The New ODROID Is A Beast!

erek

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" In this video, we take a look at the all-new Odroid N2+ Also Know as the ODROID N2 Plus Single board computer from HArdkernle. This thing is an absolute Beast of an ARM-based computer, powered by the 6 Core AMLOGIC S922X Rev C clocked at 2.4GHZ and backed by 4GB of LPDDR4 ram. They claim it's up to 4 times faster than the Raspberry Pi 4 in certain tasks and after doing a bit of testing I actually believe it. In this video I do an overview of the N2+ go over the specs and test out some 4k Video playback Native android games like Minecraft and finally test out some of our favorite emulators Like Redream for Dreamcast PPSSPP for PSP and even Dolphin for Gamecube! "

 
Well the Raspberry Pi Model B starts at $35, and on the hardkernel site this new N2+ model starts at $79.

So, 4x the performance for just over 2x the price?

Still not quite a fair comparison as it is in a completely different price bracket, but that said, I don't know how much it costs to completely outfit an Odroid (power supply, case, etc) compared to a Raspberry Pi...
 
If it works well, I'd totally consider one of these as a LibreElec box.

I don't have a proper HDR screen yet, but with the sad state of HDR with Intel (except for Gemini Lake and refresh) one of these little ARM boards is sounding more and more appealing.

There are no stable LibreElec builds for the Odroid N2 / N2+ yet, but test builds exist, and appear to be under active development from monitoring the dev chatter on their forums.

This could be interesting.

I just don't understand why they insist on using eMMC and SD slots for these things. A sata, or better yet, M.2 slot would be fantastic.
 
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There's always a new setup that beats RPis, reason people use pis is the community and libraries people can leverage. I built a full on interface for upgrading a piece of industrial technology using a PI, add on boards, and some proprietary stuff. I also used a ton of open source libraries for the software, wouldn't have been possible without the support.
 
That's kind of pointless though. The main benefit of M.2 is th edirect PCIe interface. Going over USB3 completely removes that benefit. Might as well just use a good USB stick, like a Sandisk Extreme in that case.

I'm not going to try and argue the fact that since its not a direct PCIe link, you're missing out, however to play devils advocate against myself, i tried to find a USB drive like you suggested that would match or beat this. Comparing the Crystal Disk mark shots from my link compared to the rated speeds on the top end SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1, its not even close. The M.2 drive blows it out of the water.
 
I'm not going to try and argue the fact that since its not a direct PCIe link, you're missing out, however to play devils advocate against myself, i tried to find a USB drive like you suggested that would match or beat this. Comparing the Crystal Disk mark shots from my link compared to the rated speeds on the top end SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1, its not even close. The M.2 drive blows it out of the water.

Interesting. I missed those benchmarks the first time around, and apparently misremembered the performance of high end USB sticks. (I could have sworn they were maxing out the USB3 interface years ago)
 
Interesting. I missed those benchmarks the first time around, and apparently misremembered the performance of high end USB sticks. (I could have sworn they were maxing out the USB3 interface years ago)

Seems like I ahvent been paying attention to USB for some time. Last time I did significant speed testing was when USB3 was new years ago, and I remember it being a huge disappointment, promising high transfer speeds in theory, but in practice barely being any faster than the ~20MB/s I could achieve over USB 2.0. (which in and of itself had a theoretical max of 60MB/s, which it never seemed to live up to, I presumed due to overhead...)

My recollection was that anything USB was just a massive disappointment all around despite published high speed modes. Looks like they might have fixed that.
 
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USB specs have gotten real confusing in the last few years, for sure. Name changes haven't helped.

1595554897497.png


Source: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usb-3-2-explained-making-sense-of-current-and-confusing-usb-standard/
 
Seems like I ahvent been paying attention to USB for some time.

Yeah, I have a Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 128GB, and large-file copies from a fast NVMe drive, it maxes out at a write speed of something like 350MB/s. I don't have CrystalDiskMark installed right now but I don't think it's anywhere near as fast as the drive(s) listed above.
 
If you guys want ARM and native m.2, NVIDIA's Xavier NX board has it. The Jetson TX2 has a SATA port I think.

The dev kits are on Amazon for $400 each. Lots more expensive than RPi or ODROID, of course, and you probably won't find a very large community or get much (or any support) but there it is.

