3 ms·

However you can get an N100-based box for about $150 (including shipping) with 16GB RAM and 500GB NVMe storage[1]. The N100 has a more powerful CPU[2], and can

However you can get an N100-based box for about $150 (including shipping) with 16GB RAM and 500GB NVMe storage[1]. The N100 has a more powerful CPU[2], and can use OpenVINO which llama.cpp supports, so better token performance than the Pi. The N100 has far better storage performance due to x4 M.2 slot, and if you need even more RAM you can upgrade[3] it to 32GB. The RPi 5 was a very niche board to begin with, the 16GB option at $120 even more so IMO. [1]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007511663921.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007511663921.html (semi-random example) [2]: https://bret.dk/raspberry-pi-5-review/#Raspberry-Pi-5-Benchmarks https://bret.dk/raspberry-pi-5-review/#Raspberry-Pi-5-Benchm... [3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniPCs/comments/179c9m1/comment/k58n4wt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniPCs/comments/179c9m1/comment/k5... (needs to be single module, not dual)

PaulKeeble 2y ago
It also uses a lot more power all of the time for something that will be on 24/7. There is a trade off between these devices, the pi is more expensive to kit equivalent to the N100 machines (which are a bit quicker) but it uses less power all the time especially under load.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  Of course if you're powering this off solar in some remote location then we're into the niches where an RPi 5 might make sense, but otherwise it's just down to electricity cost. How that works out in practice depends on workload though, while the N100 consumes more at idle, it can also finish workloads much faster so can potentially spend more time at idle. While the RPi 5 idles at around 4W (including a NVMe) and the N100 at around 15W, the RPi 5 uses 12W at full tilt[1], ie close to N100 idle power draw. Alternatively the N100 with 32GB of RAM can replace two or more RPi 5's in terms of performance, so in that regard might even come out ahead. [1]: https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/21#issuecomment-2579400396 https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/21#issueco...
- fy20 2y ago
  The cost difference in power probably works out to much less than $50/year. Modern PCs are very power efficient when idle.
  - addicted 2y ago
    $50/yr means you make up the entire cost of the RPi in a little more than 2 years if you’re running it as a home server of some sort, for example.
  - PaulKeeble 2y ago
    Based on my current unit prices the difference in idle performance alone would come out to about £30 a year, so you would get the difference in price back within the life of the device. Europe has much higher KW/h prices for power especially in the past few years and is more advanced in transition to green power technologies and as such we tend to care more about the cost of power than those in the USA.
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  This probably depends more on what hardware is being used rather than the SoC itself. A bare RPi5 seems to idle around 3 W, which a bare N100 can absolutely (out)do (these are designed with S0ix/s2idle after all). If you add gigabit ethernet, you'll add 0.5 - 2 W (depending on the controller). If you add NVMe, you'll add 0-4 W - NVMe SSDs vary wildly in both their own power consumption and how they interact with CPU C-states and ASPM. Some SSDs prevent low C-states and thereby increase CPU power consumption a lot, for example (even in S0ix). This is generally true for every PCIe peripheral (including network controllers), but NVMe SSDs are popular troublemakers in this area. I honestly don't believe any of the "N100 idles at 15 W" numbers. First of all, that substantially exceeds the power limits of the N100, by like a factor of three. So clearly the vast majority of that power isn't being dissipated by the N100. Seeing how N100 boards generally have only one heatsinked component, the power is dissipated