Skip to content
sbc.compare

SBC Power Consumption Rankings

Compare measured idle and full-load power draw across Single Board Computers

74 boards tested · readings from 0.6 to 13.7 (Idle (W))

Some earlier test runs recorded load power but not idle, so those boards appear only in the load and peak rankings.

105 results

Top Picks

Lowest Idle PowerArduino UNO Q 2GBQRB22100.6Idle (W)#1 of 74 · $59

Full Results

Ranked by
02040
  1. 1
    Orange Pi Zero 2W 4GBH618 · $40
    2.5 W
  2. 2
    DEBIX Model C 2GBiMX 93 · $65
    2.6 W
  3. 3
    Orange Pi Zero 3 4GBH618 · $40
    2.6 W
  4. 4
    Banana Pi M4 Zero 4GBH618 · $118
    2.7 W
  5. 5
    Radxa ROCK 2F 2GBRK3528A · $15
    3 W
  6. 6
    Radxa ROCK 2A 4GBRK3528A · $30
    3.5 W
  7. 7
    Radxa Zero 3W 8GBRK3566 · $92
    3.5 W
  8. 8
    Banana Pi M5 4GBS905X3 · $146
    3.6 W
  9. 9
    Libre Computer Le Potato 2GBS905X · $60
    3.6 W
  10. 10
    Libre Computer Renegade 2GBRK3328 · $45
    3.9 W
  11. 11
    DEBIX Model A 4GBiMX 8M Plus · $135
    4 W
  12. 12
    Libre Computer Solitude 4GBS905D3 · $100
    4.1 W
  13. 13
    Orange Pi CM4 2GBRK3566 · $40
    4.8 W
  14. 14
    Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) 2GBBCM2711 · $62
    4.8 W
  15. 15
    Orange Pi 3B 4GBRK3566 · $94
    5.5 W
  16. 16
    Raspberry Pi 4 2GBBCM2711 · $72
    5.6 W
  17. 17
    Orange Pi Zero 3W 4GBA733 · $50
    6 W
  18. 18
    Radxa ROCK 3C 2GBRK3566 · $40
    6.1 W
  19. 19
    Radxa ROCK 4D 8GBRK3576 · $106
    6.2 W
  20. 20
    Raspberry Pi 400 4GBBCM2711 · $65
    6.5 W
  21. 21
    Orange Pi 4A 4GBT527 · $50
    6.6 W
  22. 22
    Radxa Cubie A7A 6GBA733 · $80
    7.1 W
  23. 23
    Libre Computer Alta 4GBA311D · $125
    7.4 W
  24. 24
    Dshan Pi A1 4GBRK3576 · $69
    7.5 W
  25. 25
    Radxa Dragon Q6A 6GBQCS6490 · $119
    7.5 W
  26. 26
    Banana Pi CM4 4GBA311D · $104
    7.7 W
  27. 27
    Banana Pi M2S (S922X) 4GBS922X · $67
    7.7 W
  28. 28
    Banana Pi R4 8GBMT7988A · $146
    7.9 W
  29. 29
    Orange Pi Zero 4 4GBA733 · $68
    8.2 W
  30. 30
    ArmSoM Sige5 8GBRK3576 · $239
    8.6 W
  31. 31
    Radxa ROCK 5A 4GBRK3588S · $130
    8.7 W
  32. 32
    Raspberry Pi 500 8GBBCM2712 · $194
    8.8 W
  33. 33
    Forlinx FET3576-C 2GBRK3576 · $210
    9 W
  34. 34
    Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 4GBBCM2712 · $100
    9.2 W
  35. 35
    Radxa CM5 Lite 8GBRK3582 · $119
    9.3 W
  36. 36
    Raspberry Pi 5 2GBBCM2712 · $82
    9.3 W
  37. 37
    Radxa ROCK 5C 4GBRK3588S2 · $166
    9.5 W
  38. 38
    Radxa 4 SE 4GBRK3399-T · $80
    9.6 W
  39. 39
    Raspberry Pi 5 16GBBCM2712 · $329
    10.1 W
  40. 40
    Orange Pi 5B 4GBRK3588S · $75
    10.4 W
  41. 41
    Radxa ROCK 4C+ 4GBRK3399-T · $80
    10.5 W
  42. 42
    Raspberry Pi 5 4GBBCM2712 · $118
    10.8 W
  43. 43
    Raspberry Pi 5 8GBBCM2712 · $189
    10.8 W
  44. 44
    Orange Pi 5 Plus 8GBRK3588 · $135
    10.9 W
  45. 45
    ADLINK I-Pi SMARC 1200 4GBMT8395 · $394
    11 W
  46. 46
    Libre Computer Renegade Elite 4GBRK3399 · $100
    11.3 W
  47. 47
    Cool Pi 4B 4GBRK3588S · $140
    11.7 W
  48. 48
    Raspberry Pi 500+ 16GBBCM2712 · $443
    11.7 W
  49. 49
    ArmSoM Sige7 8GBRK3588 · $312
    12.1 W
  50. 50
    Radxa ROCK 4B+ 4GBRK3399 OP1 · $170
    12.2 W
  51. 51
    Orange Pi 5 Pro 16GBRK3588S · $120
    13.2 W
  52. 52
    ArmSoM W3 8GBRK3588 · $316
    14.2 W
  53. 53
    Radxa ROCK 5B+ 16GBRK3588 · $135
    14.3 W
  54. 54
    ArmSoM AIM7 8GBRK3588 · $297
    14.7 W
  55. 55
    Radxa ROCK 5B 8GBRK3588 · $160
    14.7 W
  56. 56
    Radxa NX5 8GBRK3588S · $119
    15.3 W
  57. 57
    Radxa ROCK 5T 12GBRK3588 · $125
    15.4 W
  58. 58
    Radxa ROCK 5 ITX 8GBRK3588 · $120
    16.2 W
  59. 59
    Radxa Fogwise Airbox Q900 36GBIQ-9075 · $849
    18 W
  60. 60
    Radxa X4 8GBN100 · $100
    20.5 W
  61. 61
    LattePanda Mu 8GBN100 · $398
    27.2 W
  62. 62
    Radxa Dragon Q8B 32GBSnapdragon 8cx Gen 3 · $677
    27.9 W
  63. 63
    Radxa Orion O6N 32GBP1 · $549
    33.9 W
  64. 64
    Orange Pi 6 Plus 32GBP1 · $669
    35.7 W
02040
Peak Power During Ollama (W), lower is better
Showing 64 boards · median 9 W (41 without a Ollama Peak result not shown)Top Picks from above

