The Raspberry Pi 3 isn’t the only new low-cost, single-board computer launching today. For $40 you can also now pick up a HardKernel ODROID-C2, which was first announced earlier this month.
While the ODROID-C2 costs $5 more than a Raspberry Pi 3, it does have a faster processor, twice as much memory, Gigabit Ethernet, and a number of other features which could make it faster than the new Raspberry Pi.
On the other hand, it lacks three of the key features of the Raspberry Pi 3: built-in WiFi and Bluetooth and a huge community of people already developing software and accessories for the platform.
If those things don’t matter, here’s what you do get with the ODROID-C2:
- 2 GHz Amlogic S905 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor with Mali-450 graphics
- 2GB RAM
- Gigabit Ethernet
- HDMI 2.0 with 4K/60 Hz and H.265/H.264 support
- 40 pin GPIO and 7 pin I2S
- 4 USB 2.0 ports
- IR receiver
The Hardkernel ODROID-C2 can support eMMC 5.0 and/or microSD card storage. If you want an eMMC module, you’ll need to pay $18 to $59 extra to get a model configured with 8GB to 64GB of storage.
via CNX Software
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18 Comments on "$40 ODROID-C2 is faster, has more memory than Raspberry Pi 3"
Shipping is $16 so its’ more like $56 but cheapest shipping I found for Pi 3 is $8.
Ameridroid sells it for $41.95 + $6.75 shipping = $48.70
Depends on where you are. ameriDroid.com has priority shipping to the US for less than $7.
Nice. I might get one. I have a s905 box and the 4k performance is crazy good for this price range.
ODroid has one bonus feature Android. Yes, the ability to run Android and its apps or load Linux which makes it very versatile. Use it as a set top box, a place to test an android app, IOT device the list goes on and on.
Android yes, Linux no. Unless you count a 2d unaccelerated framebuffer as supported. Embedded GL is not Open GL.
Until the ARM world releases a few datasheets for video controllers the Pi wins if you want to run a Linux desktop on one of these little guys.
Mali or PowerVR is never going to release linux driver lol.
Hopefully the 2d acceleration will fixed soon. People should not buy the board until it is fixed and tested. It’s scary that this issue has not been closed in the months that the devs have been working on the board.
There is nothing to ‘fix’, the problem is 4K on an unaccelerated framebuffer is unusable. There isn’t enough bandwidth between the CPU and GPU to blit that much screen around purely in software. And that is all there is ever going to be other than a blob intended to provide EGL support to Android.
Somebody could write an X11 server that runs atop EGL and achieve some acceleration that way but nobody has that I’m aware of. Full GL atop EGL probably isn’t possible though so none of the modern 3d desktop environments can ever be brought up unless they are ported to run on the EGL subset.
The Lima project has been trying to reverse engineer a Mali driver for years now, best they have achieved is they had the Open GL version of Quake III Arena running on an old Mali a couple of years ago.
Pine64 has mali 400, and odroid c2 has mali 450. So you are saying that there is no expectation for a smooth 4k 2D windows manager under Ubuntu? I read that Mir and Wayland are fully compatible with EGL drivers. I am thinking that embedded SOCs would benefit from Wayland development more than desktop gpus.
1920×1200 is running extremely smoothly. Chromium loads pages quick and Kodi plays 4k h265 videos (60Hz on a 4k hdtv). It does idle at 2.5w, and has been running 24/7 with a reboot in over a month. 64bit arm Ubuntu. Gigabit performance is underwhelming, but is more than 2.5 times faster than Rpi3. I waited until September before buying.
Just ran glxinfo, and direct rendering is enabled. The desktop graphics performance is just as good as my i3, webpages just load a little slower than i3 but at least twice as fast as Rpi3.
I am monitoring the forum to see when certain issues are resolved. The ubuntu windows managers appear to be slowing down at the 4k resolution. That is important to me and I will wait on buying a board until it is fixed. It’s great that they are aiming to have most things working when boards ship, but I will wait just to be sure.
I am also looking forward to the 2GB ram and gigabit ethernet.
That h265 support intrigues me, I’m currently converting everything into it and being amazed at the space savings but it’s absolute murder on a plex server when the client doesn’t support h265 so it has to be decoded in software and re-encoded. I’m seeing 60% cpu usage from one stream on an Ivybridge quad core.
Solution? More h265 hardware decode capable clients!
It is basically unusable. No real gpu drivers, no decoders, … It can be ocaduple super core 5GHz but if there is no software support it is just garbage PCB.
odroid is crap. emmc modules are crazy expensive for no serious reason, poor support and neverending hardware problems. be ready to never ever have any responses when you write any support e-mails to hard kernel, they will just ignore it. got a faulty emmc module? no moneyback, deal with it yourself. want linux headers or any stable ubuntu support (or any stable system build)? you’re out of luck. never ever waste your money on odroid crap.
You may aswell buy a Tronsmart Vega S95 Telos, same specs. but with bluetooth, 16gb eMMC and AC 2×2 wifi. There’s also GPIO pins.
Both the Pi 3 and the Odroid C2 can run x86 code but it works better on the Odroid C2 because there is more RAM available.
http://www.bitkistl.com/2016/0…