ODROID-C2 ARM SBC Offers Great Performance For $40
Hardkernel's ODROID-C2 64-bit ARM single board computer retails for $40 USD and is powered by an Amlogic S905 SoC. While just a fraction more than a Raspberry Pi 3 or the Pine 64+ when factoring in shipping costs, there's very competitive performance out of this board with its four cores running up to 2.0GHz.
Earlier this month I posted some Raspberry Pi 3 vs. ODROID-C2 benchmarks showing how this less heard of board can be much more powerful than the RPi3 for a few extra dollars. The C2 benchmark data was based upon some OpenBenchmarking.org while since then the kind folks at LoverPi.com have sent over an ODROID-C2 for carrying out our own in-house benchmarks.
In case you aren't familiar with this ARM development board, the Amlogic S905 SoC on this board has four 2GHz Cortex-A53 cores (much faster than the 1.2GHz A53 cores found on the Raspberry Pi 3 or PINE 64) and Mali 450 graphics. The ODROID-C2 has 2GB of DDR3 memory, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 with 4K@60Hz support, H.265/H.264 VPU support (using binary blobs), 40 GPIO pins, eMMC 5.0 support, four USB 2.0 ports, and an IR receiver.
Hardkernel officially supports the ODROID-C2 with Ubuntu 16.04 (using the Ubuntu MATE spin) or Android 5.1 Lollipop. The Linux 3.14 kernel is the current target for the C2 support.
Getting the ODROID-C2 running with Ubuntu 16.04 MATE was an easy experience, similar to that of other Hardkernel products I have tested in the past at Phoronix. All around, the specs on the C2 are great for $40 with 2.0GHz quad-core A53 design, 2GB DDR3, Gigabit Ethernet, and four USB 2.0 ports. For looking at the performance of the ODROID-C2 with Ubuntu 16.04 + Linux 3.14, the performance was compared to a Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3, Banana Pi M2, ODROID C1+, Orange Pi PC, Orange Pi Plus, NVIDIA Jetson TK1, NVIDIA Jetson TX1, and the PINE 64+ 1GB. Thanks again for LoverPi.com for supplying the ODROID-C2 along with a number of the other ARM SBCs featured in this article.