Hardkernel introduced ODROID-H2 single board computer with an Intel Celeron J4105 processor last month. The first Intel board from the company supports up to 32GB RAM via two SO-DIMM sockets, as well as M.2 NVME SSDs and SATA drives, and exposes various other ports such as HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort video outputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and more.
We already knew most details about the board, except for the price and exact launch date. Hardkernel launched the board today for $111 on their online store with shipments scheduled the start on November 27th.
Here are ODROID-H2 specifications again with letters in parenthesis referring to the location on the photo below:
- SoC – Intel Celeron J4105 quad core processor @ up to 2.3 GHz (real frequency) with 12EU Intel UHD Graphics 600 (A)
- System Memory – Dual-channel Memory DDR4-PC19200 (2400MT/s) supporting up to 32GB RAM in total (B)
- Storage – M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 slot for one NVMe storage (C), 2x SATA 3.0 ports (E+F), eMMC flash socket (D)
- Video Output
- HDMI 2.0 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz (J)
- DisplayPort 1.2 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz (K)
- Dual independent displays support
- Audio – HDMI, audio jacks for HP, MIC. and S/PDIF (S)
- Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet (L) via Realtek RTL8111G transceiver
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports (H), 2x USB 2.0 ports (I)
- Expansion – 20-pin header with I2C and UART (N); 3.3V I/O voltage
- Misc – 2-pin RTC battery header (Q), 4-pin cooling fan connector (R), reset and power switches (P & O), 5x system LEDs (M)
- Power Supply – 14V to 20V DC power input (G); 15V/4A recommended
- Power Consumption – Idle: 4W; CPU stress: 14W; CPU+GPU stress: 22W; power-off: 0.5W; suspend: 0.6W
- Dimensions – 110x110x43mm
- Weight – 285 grams with heatsink
The board has been tested with Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10 downloaded directly from Ubuntu website. Hardkernel also published a Wiki for the board, basically explaining how to get started, install Ubuntu on the board, and list all compatible accessories available for the board including DDR4 RAM modules, eMMC flash modules up to 128GB, various plastic enclosures for depending on the hard drives used (or not), a VESA mounting kit, a 15V/4A power supply, and a few other accessories.
Thanks to Mihai for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Personally, I would rather go for something like this https://www.gigabyte.com/Mini-PcBarebone/GB-BLCE-4105-rev-10
It’s currently $1 cheaper on Amazon.
Sure, you miss out on the second Ethernet port, one SATA port and the eMMC socket, but you get Wi-Fi, a housing and a power adapter, oh and a UEFI from a company that has done PC motherboards for well over 30 years.
Odroid wants an extra $11.50 for the power adapter.
Not saying that this is a bad product as such, just not priced right for what it is.
It is a very good option, however, read the spec “Max. 8GB” rly?
That’s the official stance from Intel https://ark.intel.com/products/128989/Intel-Celeron-J4105-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-2-50-GHz-
It’s been proven to be wrong, but hey…
Also, how much RAM can you afford with the current pricing?
I would be happy with 16Gb for now.
Could you please share the source of the information about an actual memory limit?
I just did above, the Intel ARK shows 8GB.
I mean you told that
> It’s been proven to be wrong,
Does it mean that gigabyte supports more memory in fact?
Yes.
I have 16Gb in 1 slot on this PC.
Can not post a link for some reason.
Asrock J4105 board have max 8Gb in specs, but actually works all up to 32Gb.
According to Intel, rly.
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/pentium-celeron-n-series-j-series-datasheet-vol-1.pdf , page 61 (63 in-document).
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any success story to contradict that. Yet?
The 8GB limit is being discussed almost each time I write about Gemini Lake…
Some references:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/10/19/odroid-h2-intel-celeron-j4150-development-board/#comment-556707
https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/05/16/intel-nuc-kit-nuc7pjyh-review/#comment-554106
Basically Gemini Lake processors can support up to 32GB.
Fascinating. Thank you.
