LattePanda Sigma Power Consumption and Noise
The power adapter situation was a bit better than we expected. The adapter even had the LattePanda logo and branding.
The power supply is a Delta 90W unit. A standard DC barrel jack makes this an easy solution.
Since we get the question a lot, we also showed this being powered via a USB PD adapter through a Thunderbolt 4 port. We showed it with a nice little USB PD power meter (Amazon Affiliate Link.)
Overall power consumption saw idle power in the 5-8W range and a top end in the 45-52W range depending on which adapter we were using.
The noise was also very low on the system. It was quieter than many of the Raspberry Pi 4B fans we have tried over the years with a less than 1dba increase to noise above our studio’s 34dba noise floor at idle and under 3dba under max load.
Key Lessons Learned
While having an Intel Core i5-1340P and in-band ECC support is good itself, this is not just a mini PC. Instead, it has an onboard Microchip controller, and runs Arduino. The Arduino IDE runs out of the box and the GPIO connectors make the system attractive to maker/ SBC applications.
On the customization side, having a built-in array of M.2 slots really helps expandability especially given one can easily use three 4K displays (four with eDP) and one also has Thunderbolt 4 for more expansion.
Between Arduino, many ports and expansion slots, a fast CPU, in-band ECC, and the ability to add Thunderbolt 4 devices there is a lot here. It is meant to do great projects with. At the same time, having soldered memory instead of expandable SODIMMs means we are stuck with 16GB or 32GB of memory instead of up to 96GB. On a system that lets you do so much, this stood out even if it was for the trade-off of lower power and higher memory bandwidth.
Final Words
When we agreed to review this system, we thought it was going to be like many other SBCs we have used, perhaps even like the ODROID-H2+. Instead we got something completely different. This SBC is the size of a 3.5″ hard drive, but it has a massive amount of ports, expandability using standard components, and Arduino support. This is almost like a Raspberry Pi or other development board style system, but with the performance of an Apple Mac Mini M2 or other mini PC. All of that with the added benefit of having in-band ECC support. We were pretty far off from our initial impression of the device was when we saw the e-mail with the unit and when it arrived and we started using it.
With that said, the one thing that feels completely missing beyond SODIMM memory, is simply a case. Perhaps the idea is that one 3D prints or CNC’s a case. At the same time, we put RPi 4B’s in cases, and this only had a partial chassis.
Overall, this is one of those where if you wish you had a mini PC that had Arduino support, or an Arduino platform that had a dedicated mini PC attached, you will really like. Still, one has to take the jump from an ultra low-power/ low performance system to something that is faster like this LattePanda Sigma.
Where to Buy
Buying the LattePanda Sigma has been challenging as they have been out-of-stock. Here are a few places to look:
Note these may be affiliate links so we may earn a small commission if you purchase using these links
Not a criticism against STH at all, genuinely curious, is there an uptick of unusual traffic around the sbc/tiny/mini reviews? Always have been curious to see what the bot process is for scalpers and when/how they decide what new items to hit, and curious with your traffic if seeing a review here is one of the parts of the trigger functions.
DFRobot has not succumb to the scalp-side yet, the market places of the other have already gone full throttle.
Only credible as a “Raspberry Pi alternative” if Raspberry Pis sold for $600+
Why are you calling this raspberry pi when a raspberry pi is 60 or 70$ and this is 600+ dollars? THis is misleading and annoying to say the least.
Why not review the latest intel nuc and call it a raspberry pi killer? Get real, STH.
I thought this was going to be a high performance low budget alternative to a Pi! If it’s 15 times faster than a Raspberry Pi for 17+ times the price isn’t not really that great, especially as none of the existing Raspberry Pi cases will work (e.g. doesn’t look like this can be DIN rail mounted like a Pi can) and I couldn’t see anything in the article about the different low cost cameras available for it like the ones for a Pi. Is doesn’t look like it’s compatible with Pi hats either. So it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with a Pi?
Yikes. Guys. SBC’s are an entire market segment. Price is not the only factor here. RPi’s are used in a lot of places.
Also, by the time we get power, a switch port, a boot drive and etc. to a RPi 8GB or something, we are at $90-110 each even without scalpers. So 15x the performance at 6-6.5x the price is not bad. It also ends up being lower power than a cluster of RPi 4B’s and less management since it is one node versus a cluster.