Frequently Asked Questions

Which single board computer uses the least power at idle?

The Arduino UNO Q 2GB currently has the lowest reading in our Power Consumption ranking at 0.6 (Idle (W)), measured on real hardware with our standardised test setup.

How much power does a single board computer use at idle?

Across the 74 boards we have tested, Power Consumption results range from 0.6 to 13.7 (Idle (W)), with a median of 2.2. Anything below the median puts a board in the lower half of the boards we have tested.

More benchmarks:Geekbench 6Geekbench 7Linpack7-ZipTinyMemBenchglmark2 (OpenGL)Fastest SBC Storagevkmark (Vulkan)vkpeak (Vulkan Compute)SuperTuxKartUnixBenchPassMarkcpuminerMAMEOllama LLMTest methodology

About SBC Power Consumption Rankings testing

We measure power at the board's power input with a TC66 USB power meter, sampling twice a second, and subtract anything we had to plug in for testing. Idle is the average over 20 seconds once the board has settled for 30 seconds with its default CPU governor, which is the number that matters for anything left running around the clock. Load is the average over five minutes of stress-ng hammering every core with CPU and matrix work under the performance governor. Linpack peak and Ollama peak are the highest readings we saw during those two benchmarks, which is a good guide to the power supply a board really needs. Lower is better for every figure, but remember that a board drawing very little at load is often simply a slow one: our Linpack GFLOPS per watt and Ollama tokens per watt rankings show efficiency.