I have some passively cooled i3-7100u boxes I recently got, each with an M.2 slot and 2 RAM modules, and they idle at around 2W each when booted into Debian. I

I have some passively cooled i3-7100u boxes I recently got, each with an M.2 slot and 2 RAM modules, and they idle at around 2W each when booted into Debian. I've never felt like Pis are that great for power vs performance for most applications, and make more sense in places where you can make use of all that GPIO and compact size.