As the power on these boards increase and ARM starts to get more "mainstream" (with Apple's new hardware late this year / early next year) I wouldn't be surprised to see m.2 slots, sata ports, etc on these things too. Maybe next gen (RPi5, ODROID N3, that kind of thing).
 
I've been very happy with mine running Batocera. Beats the Pi4 which I also own hands down.
 
There are now plenty of x86 like Raspberry Pi's that cost about the same and don't have the headache of trying to get software working. The new Rapsberry Pi 4 isn't cheap with the 8GB model costing $90. Sure the 2GB is $35 but... it's 2GB. I'd rather have the Rock Pi X with an Intel chip for that amount of money. Assuming you can find one.
 
There are now plenty of x86 like Raspberry Pi's that cost about the same and don't have the headache of trying to get software working. The new Rapsberry Pi 4 isn't cheap with the 8GB model costing $90. Sure the 2GB is $35 but... it's 2GB. I'd rather have the Rock Pi X with an Intel chip for that amount of money. Assuming you can find one.
I had a Rock Pi X, it was terrible. That intel Atom Z8350 chip isn't good at all. It also uses lower end DDR3, Don't waste your money on one like I did.

I got my Odriod N2+ for under $75 at the time, Its far superior to the Pi4 or a Rock Pi. Come to think of it, I think I actually paid more for the Raspberry Pi4 than the N2+.

I bought mine from Ameridroid last year. You can get them with pre insalled eMMC Android 9.0 or Linux. I got the Android because it allows you to overclock it to 2.4gz on all the cores.

I've recently been using Batocera from a 64GB SD card which is based on Linux to run emulators or Retroarch when I'm running the eMMC, it also allows the 2.4ghz overclock.

With all that being said, they might be hard to find now due to the chip shortage, but heres where I ordered mine.
https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-n2-plus?variant=32211327320098
 
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OK. I'll chime in.

Since this thread, I ordered a 4GB N2+ to test it with CoreElec as a potential upgrade path for all my x86 Kodi boxes running LibreElec.

Thus far it has been a pretty good experience.

Only issue I have had is that the booting from the MicroSD card is pretty slow, even with a pretty decent one.

I tried eMMC instead, and while it seems faster, I haven't been successful in getting it to boot from it yet. I think what I have to do is to edit a config file to update the partition ID, and then it will work, but I haven't gotten around to it yet due to being in the process of moving.

I may wind up putting in a volume order of these straight from Harkernel in Korea to replace all of my HTPC boxes. They use next to no power, and when running CoreElec can do just about everything my much more expensive x86 LibreElec boxes are doing, and then also do HEVC 10bit HDR which Intel doesn't really do well in most cases.

I'm very impressed. I'm still not sold that ARM is going to replace x86 any time soon for performance oriented stuff, but for a HTPC box, I see no reason to use x86 today.
 
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OK. I'll chime in.

Since this thread, I ordered a 4GB N2+ to test it with CoreElec as a potential upgrade path for all my x86 Kodi boxes running LibreElec.

Thus far it has been a pretty good experience.

Only issue I have had is that the booting from the MicroSD card is pretty slow, even with a pretty decent one.

I tried eMMC instead, and while it seems faster, I haven't been successful in getting it to boot from it yet. I think what I have to do is to edit a config file to update the partition ID, and then it will work, but I haven't gotten around to it yet due to being in the process of moving.

I may wind up putting in a volume order of these straight from Harkernel in Korea to replace all of my HTPC boxes. They use next to no power, and when running CoreElec can do just about everything my much more expensive x86 LibreElex boxes are doing, and then also do HEVC 10bit HDR which Intel doesn't really do well in most cases.

I'm very impressed. I'm still not sold that ARM is going to replace x86 any time soon for performance oriented stuff, but for a HTPC box, I see no reason to use x86 today.
That's really what its about, managing your expectations with these ARM chips. I play emulators on mine up to Gamecube, which the N2+ does a good job at, this was after a lot of research though, a lot of which came from ETA Prime on Youtube. I thought that that Rock Pi X was going to be better being x86 but that Intel Atom 8350 chip just does not have the horsepower. But the Rock Pi has its uses just not in any semi demanding 3D applications, it makes a good file server.
 
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