A collaboration between Arm China, CIX and Radxa produces what is claimed to be the world’s first open source Armv9 motherboard. new Radxa Orion O6 Probably more accurately described as an SBC (Single Board Computer), its SoC and RAM quota are optionally soldered into place at the time of purchase.
The Radxa Orion O6 is a very serious (Mini-ITX) SBC. As such, it comes with interfaces, ports, and expansion options (except RAM), and has a pretty powerful SoC (system on chip). Currently, it works on several Linux flavors, but Radxa says wider operating system support, including Windows and Android, is on the way.
The power behind this SBC is the CD8180 SoC manufactured by CIX. The chip offers 12 CPU cores, including four Cortex A720 cores running at up to 2.8 GHz. The 12MB L3 cache is shared among the 12 cores. arms Fairy G720 GPU functionality is available on this SoC. It is said to provide “desktop-grade” graphics acceleration. It has a nice feature set, supporting hardware ray tracing, various popular video codecs, and APIs such as Vulkan, OpenCL, and OpenGL. Of course, this is 2024, so the SoC also has a built-in NPU, which is claimed to provide up to 30 TOPS.
In the introduction, we mentioned that the Orion O6 already has RAM soldered on. So, unless you’re a soldering whiz, you’ll have to choose a DDR5 RAM quota at the time of purchase and stick to it. AliExpress offers SBCs in 8, 16, 32, and 64GB “colors,” but they all look the same to us. Radxa says the RAM type is DDR5-5500, and users will benefit from the 100 GB/s bandwidth of this configuration.
Storage is another major consideration when setting up any computer. Thankfully, the Orion O6 is more flexible. The motherboard has several M.2 slots, and if you don’t want to use the x16 slot for other purposes, we guess you can use USB to connect storage and PCIe memory cards.
| Product name | Radxa Orion O6 |
|---|---|
| system | Cix P1 SoC |
| CPU | 4x Cortex®-A720 (big core) 4x Cortex®-A720 (medium core) 4x Cortex®-A520 (small core) 12MB shared L3 cache |
| graphics processor | GPU: Arm Immortals G720 MC10 supports hardware ray tracing graphics API: Vulkan® 1.3 OpenGL® ES 3.2 OpenCL® 3.0 |
| neural network processing unit | Neural Processing Unit (NPU) Computing Power: 28.8 TOPs Accuracy Support: INT4/INT8/INT16 FP16/BF16 TF32 |
| memory | RAM: LPDDR5128-bit memory bus 5500MT/s transmission speed configuration: 4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB |
| multimedia | Hardware decoder: Resolution: up to 8K@60fps Format: AV1, H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8, H.263, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 Hardware encoder: Resolution: up to 8K@ 30fps format: H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8 |
| vocal | High Definition Audio Front Panel Connector Standard PC Case Audio Support |
| Video output | 1x USB-C with DisplayPort Alt mode – 1x HDMI port – 1x DisplayPort – 1x eDP connector – supports simultaneous quad-monitor operation |
| video input | Dual MIPI camera ports 2 multi-function camera interfaces configurable as 4-channel or 2-channel MIPI CSI Ideal for AI vision applications |
| USB | USB connector supports 2 USB 2.0 ports Standard front panel connection Dual USB Type-C Port 1: USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) + Power supply Port 2: USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) + DP Alt mode (4K@60Hz ) + Power delivery Highest resolution: 4K@120Hz USB Type-A port 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) 2x USB 2.0 |
| Ethernet | 2 multi-gigabit RJ45 ports Speed: 10/100/1000/2500/5000 Mbps |
| M.2 M-key connector | PCIe Gen4 x4 lane supports high-performance NVMe SSD |
| M.2 E-key connector | PCIe Gen4 x2 channel + USB perfect for WiFi 6E + Bluetooth module |
| PCIe expansion | x16 physical slot Gen4 x8 electrical channel supports graphics cards and other PCIe devices |
| cooling system | 4-pin CPU fan header with smart PWM control to monitor fan speed through TACH 75x75mm radiator mounting holes |
| real time clock | Onboard battery holder CR1220 battery supports power outage timing |
| system control head | Power button reset button status LED indicator |
| 40-pin GPIO header | Yes |
| Overall dimensions | 170mm×170mm |
Interestingly, the three companies behind the Orion O6 say the “motherboard” is being developed very quickly. They started implementing the plan on July 30 this year. It was powered on for the first time on September 29 and is currently said to be ready for mass production. We see the Orion O6 listed for sale on AliExpress in all storage configurations, with shipping expected in 20-40 days from now. Pricing starts at $200 for the 8GB RAM model. 16GB is priced at $240, 32GB is priced at $300, and the 64GB SBC is priced up to $450.
In the box, buyers will get a simple-looking heatsink and fan, an acrylic Mini ITX platform, and an I/O shield. If you want an aluminum enclosure, purchase the development kit option of the kit – an additional $41.
Debian and Fedora Linux are currently supported, but the SBC maker says Windows, Android, Ubuntu, Deepin and public support are on the way.