The Most Powerful and Extreme x86 SBCs on the Market

With the emergence of Raspberry Pi, Single Board Computers have become very popular but there is more to life beyond the famous board. And it is that in the market there are powerful SBCs based on x86 CPUs, for when we need a system of this type and the power of the RaspPi is not great enough or the software does not accompany it.

SBCs have become famous in recent years, but the most popular of all does not have the power to perform a large number of functions that SBCs are often asked to do. Instead of waiting for version 5 of Raspberry Pi you can choose not to wait and go for one based on an x86 CPU, which will give you much more power.

What is an SBC?

Most Powerful and Extreme x86 SBCs on the Market

The acronym SBC stands for Single Board Computer or computer on a single board. It consists of a small board where all the essential circuitry to function is included on top of it. So the CPU, RAM, I / O ports, and sometimes even graphics are on that board.

The difference with a conventional PC motherboard is that they are small in size and use a series of specific interfaces in order to keep their size small. So you can find USB, GPIO, SDIO interfaces and all those that tend to take up little space and consume little. On the other hand, do not expect to find PCI Express, SATA or any interfaces that do not meet these requirements.

Why do I want an SBC with x86 CPU?

sbc x86

Currently the most famous SBC, Raspberry Pi, does not use an x86 CPU and despite the fact that the ARM cores have increased their processing capacity compared to x86 and can face you, not all ARM cores are powerful and those that include Raspberry Pi many times fall short when it comes to power.

The other reason is that even on Linux, the x86 application ecosystem has a large enough legacy to make ARM versions pale. It is true that ARM is the most used operating system in PostPC devices, but the dominance of x86 in the world of PCs leaves a large number of applications on both Windows and Linux. So the weight of x86 applications makes SBCs with CPUs an option to choose over Raspberry Pi.

Another advantage of the x86 SBCs lies in the fact that their CPUs are designed to be used in laptops, so they already have the typical interfaces of a PC embedded inside the processor. That is, we can find x86 SBCs that have SATA ports, SO-DIMM connections for RAM and even M.2 connectors. Something we don’t see in ARM-based systems.

The trade-off is that the price and consumption of these boards are above Raspberry Pi and other ARM-based alternatives. After all, AMD and Intel have a duopoly from which they make the most profit possible.

What are the best x86 SBCs on the market?

Most of us are going to find an SBC for one thing in particular, which is what most of these systems are used for in homes, like machine to put emulators. Although everyone is free to do what they want with their SBC, we cannot deny the reality and we are very sure that if you are reading this article now it is for that reason.

That is why we have focused our small selection on x86 SBCs with which you can build your emulation platforms for old systems and even more powerful arcades.

HardKernel ODROID H2 +

The CPU of this SBC x86 is an Intel Celeron J4115, which brings an integrated HD 600 graphics at 700 MHz. The CPU clock speed is 2.5 GHz if the HT is not active and 2.3 GHz for this active. It has 2 SO-DIMM RAM memory slots with dual-channel support and for storage we can install an M.2 PCI Express 2280 module, so both RAM and storage is plenty.

If what we want is to mount a SATA drive instead, we have 2 SATA power connectors together with 2 SATA3 data connectors. But they are not the only expansion options available, since we have 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports. A 24-pin GPIO connector like the one on the Rasbperry Pi and an RJ45 connector with the capacity to reach 2.5 Gbps.

In terms of multimedia inputs and outputs, the ODROID H2 + has two video outputs: an HDMI 2.0 and a Display Port 1.2. Regarding audio we have the classic minijack, one for input and one for output. The surprise? An S / PDIF output in case we want to connect a powerful 7.1 speaker system.

Seed Studio ODYSSEY X86J4105800

SBC x86 Seed Studio Odyssey

This is an x86 SBC that we sincerely loved. Its CPU is an Intel Celeron J4105 with four cores at 1.5 GHz that can sporadically go up to 2.5 GHz and has an integrated Intel UHD 600 GPU. Its integrated memory is 8 GB LPDDR4 and we are not making a mistake and an eMMC of 64 GB.

Regarding the input and output ports, we have a USB 3.1 port, a USB type C port, a microSD slot that turns out to be the same as used in smartphones and to which we can connect a SIM if we add a 4G radio . It has 2 RJ45 connectors with Gigabit Ethernet capacity and connectivity both WiFi and Bluetooth as standard, 2 USB 2.0 ports and in the event that we want to connect an SSD or a conventional hard drive we have 2 full SATA connectors, apart from an M. 2 PCIe to connect an NVMe SSD

SBC x86 Seed Studio Odyssey

The board is more designed for robotics fans, since we have a 28-pin connection for Arduino, which together with the Cortex M0 + coprocessor can program Arduino-based peripherals. It also has a 24-pin GPIO port to connect accessories designed for Raspberry Pi.

Regarding the multimedia outputs, it has a 3.5 mm audio minijack that supports both input and output, making it ideal for connecting headphones with a microphone directly, as well as an HDMI 2.0 port.