right away. Going for 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD (for desktop use) makes Pi look even more expensive and unavailable, well, mostly because 16GB doesn't even exist. N100? Just go online and order one.

There's other issues as well.

RPi uses micro-HDMI. That means buying cables while usually you already have normal HDMI either shipped with screen/TV, or from some other device that used that screen. Two outputs, two cables, more cost, more things to keep on mind. And I prefer larger connector for the durability.

PCI express is another thing, storage being limited to SD card, etc. N100 PC will usually come with M2 slot. Even if it's SATA M2 it still beats SD card in my book.

So while in the early days Pi offered little performance for less money (25$) today it's a 140$ computer that has nothing to offer vs the other 140$ computers.

Pi still has its use, and as I said I love the concept for those uses. But it's getting more expensive and less available, while Intel opened up the market again with N100.

It sort of reminds me of Wintel tablets for 100$ that were readily available and IMHO better than ARM/Android devices of same era (I had one dual booting, used Android twice).

 

[bit_user]

the funny part is that it's arguably a half-assed effort by Intel. Alder Lake-N apparently has most (75%) of the die area of Alder Lake-U, is stomped by 2+4 i3-1215U

That comparison is a little to facile. That has a PL1/PL2 of 15/55 W. The N305 has 15/35 W. Confine the i3-1215U to the same and it won't shine so brightly.

I do find it funny that the i5-1215U and N305 are both listed with a "Recommended Customer Price" of $309.

 

[thestryker]

I do find it funny that the i5-1215U and N305 are both listed with a "Recommended Customer Price" of $309.

My favorite part of the pricing is that my 6x 2.5gb N305 box came in at a bit under $290.

 

[usertests]

That comparison is a little to facile. That has a PL1/PL2 of 15/55 W. The N305 has 15/35 W. Confine the i3-1215U to the same and it won't shine so brightly.

Yeah nah I think it would be fine with a lower PL2. Not that it should have to run at that in a mini PC with sufficient cooling. My point is that a minor cut in die area loses a lot going from Alder Lake-U to Alder Lake-N.

There's the 2 P-cores of course, but you're also getting 3x (!) the iGPU execution units in the bigger die, which is still 64 EUs (2x the N305) in the partially disabled 1215U/1315U, and 48 in Pentium 8500. And dual-channel memory support (which takes up a little die space).

I do find it funny that the i5-1215U and N305 are both listed with a "Recommended Customer Price" of $309.

I remember when we found out it was going to be called the Core i3-N305. Premium name, premium prices.

 

[LuxZg]

That comparison is a little to facile. That has a PL1/PL2 of 15/55 W. The N305 has 15/35 W. Confine the i3-1215U to the same and it won't shine so brightly.

I do find it funny that the i5-1215U and N305 are both listed with a "Recommended Customer Price" of $309.

For less than 309$ you get the whole PC with N305

My favorite part of the pricing is that my 6x 2.5gb N305 box came in at a bit under $290.

Exactly. I'm looking at links I had saved while I was looking what to buy, N200 is +60€ over N100, and N305 is another 60€ (so total 120€ over the N100).

So if I take that large quote as baseline, you could even have a 200€ N305 PC. Though you'll bump the storage and RAM so probably 250€. That's still cheap!

Amazon currently lists N305 + 32GB RAM + 512GB SSD for 443€ with free shipped to Croatia. 2x HDMI and 2x LAN.

One has N100/16/512 for 250€, and 4x 2.5GbE ports.

And that's what can be shipped to me. I'm sure US has way more options and even better prices as your example shows

 

[bill001g]

I have been having issues finding raspberry pi 5 at list price...microcenter never seems to have stock.

On black friday I picked up a few dual ethernet n100 boxes from gmtek for about $135. They have 12gb of ram, soldered , and a 512 ssd...sata . They also come with a windows 11 pro license not that I am sure it actually legit but windows says it is valid.

My plan is to use these as small point to point vpn firewalls. I loaded pfsense on them and got everything mostly setup and then got lazy. At least I know they can run for a few months doing nothing without failing.

The key thing I see about using a raspberry pi 5 for this type of application is the lack of support for AES instructions to accelerate vpn. Then again that is what I have to test, i might be better off running wireguard even on these nuc boxes.

 

[domih]

The Alder-Lake N are for OEM and integrators, e.g. ready to use NAS boxes, laptops, DIY SBCs, . The prices on Ark Intel are NOT the prices they pay for. The prices significantly go down depending on quantity. Contrary to what the numbering seems to indicate the N97 is more performant than the N100 (iGPU included)(*). If you want more cores, go with a N305 based solution.

The N100, N97 and N305 only support one channel of memory, this means it is a step back if you go with a DDR4 3200-MT/s based Alder-Lake N system (**). Your best choice is a system based on DDR5 with doubled memory banks, more than compensating at 4800Mhz, with the single channel supported by the CPU.

(*) https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=231803,233090,231805.
(**) Gemini Lake and Jasper Lake both support double channel.

Contrary to what Ark Intel specifies, Gemini Lake and Jasper Lake support up to 32GB and 64GB of memory. As a matter of fact I have an ODROID H3+ running with 64GB of memory. Although I have not been able to try it yet, I assume that Alder-Lake N supports 32GB too. Because it is a single channel solution, I would hope that a DDR5 4800MT/s SO-DIMM 48GB would also work. These models do exist: see https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=DDR5+4800+SO-DIMM+48GB&_sacat=0&rt=nc&Total%20Capacity=48%20GB&_dcat=170083. They were quite cheap back in summer 2023. The prices have been creeping up since.

A Raspberry PI 5 trails behind an RK3588-based SBC (e.g. Radxa ROCK 5B). The latter trails behind a Jasper Lake-based SBC which itself trails behind an Alder-Lake N system. Case closed. It's not even comparable. I'm not surprised that the video comes from Explaining Computers. If the presenter were to compare a Raspberry Pi to the International Space Station, he would conclude that the Pi is a better solution.

It all depends on (a) your budget (b) what you want to do with the system. For an always on system, an ARM-based server can have very low energy consumption. Though a correctly tuned Linux on a Jasper Lake-based SBC can also consume just a few watts when idle. The x86 and ARM software libraries are not comparable, the x86 one is much larger in terms of ready to use solutions for a "normal" user. Finally, with x86 future Windows or Linux OS versions are almost guaranteed to work. With ARM, the OEM must for instance adapt the upstream Linux kernel to each SBC model.

Anyway, if you are set on Alder-Lake N, go with at least an N97, and choose a board where the memory, eMMC, NVMe are NOT soldered, and thus can be upgraded down the road. It is also well known that boards with soldered memory and storage have below par components in order to minimize production costs.

 

[Darkoverlordofdata]

Why would anyone be surprised that an Intel could mop the floor with a crappy raspberry? My wife got a laptop with an N-305 with Windows 11. It runs rings around her last computer, a Microsoft Surface i7.

 

[bit_user]

My favorite part of the pricing is that my 6x 2.5gb N305 box came in at a bit under $290.

Yeah, those prices are a fiction. I'd love to know how much these chips really sell for.