x86 is a set of architectures developed by Intel that was based on its 8086 microprocessor and the 8088 derivative. The term x86 spawned as a 16-bit instruction set meant for 16-bit processors such as the 8086 and 8088, but later morphed into 32-bit instruction sets for 32-bit processors. So essentially, x86 designates 32-bit processors. Later, it was expanded to 64-bit with x86-64. For most x86 SBCs, the chipset is x86-64 such that running a 64-bit version of Windows or Linux is possible. x86 vs. x64 - What's the Difference? A final example of the effect of thermal throttling can be seen when running the 3DMark benchmark. Normally I run ‘Sky Diver’ followed immediately by ‘Fire Strike’. When I did this the result from ‘Fire Strike’ was only 114:

When reviewing mini PCs I typically look at their performance under both Windows and Linux so I decided to review using a dual-boot of Windows 10 version 20H2 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS point release 1 and test with a selection of commonly used Windows benchmarks and/or equivalents for Linux together with Thomas Kaiser’s ‘sbc-bench’ which is a small set of different CPU performance tests focusing on server performance when run on Ubuntu. Additionally, I used ‘Phoronix Test Suite’ to benchmark the same set of tests on both Windows and Ubuntu for comparison purposes. On Ubuntu, I also compile the v5.4 Linux kernel using the default config as a test of performance.I use windows 10 on a raspberry pi 3 with Windows on Arm with 1 Go only, we can already do interesting things even if there are of course some limitations, so with a X86 processor and 4Go, it can only be better, and offer more possibilities. However, 60 FPS H.264 videos stall and skip frames as do VP9/H.265/HEVC encoded videos which use software to decode: About how to test the GPIO under windows, it’s a good question, is this possible ? maybe the serial connexion with UART tx and rx. I remember Microsoft has developped Windows on things for Raspberry pi and it’s possible to use GPIO with it, but certainly because Microsoft has developped some tools to do it, because the Raspberry pi was popular, so finaly it’s not certain that we can do it easily. I then set the CPU Scaling Governor to ‘performance’ and ran some Linux benchmarks for which the majority of the results are text-based but the graphical ones included:

The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a file-based disk image format. It was developed by Microsoft to help deploy Windows Vista and subsequent versions of the Windows operating system family. The WiFi results were as expected for this module however the Ethernet upload was rather slow. Power Consumptioncapabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation eMMC module (Optional industrial compatible high performance eMMC module, 8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB/128GB available) Whilst a detailed comparison between the two operating systems is beyond the scope of this review, it is worth noting some of the key findings I observed. First looking at the performance tools common between the two systems. Overall Ubuntu performs slightly better in the benchmarks than Windows and this can be visually shown by comparing the same Phoronix Test Suite benchmarks in each OS: SoC – I ntel Atom x5-Z8350 “Cherry Trail” quad-core processor @ 1.44 GHz / 1.92 GHz (Turbo) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics @ 500 MHz

SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8350 “Cherry Trail” quad-core processor @ 1.44 GHz / 1.92 GHz (Turbo) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics @ 500 MHz However days later when I realized it had been throttled and was substantially lower than expected I reran ‘Fire Strike’ and the result was nearly double at 202. Networking I’m going to start to cheat a little here, as it is supposed to be a list of 5 single board computers, I’ll just a family of boards from AAEON here, namely the “UP the bridge family” that ranges from the Raspberry Pi-sized UP board initially introduced in 2015 with a Cherry Trail processor, to the mid-range UP Squared series for AI & IoT applications with more expansion capabilities, and the higher-end UP Xtreme if even more powerful, yet low power processor, culminating with the UP Xtreme i11 Tiger Lake SBC.Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Power Management Controller [8086:22dc] (rev 36) configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s There were also some issues related to the benchmarks. I could not successfully run ‘Cinebench’ in Windows as it crashed each time with an ‘Application Error’: If you want a relatively low-cost Intel SBC with fast 2.5GbE networking, the obvious choice is Hardkernel ODROID-H2+ single board computer equipped with two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports, or even a total of 6 2.5GbE ports with an expansion board. Based on an Intel Celeron J4115 processor coupled with 2 or 4GB RAM, the board is an updated version of ODROID-H2 which we reviewed with Ubuntu 19.04, and powered by an Intel Celeron J4105. So far, we’ve only listed single board computers with Intel processors, but UDOO offers an interesting AMD Ryzen Embedded SBC with UDOO Bolt. The board is offered in two variants with UDOO Bolt V3 equipped with V1202B dual-core/quad-thread processor, and UDOO Bolt V8 with a more powerful V1605B quad-core/octa-thread processor.

Loaded_Plugins = advanced render ca cinebench colorchoosergui expressiontag mkmodeler model mograph nbp newman objects shader sky sla xpressocore xtensions Additionally, Windows ‘blue screened’ a few times when running the benchmarks. It wasn’t clear whether this was related to the memory issue or due to thermal constraints which are further explained in the ‘Thermals’ section below. Active Scene: 0x000002112B1E1380 "C:\Program Files\CinebenchR20\resource\modules\cinebench\cpu\cpu.c4d"The key attraction of this SBC is likely to be the ability to get x86 architecture for a relatively low price. By including a 40-pin expansion header the device is suitable for multiple projects where GPIO connectors are required.