It will not beat apple mini on graphics performance. All benchmarks shown here are for cpu. What about gpu :)
SBCs are a whole market segment and nobody is disputing that, but so are cars, and I think you’d get the same reaction if you posted about a Lamborghini being a great alternative to a Toyota :) Technically it may be true but it’s not a viable option for most Toyota owners, and you’d be getting their hopes up for nothing!
I’m using Raspberry PI for single purpose: Wolfram Mathematica for Raspberry PI for occasional recreational math
IIRC it is irreplaceable to any alternative-pi
@Malvineous
If you need (emphasis on need) something 10 times better than a Toyota, spending 6 time the price to buy a Lambo instead of buy 10 Toyota (spending 10 time) is an alternative. a good one.
The key for the title is that if you need something in a format factor of a PI but with 10 time the performance this is a good option, if you would like something at the price range of a PI with 10 time the performance well.. do not get your hopes up 8-)))
I’ve used a Raspberry circa 2011. It was a toy, really. Nothing wrong with that, I bet it has turned on two generations of people to making stuff with computers.
This thing is a small PC computer with IO useful to a person who has outgrown Raspberry. I like it.
I wish all mobos had GPIO and similar headers to interface with external circuitry: programming USB is a pain in the neck.
I also wish the PC industry would give up on x16 style PCIe slots & DIMMs, and move on to cabled PCIe jacks and SODIMMs, and smaller mobos. Form factor ATX et al, they exist to support DIMM slots & x16 PCIe slots… and DIMM slots & x16 PCIe slots only still exist because of ATX.
The vendor’s page indicates that there’s an ATMEGA32U4 ‘co-processor’ onboard. Are any of the GPIO type headers provided by the x86 side; or does it appear internally as a fairly standard PC with an arduino permanently attached to one of its USB ports?
@Patrick Kennedy – comparing it to a Raspberry is a bit precious. It has GPIO headers, OK. In every other metric it is a class or three above though.
I’ve seen $200,000+ machines with Pi’s in them because the company thought that they’ve got the best Ubuntu support. I’ve also seen many Pi’s in a system to handle different functions because one CPU gets overloaded. I’m not kidding.
This makes more sense than people on here are giving credit for. That video thumbnail saying 15x Raspberry Pi is accurate but it’s too generous towards the Pi’s since you’ve got overhead for clustering and networking that many and the Pi’s will use 30% more power. What it wouldn’t have is 15x the RAM, but it’s also not losing hundreds of MB per SBC to OSes installed on each. When you’ve got to do video analytics I’d rather have m.2 SSD than trying to write to a SD card.
Now if only this had faster networking… Perhaps it’s possible to convert one of the m.2 slots to a PCIe slot with a special cable.
Is it only me that think that this would be a killer Car-PC for a car or motorhome?
3 displays, one in front and two in back of seats. Lots of I/O via Arduino/Python to control all kinds of sensors and gadgets and a SIM card to bring down 4G/5G and possibly set up a wifi spot.
It would be fairly easy to set up a Proxmox and utilize the power with a few VM’s. A game emulator for the kids, a nice Plex front.
@Lennong for a RV, yeah. Having set up a pair rpi 4B, a leisure 100ah lifepo4 battery with alternator charginy etc… I was kind of amazed at how quick that 100ah battery goes down with both using a masive 10-12W combined peak (ones a openwrt with modem the other is infotainment both have mipi screens). You would want a solar panel covering the roof plus alt charging and a 200ah battery for this with hdmi screens.
Pi alternative for $629? maybe a Pi cluster alternative lol. Or an alternative to a current gen tiny, mini, micro
@w Well, I am thinking a bit bigger motorhome actually. A genset onboard, and overnights mostly in places where you get power and so on. Big bad ‘RV’, big bad onboard server and control unit.
So any idea how well an external GPU would do with this unit?
I take umbrage on your presentation of benchmarks. You don’t properly display “this is the product / CPU we’re testing now” (either with a red marking or a tiny arrow or whatever) – you force me to read all those nonsensical CPU models and try to find the one you’re talking about. In one graphic you “bolded” one CPU – but it’s i7, not the i5 you’re testing.
Umbrage! I will spit on your grave! I will dance naked whilst doing so!
@Nils: There are 10 GB/s networking adapters for M.2 slots. I have not been able to find anything faster than that, and am thinking of making one. It might be possible to find a work around though, like with occulink cable for external monitors.