The shared SoC
Rockchip's RK3588 (and the reduced-I/O RK3588S): 8 nm, 4x Cortex-A76 + 4x Cortex-A55, a 6 TOPS triple-core NPU (INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16 and more), and rich high-speed I/O (PCIe 3.0/2.0, SATA, USB 3.1, multiple camera inputs). CPU performance is broadly similar across boards; the board design and software make the difference.
Board differences (from the vendors' pages)
| Orange Pi 5 | Banana Pi BPI-M7 | Radxa ROCK 5B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoC | RK3588S | RK3588 | RK3588 |
| RAM options | 4 / 8 / 16 GB LPDDR4/4X | 8 / 16 / 32 GB LPDDR4/4x | several options; check the exact variant |
| NVMe slot | M.2 M-key, PCIe 2.0 | M.2 Key M, PCIe 3.0 x4 | M.2 M Key, PCIe 3.0 (no M.2 SATA) |
| Ethernet | 1 GbE | 2x 2.5 GbE | 2.5 GbE with PoE (PoE HAT needed) |
| Onboard eMMC | no (microSD, NVMe) | yes | eMMC module connector |
| Header | 26-pin | 40-pin | 40-pin |
Picking one
- NVMe throughput matters (databases, NVR recordings): prefer a PCIe 3.0 slot (BPI-M7, ROCK 5B).
- Network appliance or router-like duties: dual 2.5G (BPI-M7), or PoE-powered installations (ROCK 5B with PoE HAT).
- Maximum RAM for local LLMs or many containers: check the largest RAM option actually in stock.
- NPU use: the NPU needs Rockchip's runtime (RKNN) and a kernel with the NPU driver. Verify that your chosen OS image supports it; many generic images don't.
- Across all of them: check OS support first (see the OS-choice item). The board with the best-maintained image beats the one with the best spec sheet.