> J4105 quad core processor @ up to 2.3 GHz (real frequency)
It’s 2.5Ghz with one CPU core active and 2.4GHz with more than one (confirmed personally on real H2 hardware 3 weeks ago).
They’ll have a hard time with this pricing though since smart consumers compare prices. Once the H2 will appear in listings like this https://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/?fs=j4105&in= (showing 19% VAT included) people might get that J4105 devices from renowned mainboard manufacturers are way cheaper.
> It’s 2.5Ghz with one CPU core active and 2.4GHz with more than one (confirmed personally on real H2 hardware 3 weeks ago).
I thought it went to 2.2GHz with the GPU active, no?
Yes, that’s what Intel docs tell (but since I only tested headless nothing to ‘confirm’). Fortunately that’s just nitpicking and totally irrelevant since performance difference between 2.2 GHz and 2.5 GHz cpufreq is close to none.
Other stuff is more important like memory bandwidth and latency (would be interesting how these are influenced by GPU activity).
Also see Willy Tarreau’s notes at the bottom of http://wiki.ant-computing.com/Choosing_a_processor_for_a_build_farm#Odroid-H2_-_2018-11-04 (he was testing inside a Docker container so marginally bottlenecked compared to running directly on the hardware)
Thanks for the heads-up on Willy’s page — that’s something I was not aware of.
It’s really strange that Odroids are so expensive to ship + VAT. Around 8 years ago, I bought the original ODROID X and Pi models and in the end, the price was so high that I’ve sticked with normal RPis for now. Orange Pis are apparently cheap but are they even legal? No VAT?
I have a J4105 based Mini-ITX board from ASRock, and I wouldn’t buy it again. Getting 4k video playback running on both Linux and Windows 10 is a pain in the back, because of Intel’s inability to provide proper drivers. The J4105 can’t do 4k on the HDMI output, only on the DVI. It therefore need a converter chip for HDMI, that also the Intel NUC’s have. The driver/firmware for this chip is a piece of c****, leading to many TVs and monitors not showing anything at all, or only distorted video. Not even the BIOS shows a picture on many 4K TVs. I can only use it on HD TVs, not on 4K.
So, if you’re adventurous, buy it, but don’t expect to work it with your TV. You may be better off with a $30 Android box.
Also, the price isn’t really great, if you can live with the bigger form factor, then the Mini-ITX is the better choice, because it is much cheaper, works with only passive cooling, and has more interfaces.
> The J4105 can’t do 4k on the HDMI output, only on the DVI
You meant DisplayPort not (old and boring) DVI, right?
Hmm… https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/J4105-ITX/index.asp
and Asrock forum discussion: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=4133&PN=2&title=j4205itx-hdmi-output
Seems ASRock really uses DVI so how should this be relevant for the H2 situation where there’s HDMI and DisplayPort exposed? Hardkernel talks about ‘HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.2 multiple 4K/60Hz video outputs’ and I would assume they tested this…
DVI can’t do 4k, doesn’t matter if it’s single or dual link (the latter is not supported in general these days).
Dual-Link can technically do 3,840×2,400 @ 30Hz, but I don’t know of any screens that can accept that kind of input and as such, DVI tends to max out at 2,560×1,600 @ 60Hz.
“but I don’t know of any screens that can accept that kind of input ”
I can think of one, it’s totally off topic but look up the IBM T221. It’s a 22″ LCD monitor with a resolution of 3840×2400 from some time in the early 2000s.
Ah yes, I remember the first one, a total mess to set up and only worked with a single graphics card…
Being twice as fast as the MiQi on the same number of threads, it makes me think again about upgrading the build farm 🙂
The jack in is supposed to take at least 14V. 12V would have been much more convenient for parallel power distribution. Since the board is said to suck up to 14W, it should still be possible to set up a big fanless cluster. The dimensions are les convenient for my use case than the MiQi though. I’ll continue to think about it 😉
The comparisons to mini-ITX (and other) PC motherboards seems appropriate as the H2 has no GPIO, so it’s not like it fits into the traditional SBC use cases. It’s just a PC smooshed down to a little board. So, if form factor is all it has going for it, it seems fair to compare it to larger boards as long as the size difference is clearly stated.
