There are 25W CPUs, some are passively cooled. It's still more than ARM though. Here's the deal: ARM is very good at doing nothing, but x86 is better at doing s

There are 25W CPUs, some are passively cooled. It's still more than ARM though. Here's the deal: ARM is very good at doing nothing, but x86 is better at doing something. If your project is doing nothing (not intensive), RPi is good for you; if it's intensive, x86 may be better. These ARM boards certainly have their place. We use one to drive a TV with build/bug/CI status. RPi is too slow, and x86 is too big to fit, but a beefier board (Odroid-u3) is just fine, and still hangs behind the TV running on its USB port. But for most of the other projects, either a RPi is good, or you'd be better off with x86.