elsewhere. Second, people rarely post their exact hardware and how they measured this. "Idles at 15W [because there's a spinning hard drive attached]" is not very interesting. Third, many of the N100 boards have ATX power connectors, and if you use any old ATX power supply, that alone can cause such a number. Fourth, if you're using a cheap power meter, many of them are still wildly inaccurate at the low end. And, fifth, as a reality check, even much older 1L PCs using actual desktop platforms, even with separate chipsets and all that jazz, don't idle at 15 W. Unless you're using Windows, then, maybe. But Windows can't and shouldn't be the yard stick for power efficiency.
  - poulpy123 2y ago
    My minipc idle (with nothing added) idle at 6W and works at 22w
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    From the 5 N100 systems I've run, they all idle between 5-8W, PSU inclusive (measured at the wall). The SoC might idle slightly lower, but I compare total system power draw when I test SBCs since that's the only fair comparison.
    - magicalhippo 2y ago
      Now you made me want to hook up my N100 box to my lab PSU so I can get some accurate numbers of what it does and how it compares to the wall.
alias_neo 2y ago
I'm not sure why you're being down-voted; If you're not using a Pi for the GPIO/HATs and tinkering of that kind, but for hosting software/services, a mini-PC destroys the Pi in every regard. I have a couple of dozen Pis, I typically buy 3x of each generation, but recently I retired everything below a Pi4 and use a Minisforum mini-PC I got for ~£260 with a 8c/16T Ryzen 7 mobile, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD, it can do what all of the Pis were doing before and still have a tonne of CPU headroom, and I can double the RAM to 64GB if I need more. Factoring in the cost of the Pis, coolers, PSUs, storage etc it was literally cheaper than all of the Pis and has performance and features in a different league to the Pi. Power consumption is lower than the number of Pis required to run the equivalent workload by some way.
lloeki 2y ago
Great! All of these are quantitative metrics I (and many others) don't care about. - All save for one machine in my home are now ARM. I like the consistency, e.g I can share Nix derivations or Docker images. - N100 has no GPIO, which I like to tinker with from time to time. - N100 does not support my favourite HATs that I own or consider as potential buy. - N100 are one size fits all. There's a whole array of Pi cases and thermal management that can be picked up for any reason ranging from purely technical and practical purposes (fan vs passive, sealed vs open, human/environment protection...) or simply because it's fun and engaging (e.g NESPi case with SSD cartridges) - N100 come in subtle variations that you have to care about. Pis are "fixed targets" physically, hardware-wise, and culturally, which makes them easy to consistently target, support, recommend, educate about, or find books for (e.g gifts for kids). - N100 are this century nondescript dull beige boxes, while Pis are engaging through and through. Pis and N100s are qualitatively different. A Pi5 is simply an upgrade over a Pi4. All that matters is that they're fast enough.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  If you don't care about performance, which you just said you didn't, then the RPi4 ticks all the boxes you mentioned. Given the list of things you care about, the RPi5 is not really an upgrade over the RPi4. Hence why I think it's a very niche board. Had they instead made the RPi5 be a cheap RPi4, I think it would have been much more interesting. I bought some RPi4's 2GB boards when they were $30 each. That was a great price and enables a lot of fun and interesting use-cases.
  - redserk 2y ago
    Focusing on cheap would be the real “niche” area here. There are plenty of alternative boards if price is your driving concern.
    - magicalhippo 2y ago
      The cheap ones I've seen are almost all Chinese boards with limited support. The appeal of the RPi has always been that you can have some confidence it will work.