As I don’t need something small that doesn’t have GPIO, I completely don’t see the point of this product. It’s clear that others do have some desire for it, so that’s good.
To be fair there’s a ‘Peripheral Expansion Header (20-pin, 2.54mm pitch)’ providing 2 x UART and 2 x I2C to be used with an I2C GPIO expander or various other I2C accessories they already sell (check the wiki link).
Beelink X55 is a much better and cheaper option. See https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Beelink-Gemini-X55-Ultimate-Mini-PC-Windows-10-Intel-J5005-8GB-DDR4-128GB-SSD-2/32917148163.html
Not if you want to run Linux. Try installing Linux on that and you’ll see what I mean. Plus, Win10 has a great reputation for bricking those with updates.
Updated to Win10 18.03 without problems. I’ve done clean update removing all stuff (someone reported strange app/connections on preloaded Win10) including drivers then downloading driver pack from forum. No problems ’till now (3 mo). Next will be Debian…
No warranty.
Soldered RAM, so 8Gb max.
SATA SSD, not NVMe.
Crappy BIOS with no options.
No seller on Ali have them in stock for the last 2 weeks.
For the same price or even less, you can get Gigabyte BRIX 4105 with true NVMe 2280 256Gb SSD and 8Gb memory upgradable up to 32Gb and USB-C port.
Forgot WiFi is also soldered vs proper M2 slot card.
but with 1 ether 🙂
No ECC memory support for a reliable NAS/SAN solution?
The CPU doesn’t support it, no “consumer” Intel CPU does. If you need ECC on the cheap you’re better off with a C2550 or C2750 motherboard. You get more LAN ports, PCI-Express Slots and IPMI.
H2 + 32GB DDR4 ECC SO-DIMM ($440) = $551
C2550 ($250) + 32GB DDR3 ECC DIMM ($160) = $410
C2750 ($400) + 32GB DDR3 ECC DIMM ($160) = $560
The C2550 is going to be a little slower but not enough to make a difference with NAS (that you could build out on an H2 to begin with).
in fact, there are quite a bunch of consumer intel cpu that supports ECC memory : intel core i3 ones
the latest one i know of being intel core i3 8300
see https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&ECCMemory=true
@node I stand corrected. Thanks.
These are also open for preorder along with accessories at https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h2. They have very affordable and quick shipping to the US, Canada and Worldwide.
I see Hardkernel have update their stress-ng figures to a better stress metric (matrixprod), which has lifted their max temps from high 60s to high 70s C. This is commendable correction.
I’m guessing the M.2 size is 2280?
Yes, that’s what the specs say. But I have never used one of those, does it mean the older mSATA are not supported? I thought today pretty much all m.2 SSDs are 2280?
Also read somewhere else that the m.2 SATA are not supported, but only m.2 NVMe, so you have to check explicitly if your m.2 is SATA or NVMe. I find this all a bit confusing with the m.2 interface.
@Joe The M.2 specification allows for up to 4 PCI-E lanes and 1 SATA connection on the same connector but it doesn’t require both. i.e. you can have PCI-E & SATA, just PCI-E or just SATA. In this case HardKernel chose to run the SATA connections to two SATA ports. That didn’t leave any to run to the M.2 connector so it just supports PCI-E. The size (2280 = 22mm wide x 80mm long) doesn’t dictate what’s exposed or not.
According to Hardkernel their first production batch of 2,000 pieces was sold out within 24 hours and due to supply chain issues next batch is to be expected in 2019: https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=32833
what a out wifi? is it possible to add nvme wifi card?
You probably read “w/out WiFi”. it means without WiFi. WiFi can be added via a USB dongle. They can be ordered with the board for around $5 and up, or you can use your own as long as it’s supported by Linux. M.2 WiFi cards don’t seem to be supported..