If I stripped my old laptop down to a single PCB, it certainly wouldn't boot, it would be missing RAM, and storage. My PCs would have no RAM, no CPU, no storage, potentially no GPU, and most of the servers would be the same. The IPMI/iDRAC etc would boot up I guess if we count that, and we'd potentially get into the BIOS if a device has soldered RAM, but M.2/SATA attached storage or something?
We could debate about strict definitions all day, but I think the vast majority of people differentiate between a Raspberry Pi 5 (not a great example given it needs storage, pick anything with eMMC if you truly want everything on a single board) running a full Debian-based OS, and a Pico running MicroPython (or whatever your poison of choice is) and one task at a time, at least I do when it comes to this kind of thing!
Hmm, I'm not sure if I'm missing something but that 1st comment is what I'm doing. I have 3 different sized Deepseek R1 models (1.5, 8, 16) and they run on each board that can handle them and then the data is reported.
For the 2nd, the file I grabbed initially was https://github.com/geerlingguy/ai-benchmarks/blob/main/obenc... - which I now notice wasn't modified in his repository, so I can check that out, but either way, the same version has been tested across everything thus far.
A table or similar where it lists the maker, cost, board name, ram, soc, arch, and maybe other columns like high end/low/budget friendly, and size form factor.
That would be helpful before you dive into the details, for example, I build drones, and seeing nvidia Xavier specs I would be thrilled about it until I see its size and power consumption. Great article btw!
Thanks! See my reply below to the other user on this, I think the links to sbc.compare in the article have a lot of the data that you're looking for. I didn't really want to duplicate all of the data I have on the other site, I was more giving a quick recap, with links to the mass of data if people wanted to go that far. Some you mentioned like the dimensions are in the database, but I've not yet exposed them to the frontend.. Ever growing to-do list of life!
I hadn't seen your site before (or been following SBC for a while) and just skimmed the article and was going to move on. (The post was very cool.)
It wasn't until this thread that I actually clicked through to the sbc.compare. I saw you complement the CIX P1 and Qualcomm in the post but it took looking at the Geekbench numbers on sbc.compare to understand the magnitude of the situation.
(I guess I'm saying the table might've helped me. But I still appreciate the post as is.)
The balancing of wanting to draw attention to sbc.compare and allow the post to stand on its own feet has failed it seems :D No worries, the feedback is good and I'll see if I get time to go back and add a summary for this, otherwise, I'll definitely take it on board for the next one(s).
For that I'd really point you towards the links in the article, as that was really what it was supposed to do :D As I mentioned to another person in the comments, this was literally supposed to be a recap of the boards I tested, with links to in-depth benchmark results for each of the boards, with the ability to then filter and compare against around 100 other SBCs that I own and have tested in a controlled manner. Software support is a very tricky one though, sadly. I have a few ideas for little things like being able to search for Armbian support, but others would need a long hard think!
I think being able to switch between a phone and desktop is a great use-case for SBC. Important to be able to attach a power bank and the real bottleneck to adoption: a telco addon.
You could take that SBC with you on a bike, car, around the home, to the worksite. Even a mobile web server for temporary gatherings placed on a high vantage point. Signage is also an important area for SBCs.
I'd wager on Polymarket that Apple will end up doing something in this space.
Hey! Author of the post someone linked here. Fair comment, though this wasn't really meant to be a review, or "go buy this!" type of post, it was more to highlight what I tested from the boards released in 2025 and share the results to those benchmarks via sbc.compare
Armbian do a great job of handling support for a whole host of boards (including most I included in this list), so you'll usually have Debian/Ubuntu-based flavours. Vendor kernels and vendor supplied images will be hit and miss. Mainline Linux support is a flag you filter by on the benchmark comparison site linked in the article, but it's a difficult one to keep up to date and define exactly. It could have some kind of support, but miss out on display functionality, or WiFi yada yada. What would we then class as having mainline support? All hardware etc functioning? If so, very, very few will meet that definition.
I get the desire for the information, and perhaps I should have envisioned these types of questions, but all I initially meant for the post to be was a recap for people following me to see which boards I'd tested that were released last year :D
Suspend / resume? I'll settle for "keyboard works".
(From what I've learned so far, some magic incantation is required to convince Linux that a Lifebook E559 is a laptop not a tablet. I'm finding I have way less patience with these side-quests as I get older.)
That laptop has an 8th gen Intel processor which should make it completely compatible with the Linux kernel, yet surprisingly it’s not. https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=2ec391ffdc
Did Fujitsu choose an obscure component or interface?
Even on random ARM boards, it's not usually the CPU that's the problem. (It's generally drivers for everything else; eg. a sensor hub that should tell you when a laptop is in tablet mode)
Yeah, my implication was that the 8th gen CPU's platform controller hub should be supported. I should have explicitly rather than implicitly stated that.
Under the Test Environment collapsible I have the OS version and kernels tested at least, but I could definitely look at adding something extra to help make things more obvious on that front
About 65 boards in I realised there was a slight error with how the idle power consumption was being recorded, so I had to scrap all of that data :( The last 15 or so do have this, but I made the decision to backfill that data as and when I need to check something on those boards, or just on the next round (I plan to update every X months or so, assuming there are worthwhile updates)
Realistically, I don't think any of the tests I have would run on something like that, I'd need to look at different types of tests, and then they wouldn't really be comparable with the rest. Though, I don't think most people would really be thinking "Hmm should I get a Luckfox Pico Mini A, or a Raspberry Pi" but the feedback surrounding these smaller boards has been interesting, so never say never, but I don't think it's within the scope I had in mind just yet.
It's a little bigger than what I imagine you're looking for, but the Radxa 5 ITX (not the ITX+) has 4 SATA ports, PoE+ (via a separate module), 2x2.5GbE, and the RK3588 SoC - I've been testing OpenMediaVault on it for the last couple of weeks and it's been pretty solid. If you're fine with M.2, the Radxa ROCK 5B+ has 2 M.2 M-Key connectors, the same RK3588 SoC, and PoE via a HAT bought separately.
Otherwise, there are dual NVMe HATs for the Raspberry Pi 5 but you'll be splitting a single PCIe Gen 2 lane across both drives (unless you go for the much more expensive HATs that have a Gen 3 PCIe switch on them to then share a single Gen 3 lane across them!)
That looks about the right size, I think: my goal was to put it on top of my ubiquiti dream machine and directly wire it, but I’m limited in terms of power supply because of the number of outlets in the area.
If you could share a little more on what you actually mean, that would help a ton. I’m not a developer, I put this together as I went, learning along the way. It’s not perfect, and I’m aware of some issues, but if you’d be so kind to expand on “pretty terrible” then maybe I can see if it’s already known, or something I should add to the list.
We could debate about strict definitions all day, but I think the vast majority of people differentiate between a Raspberry Pi 5 (not a great example given it needs storage, pick anything with eMMC if you truly want everything on a single board) running a full Debian-based OS, and a Pico running MicroPython (or whatever your poison of choice is) and one task at a time, at least I do when it comes to this kind of thing!