The Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro is a single-board PC that measures 92 x 62mm (3.62″ x 2.44″) and features hardware that could make it an interesting option as a compact router, file server, media player, or edge AI device.

Powered by a Rockchip RK3576 processor, the little board supports up to 16GB of RAM and features an eMMC socket for onboard storage as well as a microSD card reader and an M.2 2280 connector for PCIe 2.0 x1 SSDs. There’s also a decent set of ports that includes two Gigiabit Ethernet ports, an HDMI output, and a few USB ports.

The Rockchip RK3576 processor combines four 2.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A72 performance cores with four 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 efficiency cores, Mali-G52 MC3 graphics, a 400 Cortex-M0 MCU, and an NPU with support for up to 6 TOPS of AI performance.

As CNX-Software points out, it’s a chip that falls between the Rockchip RK3588 processor and the older RK3399 chip in terms of performance.

The board features LPDDR4x memory, support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5, and a set of ports that includes:

  • 1 x HDMI 2.1
  • 2 x Gigabit Ethernet
  • 1 x USB 3.0 Type-A
  • 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A
  • 1 x USB 2.0 Type-C OTG
  • 1 x USB Type-C (power input only)
  • 1 x microSD card reader

There’s also a 40-pin GPIO header, two MIPI-CSI camera connectors, a MIPI-DSI display connector, and connectors for optional add-ons like a fan and RTC battery.

The company says the Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro supports Debian 11, Android 14, and Buildroot, but images aren’t available for download yet and the board isn’t available for purchase from Banana Pi yet… but ArmSoM is selling a rebranded version of the board called the ArmSoM Sige5 Pro Max for $148 (for a model with 16GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage).

Fun fact: While you’d think the Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro would have at least a passing resemblance to the Banana Pi BPI-M5 that launched a few years ago, the new board has a different chipset, port selection and layout, and really doesn’t share much with the older model aside from a name (and the fact that they’re both single-board computers, I guess).

via Banana Pi Forum

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    1. BPI-M5 Pro’s PCIe gen2 single lane m.2 can only transfer 5Gpbs which is probably why they only allow for a USB 3.0 at 5Gpbs. If they had 2 lanes of PCIe gen2 for the m.2 then a USB 3.1 would be a good match.
      As a comparison, Intel N100 has NVME 4 lanes PCIe gen3 and USB 3.2

      Reply

      1. Thank you for your answer. I know that BPI-M5 Pro can only transfer 5 Gb/s, and Intel N100 with 4 PCIe gen3 (NVME) lines has USB 3.2
        My question was tricky. Why, after so many years of sbc on ARM (RPI and similar), are there still visible savings in the CPU? After so many years, they could provide a CPU that supports many more PCI lanes, and the processor itself could be made in a low (energy-saving) technological process, e.g. 4nm?

        Reply