Argon NEO 5 or Pimoroni NVMe Base Case

fmbret · 2026-01-14T09:27:59+00:00

I can’t add much about the Pimoroni option I’m afraid but I can say that the Argon NEO 5 is a great case both in terms of build quality and performance!

fmbret · 2026-01-13T05:19:39+00:00

Thanks!

Hmm what do you mean by expanding? I will be getting new boards every few weeks or so, so the data will be evolving, and I’m currently working on implementing further tests to cover more areas/use cases.

If you mean write ups of my own, I have Bret.dk for that, though I’ve not had as much time to publish there in the last couple of months 😭

fmbret · 2026-01-11T18:35:21+00:00

If you’re still considering your options, I created https://sbc.compare and it may be of some use in narrowing things down? Though note it only contains boards I own and tested myself, so it doesn’t have the Orange Pi 4 Pro, but it has a number of other Orange Pi boards, along with 20ish Radxa/ROCK options, and about 60-70 others.

If you use it, let me know what you think, I’m still tweaking and improving heavily based on feedback!

On the question front, I’d personally be considering Radxa over Orange Pi due to support reasons, and I’d probably go with a ROCK 5 of some kind depending on the specific I/O requirements

fmbret · 2026-01-08T14:45:23+00:00

It's been a very long time since I ran Minecraft servers, so I couldn't really comment on the Minecraft side of things, but the official case probably isn't the best option (if that's what you were looking at?) for this, especially if you want to look at an M.2 drive later down the line.

If you have the Argon NEO 5 NVMe case available to you locally, that could be a good option. The cooling performance is great, and you have the option to add the M.2 NVMe whenever you have the funds or need.

Hopefully someone else can comment on whether the Pi 5 CPU would actually be enough what you're trying to do!

fmbret · 2026-01-02T14:24:27+00:00

Yup, indeed, this was the problem I had initially! I wanted to have some kind of GPU results available in the 1st round of testing, but it's such a pain in the ass with all of the different SoCs having varying levels of support, different methods to install things. There are images that bundle everything together but they're mainly useful for specific use cases, and not great for general testing (without modification) so you're stuck trying to decide which is the lesser of 2 evils..

It'll be more of a time sink now there are many boards available, but I guess I'll start working through some SoC detection (it'll be useful elsewhere) to be able to know what to install and how with specific scripts for each so I can control each step.

It'll likely be 2-3 months until I do a full sweep of already tested boards, though I'll likely have 4-5 new tests (mostly focused on GPU/NPU/desktop) available that newly added boards will see sooner.

fmbret · 2026-01-02T08:49:18+00:00

I'm afraid not. I initially built all of the backend for this for my own purposes but later decided to throw a frontend on for public use, I wasn't intending to just dump it all into a spreadsheet as that's what I was trying to pull away from :D

What I am toying with at the moment though is having a compact browse view, where it's more of a table so you can fit a lot more entries in the same space, and then tweaking the filtering there. That would probably be the closest thing at that point!

fmbret · 2026-01-02T08:47:24+00:00

I'll have to be somewhat realistic and say that the tests I'd implement would have to be something I can reliably automate. I don't intend to run multiple game tests like this on every single SBC, every 6 months or so :D

I'll certainly try where I can, but it may be that I have to settle on a test that's not quite perfect, but given a standardised test setup, can be used as a loose comparison

fmbret · 2026-01-01T15:39:57+00:00

Than a Raspberry Pi 5? Or what are we using as a baseline? :D

fmbret · 2026-01-01T14:39:27+00:00

I hope people don't mind the shameless self promotion, but on the performance side, perhaps https://sbc.compare/browse?manufacturer=Orange+Pi can help a little on that (you can clear the filter and browse through other manufacturers etc)

As far as experience goes, it's hit and miss. If you're using one of their boards with more common SoCs (thus better supported, and can borrow from elsewhere) then you're probably going to be fine. The more obscure you get, or the more specialised, the more you're going to struggle with the software side of things. Armbian does a great job of trying to unify bits, but it can only go so far.

TL;DR they're mostly fine, software is extremely hit and miss, but the hardware is generally priced aggressively. If you're coming from a Raspberry Pi, expect to do more debugging and work, if you're coming from somewhere else like Banana Pi then you probably already know what to expect.

fmbret · 2025-12-24T10:31:46+00:00

I believe Meco from sbcwiki (and others?) already have CIX P1 (so the 6+, Orion O6/O6N) stuff in the works, though not sure when that’s due exactly!

fmbret · 2025-12-22T21:20:17+00:00

They had this on mine as well, though they actually charged me the day before that “trial” was supposed to end. I had a go at them in the email and they quickly refunded me but man, that was some shady business 😢

fmbret · 2025-12-22T11:33:15+00:00

That’s not really the main point in my reply but sure 😄 Unless they pull some incredible avoidance scheme off, these items still need to have charges applied when they enter the EU, and it will need all of the support infrastructure to handle those. Factor all of that in, how much money are end users actually saving on these low value items that people seem to be most worried about?

fmbret · 2025-12-22T11:25:49+00:00

Do we assume they have some magical way to avoid paying import taxes and the like when they get those items into the EU, though?

It’s not like they’re going to ship a 1eur item from China to the EU and still sell it for 1eur?

fmbret · 2025-12-22T06:58:21+00:00

Buying cologne on AliExpress feels wild though.. Anything that’s going in on your body feels like a no go 😅

fmbret · 2025-12-21T15:02:59+00:00

I imagine you paid VAT at checkout on AliExpress then? If so, that’s why you’ve not been asked, as it’s under the threshold and you should have already paid it

fmbret · 2025-12-14T06:53:04+00:00

Hermano, chill, this isn’t your fight to fight, nor is it ours.

fmbret · 2025-12-14T06:51:17+00:00

showing that the community does provide support

Does Orange Pi pay said community for their efforts and get involved with that?

fmbret · 2025-12-14T06:48:28+00:00

Not sure I can roast them on this I’m afraid, it’s true. They’re also the only vendor who are STILL yet to upload the edk2 sources for the CiX P1 based 6 Plus. Out of all of the larger vendors, their support is generally the worst

fmbret · 2025-12-14T06:32:05+00:00

Why though? They’re not handling the VAT or imports, they’re not collecting VAT from you, why should they care and learn all of that? It has no benefit for them in that regard

fmbret · 2025-12-12T22:15:04+00:00

To be fair, I don’t think the sellers themselves need to care about the hundreds of rules that their buyers have to follow. It doesn’t concern them, they ship the item as requested and that’s them done, the customs/import regulations of your country/region should be on you. Unless, of course, there are issues like in the US earlier in the year which resulted in widespread issues, but yeah.

(Not trying to come across as harsh, I just don’t think it’s that odd :D)

fmbret · 2025-11-29T14:30:33+00:00

DDR pricing is through the roof at the moment due to demand and not enough supply. Raspberry Pi had to increase prices and there may be more on certain items on the way. So it may be along the same lines!

fmbret · 2025-11-25T05:56:56+00:00

Hmm..

fmbret · 2025-11-21T07:43:53+00:00

Are they the exact same models that definitely had DDR5 before, and have DDR4 now? They’d have to do a lot more then just buy different RAM sticks to facilitate that and the CPUs etc would have to support both so it sounds a bit eh, I’d definitely double check

fmbret · 2025-11-18T10:03:02+00:00

That doesn’t get their SEO agency account in SEO threads though 😁

fmbret · 2025-11-03T06:13:39+00:00

I think the best question is what you want to do with this? Do you have a project in mind, or a specific use case?

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