All of this to say: value is complicated. The Pi 5 is much more compact and slightly more power efficient (especially at idle) compared to the cheapest N1XX Intel systems. The Intel systems are better suited for a desktop use case. The Pi 5 can be run off PoE power, for easier one-cable networking + power. The Intel systems are more compatible with a wider range of software (not the least of which is anything requiring Windows).
↫ Jeff Geerling
Intel’s N100 and N150 are vastly underappreciated. The mini laptop I reviewed over a year ago is built around the N100, and I still use it every day for watching YouTube, writing OSNews posts, and so on. I never run into performance issues, battery life is excellent, and I don’t have to deal with the annoyances of using ARM. The catch is that you’re going to want to use Linux – I use Fedora KDE – because Windows’ performance on the N100 is dreadful.
I don’t think the jump from the N100 to the N150 is worthwhile enough to buy the new version of my mini laptop, so I’ll stick with what I have. I do hope Intel continues the Nxxx line or processors, because it offers something no other x86 chip offers: more than reasonable performance at low power usage for an incredibly low price.
N100 machines are a better value. Pi is great, I owned multiple 1-4 models, but it’s a very fragile, sensitive device. When you start to factor in
– proper power supply
– enclosure
– fans
– up to model 4 a NVMe hat
– USB-SATA adapters
– reliable SD cards
It becomes more expensive than a basic N100 PC, AND it’s still much more sensitive to things like USB interference and overheating.
A power sipping PC will be much more robust and won’t be drawing that much more power.
I am very happy with my N100 box. The main difference I see against the Pi is the performance in random tasks.
Of course, the Pi is more efficient, and some tasks run very fast. However, disk intensive and another tasks full of transactions suddenly become slow. The N100 works reasonably well in more use scenarios.
I got a N95 mini PC, it works great. 16 GB of RAM and Linux Mint flies on it. Heck, even Windows originally on it, fly on it. Overall, using the passmark benchmark too, a Raspberry Pi 5 has about 3500 points, and these miniPCs range from 4000 to 8000 points. They’re faster for sure.
Here at home we have a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and a 5, with all its peripherals (rapberry pi-branded keyboard, mouse, monitor). It’s cute for sure, but it’s really too fragile, as someone else said. I first installed the OS on a Sandisk usb stick, and the OS didn’t like it. It was super slow. I really thought that I had bought a fake usb stick. But no! Installing Mint on the same usb stick, and running it on an x86 box, had no problems. It was as fast as expected. So I think the bugs and the constant problems with sd cards and usb sticks daily discussed for the raspberry pi are their own buggy usb implementation, or something, not the cards’. Linux on x86 doesn’t have these issues with the same sticks. Personally, I can’t quite trust their hardware. And don’t let me start about their gfx driver implementation or video codec support (they even removed support for some codecs in hardware, they said the cpu could do it fine, but in my case, it doesn’t without dropping frames).
I replaced my home server IVY bridge mobo, with a cheap (~90€) Asus N100 ITX one.
It’s just perfect, no fan, its fixed at 6W TDP (too weak for my use) that can be easily raised to 15W using Throttlestop for windows (or a equivalent script for Linux).
No big/little idiocy, and more powerful than the (65W) 3470S it replaced, the VGA is powerful and can transcode H265/HEVC video w/o a sweat. The only downgrade over the IVY bridge ancestor is the lack of CSM and native compatibility with XP/Vista but obviously a stupid Rasberry is way less compatible.
And no Thom, isn’t too weak for windows, I use even Remote FX to play 3d games remotely on it, and aside the main Win server it runs constantly a couple of VMs concurrently.
All the Nxxx lineup needs is more PCI lanes (it could merely have a single NIC, one NVMe and very few peripherals at this amount), but that would eat up other intel chips… because for under 6W it actually is pretty nifty and versatile
Is plenty of boards like this
https://forum.openmediavault.org/index.php?thread/51416-bkhd-1264-nas-intel-n100-mini-itx/
With 6X SATA, 2X NVME slots, 4X 2.5 Gb NIC and so on. Sure they don’t cost 90$ like my ASUS, but if connectivity is what you need, there isn’t such problem.
Does anyone use PI 5s for their GPIO connectivity? I would have thought that previous PIs were good enough for that, leaving the PI 5 overspec’d for GPIO programming, and inadequate as a mini-server/desktop computer.
You probably get better howto’s and results for GPIO with PI Pico devices. Depends on the use case, of course.
Since discovering you can buy Dell 6th Gen USFF mini-PC’s (for example, optiplex 3040 USFF) off eBay for about $30 these days (equivalent performance to that of an intel N100, and about 7W power usage), then the appeal of buying a PI has gone to zero.
For anything GPIO I need to drive, I just use a cheap ESP32 for $2 off Aliexpress.
I’m typing right now on a HP 705 EliteDesk Mini G4 (the HP version of what you’re talking about).
It’s one of the best machine I ever had, it’ a Ryzen 2600G based machine it’s powerful, silent (actually more silent than the 2600GE), albeit the TDP of 2600G is 65W, the real figure is around 25W maximum.
The integrated Radeon Vega 11 is enough to play almost anything on my 16:10 monitors (2x 1440×900).
And, incredibly for the size, you can even add an internal discrete VGA. I paid it around 70$ (w/o ssd and just 4GB of RAM).
Before that I used its cousin Elitedesk 800 with a 6500T and was a good machine as well, albeit the AMD iGPU is in another class.
I just suggest to not be fooled by the 35W flavours (Intel 6500T or AMD 2600GE), their 65W counterparts in real world are quieter/fresher (copper heatsink, ventilated case), more powerful, and consume about the some amount of power.
Something that a random reviewer will never notice/write
There is also the Lenovo Thinkcentres tiny, which is similar to the above
For people who need GPIO the Radxa X4 (N100 + arm) is probably the best choice, is even mentioned on the article linked above
I picked up a new N100 2-in-1 Lenovo Chromebook last year: 8 GiB RAM, 128 GB storage, 1920×1200 12.2″ touchscreen and a backlit keyboard. Got it for £171 delivered and it can run ChromeOS, Android and Linux graphical apps simultaneously and seamlessly (and, yes, offline e.g. Linux LibreOffice). Battery life is decent and it’s not sluggish at all – probably the best laptop available for under £200 IMHO. I also have a Pi 4 that I barely use in comparison (admittedly, I do have a Pi 2 as well on 24×7 duty running Pi-Hole).
I just updated my router to an N100 based machine from China – it works great! Also replaced an old power hungry 1U Xeon server for proxmox/home assistant, with an HP T640 Thin Client with AMD Ryzen R1505G CPU – both units completely fanless. They each use almost no power when idle. Everything in my entire network stack, including those 2 computers, 3 APs, 2 POE switches, and the IP modem, uses under 60w of power, less than a single old incandescent lightbulb as measured at the power receptacle (using a switch box plug.) Pretty sweet!