PaulKeeble 2y ago

It also uses a lot more power all of the time for something that will be on 24/7. There is a trade off between these devices, the pi is more expensive to kit equivalent to the N100 machines (which are a bit quicker) but it uses less power all the time especially under load.

magicalhippo 2y ago
Of course if you're powering this off solar in some remote location then we're into the niches where an RPi 5 might make sense, but otherwise it's just down to electricity cost. How that works out in practice depends on workload though, while the N100 consumes more at idle, it can also finish workloads much faster so can potentially spend more time at idle. While the RPi 5 idles at around 4W (including a NVMe) and the N100 at around 15W, the RPi 5 uses 12W at full tilt[1], ie close to N100 idle power draw. Alternatively the N100 with 32GB of RAM can replace two or more RPi 5's in terms of performance, so in that regard might even come out ahead. [1]: https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/21#issuecomment-2579400396 https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/21#issueco...
fy20 2y ago
The cost difference in power probably works out to much less than $50/year. Modern PCs are very power efficient when idle.
- addicted 2y ago
  $50/yr means you make up the entire cost of the RPi in a little more than 2 years if you’re running it as a home server of some sort, for example.
- PaulKeeble 2y ago
  Based on my current unit prices the difference in idle performance alone would come out to about £30 a year, so you would get the difference in price back within the life of the device. Europe has much higher KW/h prices for power especially in the past few years and is more advanced in transition to green power technologies and as such we tend to care more about the cost of power than those in the USA.
formerly_proven 2y ago
This probably depends more on what hardware is being used rather than the SoC itself. A bare RPi5 seems to idle around 3 W, which a bare N100 can absolutely (out)do (these are designed with S0ix/s2idle after all). If you add gigabit ethernet, you'll add 0.5 - 2 W (depending on the controller). If you add NVMe, you'll add 0-4 W - NVMe SSDs vary wildly in both their own power consumption and how they interact with CPU C-states and ASPM. Some SSDs prevent low C-states and thereby increase CPU power consumption a lot, for example (even in S0ix). This is generally true for every PCIe peripheral (including network controllers), but NVMe SSDs are popular troublemakers in this area. I honestly don't believe any of the "N100 idles at 15 W" numbers. First of all, that substantially exceeds the power limits of the N100, by like a factor of three. So clearly the vast majority of that power isn't being dissipated by the N100. Seeing how N100 boards generally have only one heatsinked component, the power is dissipated elsewhere. Second, people rarely post their exact hardware and how they measured this. "Idles at 15W [because there's a spinning hard drive attached]" is not very interesting. Third, many of the N100 boards have ATX power connectors, and if you use any old ATX power supply, that alone can cause such a number. Fourth, if you're using a cheap power meter, many of them are still wildly inaccurate at the low end. And, fifth, as a reality check, even much older 1L PCs using actual desktop platforms, even with separate chipsets and all that jazz, don't idle at 15 W. Unless you're using Windows, then, maybe. But Windows can't and shouldn't be the yard stick for power efficiency.
- poulpy123 2y ago
  My minipc idle (with nothing added) idle at 6W and works at 22w
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  From the 5 N100 systems I've run, they all idle between 5-8W, PSU inclusive (measured at the wall). The SoC might idle slightly lower, but I compare total system power draw when I test SBCs since that's the only fair comparison.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    Now you made me want to hook up my N100 box to my lab PSU so I can get some accurate numbers of what it does and how it compares to the wall.

alias_neo 2y ago

I'm not sure why you're being down-voted; If you're not using a Pi for the GPIO/HATs and tinkering of that kind, but for hosting software/services, a mini-PC destroys the Pi in every regard. I have a couple of dozen Pis, I typically buy 3x of each generation, but recently I retired everything below a Pi4 and use a Minisforum mini-PC I got for ~£260 with a 8c/16T Ryzen 7 mobile, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD, it can do what all of the Pis were doing before and still have a tonne of CPU headroom, and I can double the RAM to 64GB if I need more. Factoring in the cost of the Pis, coolers, PSUs, storage etc it was literally cheaper than all of the Pis and has performance and features in a different league to the Pi. Power consumption is lower than the number of Pis required to run the equivalent workload by some way.

lloeki 2y ago

Great! All of these are quantitative metrics I (and many others) don't care about. - All save for one machine in my home are now ARM. I like the consistency, e.g I can share Nix derivations or Docker images. - N100 has no GPIO, which I like to tinker with from time to time. - N100 does not support my favourite HATs that I own or consider as potential buy. - N100 are one size fits all. There's a whole array of Pi cases and thermal management that can be picked up for any reason ranging from purely technical and practical purposes (fan vs passive, sealed vs open, human/environment protection...) or simply because it's fun and engaging (e.g NESPi case with SSD cartridges) - N100 come in subtle variations that you have to care about. Pis are "fixed targets" physically, hardware-wise, and culturally, which makes them easy to consistently target, support, recommend, educate about, or find books for (e.g gifts for kids). - N100 are this century nondescript dull beige boxes, while Pis are engaging through and through. Pis and N100s are qualitatively different. A Pi5 is simply an upgrade over a Pi4. All that matters is that they're fast enough.

magicalhippo 2y ago
If you don't care about performance, which you just said you didn't, then the RPi4 ticks all the boxes you mentioned. Given the list of things you care about, the RPi5 is not really an upgrade over the RPi4. Hence why I think it's a very niche board. Had they instead made the RPi5 be a cheap RPi4, I think it would have been much more interesting. I bought some RPi4's 2GB boards when they were $30 each. That was a great price and enables a lot of fun and interesting use-cases.
- redserk 2y ago
  Focusing on cheap would be the real “niche” area here. There are plenty of alternative boards if price is your driving concern.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    The cheap ones I've seen are almost all Chinese boards with limited support. The appeal of the RPi has always been that you can have some confidence it will work.