Seeed Odyssey X86J4105
Les Pounder tries an Intel-powered SBPC with the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO.
We love tiny things that run Linux, so Les Pounder is excited to try an Intel powered single-board computer that supports Arduino and the Pi GPIO. Or does it?
SPECS
CPU: Intel Celeron J4105 (1.5GHZ, 4 core, 4MB cache, 10W TDP)
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 600
Mem: 8GB, DDR4 Expansion: M.2 SATA III, M.2 PCIE 2.0 x4, Microsd, SIM
Ports: USB 2.0 x2, USB 3.1 A x1, USB 3.1 C x1 Comms:
Wi-fi 802.11ac (dual band), Bluetooth 5.0, Gigabit LAN Video:
HDMI 2.0a, Displayport 1.2a
Extra: RTC, TPM 2.0
GPIO: 1x 40 pin RPI, 1x 28-pin SAMD21G18, 1x Audio, 1x 4-pin UART, 3x 4-pin SATA, 1x 4-pin fan
Want the flexibility of a single-board computer that has GPIO pins for physical computing, but you need the speed and compatibility of an x86 PC? Enter Seeed’s Odyssey, which marries an Intel Celeron CPU with two sets of GPIO pins, one Arduinocompatible and the other with Pi accessories.
With a three-year old Intel Celeron, 8GB of memory, optional 64GB EMMC, optional blue-metal case and optional 4G/5G SIM there’s enough power to run even Windows 10. We used the NVME slot, a spare 256GB SSD and installed Ubuntu 20.04. The built-in Intel GPU supports 4096x2106 resolutions up to 60Hz.
Cooling comes from a large heat spreader and fan on the underside of the unit. Benchmarking with
Cinebench pushed the temperature to 75C without the Bios-controlled fan kicking in or bottlenecking. The Intel Celeron J4105 calculated prime numbers nearly six times faster than the Raspberry Pi 4 and the DDR4 memory transfer rates are 5.7 times faster.
The two sets of GPIO provide full Arduino 28-pin – via an ATSAMD21 MCU – support and a level of 40-pin Pi compatibility. Running a couple of Arduino scripts seemed to work flawlessly, but the same can’t be said for the Pi GPIO. While physically and electrically compatible neither the popular RPI.GPIO or GPIO Zero modules work, and so the majority of Raspberry Pi HATS and add-on boards will also not work.
We tested Pimoroni’s Explorer HAT Pro and the Python3’s smbus I2C module, and we were unable to make the board work. If you have a simpler board, or a component which uses digital IO, these can be connected and used directly. There is a Python 3 module available but it wasn’t a pleasant experience and it proved quite troublesome to even make an LED flash. The Gigabit network returned 942 Mbits/s with
iperf and the Wi-fi 25.8 Mbits/s and 50.5 Mbits/s over 2.4- and 5GHZ bands. Typical Gigabit performance, but disappointing wireless networking. As this is an x86 machine, support for Linux distributions is a given. We tested the Odyssey with Ubuntu 20.04 and it was a smooth install process.
The Odyssey X86J4105 is a board for makers. The Arduino GPIO is exceptionally easy to work with and can be used to wake the main system to perform a task, then return to a low-power mode. The Raspberry Pi compatible GPIO is a bit of a letdown, though. If there were a version of the RPI.GPIO Python 3 library then the Odyssey X86J4105 would have everything that a maker would need. If you need a low-power server or just love the idea of having Arduino capability on a PC, the Odyssey X86J4105 is a great choice.