Hardkernel ODROID-H5 is an affordable Intel Core i3-N300 octa-core Alder Lake-N SBC providing a 10GbE RJ45 networking jack, and four M.2 PCIe slots for storage, wired/wireless networking, or AI accelerator expansion.
It relies on the same SoC as in the earlier ODROID-H4 Ultra SBC, but trades a single PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 slot and four SATA ports for four M.2 slots, and upgrades from dual 2.5GbE to single 10GbE. It still features four USB ports, but only one USB 3.0 port, and three USB 2.0 ports.
ODROID-H5 specifications:
- SoC- Intel Core i3-N300
- CPU – Octa-core “Alder Lake-N” processor @ up to 3.8 GHz (Turbo single-core) or 2.3 GHz (Turbo multi-core) with 6MB cache
- GPU – 32EU Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.25 GHz
- TDP: 7W
- System Memory – Up to 64GB DDR5 4800 MHz SO-DIMM memory
- Storage
- Up to 4x 2280 NVMe SSDs via M.2 slots (See Expansion section)
- eMMC flash connector
- Optional SATA expansion card adding 6x SATA ports
- Video and Audio Output
- HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4Kp60
- 2x DisplayPort connectors up to 4Kp60
- Triple independent display support
- Networking
- 10GbE RJ45 port with WoL support via Realtek RTL8127AT 10 Gbps Ethernet controller; PCIe Gen3 x2; tested up to 9.49 Gbps with iperf3.
- Optional 10GbE M.2 card(s)
- Optional WiFi 6E or WiFi 7 via third-party M.2 modules
- USB
- 1x USB 3.0 Type-A port
- 3x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
- Expansion
- 3x M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x2) slots
- 1x M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x1) slot
- 24-pin I/O expansion port with 2x I2C, 3x USB 2.0, 1x UART, 1x HDMI-CEC, 1x external power button, 5V, 3.3V, and GND
- Misc
- Power and Reset buttons
- System LEDs for Power, Sleep, PMIC, and NVMe (data transfer)
- Passive heatsink
- 4-pin PWM + Tacho fan connector for optional 12V fan
- Dual BIOS with backup battery
- Power Supply – 11-20V via 5.5/2.1mm DC jack (15V/4A DC adapter recommended)
- Power Consumption
- Headless Idle – 3.3W
- Desktop GUI Idle – 4.5W
- CPU + GPU stress test – 25W
- Power off – 0.4W
- Suspend – 0.9~1.3W
- Dimensions – 120 x 120 x 44 mm
- Weight – 320 grams with heatsink
ODROID-H4 and ODROID-H5 SBCs are quite expandable, and the Korean company provides multiple expansion cards for their Intel SBC. However, the new ODROID-H5 doesn’t support them all, and unsurprisingly, drops support for M.2 expansion cards (since it already has four) and the 2.5GbE networking card.
| Accessories | ODROID H4 | ODROID H4 Ultra | ODROID H5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ODROID 4-ports 2.5GbE Net Card | Yes | Yes | No |
| ODROID M.2 2×2 Card | Yes | Yes | No |
| ODROID M.2 4×1 Card | Yes | Yes | No |
| ODROID M.2 10GbE Card | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ODROID M.2 6-port SATA Card | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 3rd Party M.2 WiFi 6e, 7 x1 Card | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Here’s the ODROID-H5 board fitted with a 6x SATA port M.2 module on top…
… and three M.2 modules (NVMe SSD, Hailo AI accelerator…) and a DDR5 SO-DIMM module on the bottom side.
The company tested the board with Ubuntu 24.04/26.04 (host), Windows 11, and Debian 13 (Guest OSes) using hardware virtualization (VT-x), each showing on a separate display to demonstrate operating system support and triple display configurations.
The company also offers a range of cases and accessories, just like for the previous ODROID-H series boards. You’ll find more details in the long forum announcement about the new ODROID-H5 board and in the wiki.
I can’t find a direct competitor to the ODROID-H5, but the closest alternatives are probably 10GbE Alder Lake-N platforms, such as the iKOOLCORE R2 MAX mini PC and MW-N100-NAS mini-ITX motherboard, although they are based on older 10GbE controllers, rather than the new, low-cost, power-efficient RTL8127 10GbE PCIe controller.
The ODROID-H5 SBC sells for just $250, which looks pretty good for an octa-core Intel SBC with 10GbE networking, four M.2 sockets, and triple display support. However, it’s a barebone system at that price, and you still need to add storage, memory, a 15V/4A power supply ($11), and potentially other accessories such as an enclosure, wireless module, and so on.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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I love it. It looks like a better choice than the rock5-itx to finish upgrading the H3 that constitutes my local server. And it has sufficient M2 slots to connect an alternate 10G NIC if the onboard one doesn’t work well. I could move the storage from SATA to NVME for simplicity and performance. Exactly what I’ve been looking for along all these years.
You needn’t worry, the Realtek chips work just fine and run very cool compared to Aquantia/Marvell.
In any case, I don’t know if anything runs hotter than AQC 🙂
This is a truly attractive home lab server platform equipped with most of the features we’ve wanted. The only regret is the current price of DRAM and Flash memories.
BTW, it seems it is time to say goodbye to old Intel’s 10GbE NICs, which easily exceeded 10 watts per port.
Never considered the high power use of 10gbe NICs that is interesting. Also the older ones tend to only connect at 10gbe or 1gbe not 2.5. My X550 dual 10gbe NIC only does 10g and 1g.
The old 10GbE NICs are compliant to IEEE 802.3an from 2006. The newer 802.3bz spec is 10 years younger and allows for the intermediate link speeds.
Regarding RAM price, same here when I saw the single DRAM stick as expensive as the rest of the whole board. They should propose 4 and 8 GB, really!
The smallest size for the DDR5 SO-DIMM standard is 8GB. Anyway, the fact that even the cheapest 8GB sticks on Amazon cost over US$100 remains a problem.
It will be difficult for individual users, as opposed to corporate users, to purchase new and excellent hardware for the next two to three years. 🙁
Well the Rock 5 ITX is a different beast, it runs a lot cooler and uses far less power. I measured the entire idle power of the unit including one NVMe drive and running of PoE power to be a mere 8.4 watt, 12 watt if you plug an HDMI cable in.
But you also don’t really want to overload these N100/N150/N300 CPUs with too many peripherals, they have very few PCIe lanes, they are already starving the NVMe drives down to one or two lanes each which is often the issue with these. However 2 lanes for 10gbe is just enough. Add more like SATA and you start losing even more lanes though.
As I recall, these processors give 9 PCIe gen 3.0 lanes, and it has to share that among all these peripherals so something has to give when you start adding things.
Nothing “has to give”, you just run out of PCIe lanes and won’t get the performance you can from devices that need more PCIe lanes than the platform allows for.
It’s largely sufficient for my home needs as it provides 10 Gbps for the NIC and a bit less than 2 GB/s per M2, which is plenty and even permits to do soft RAID1 with no observable overhead. The Rock5 is nice but its eMMC is too small and I had to repurpose the M2 to install a tiny intel optane 16GB SSD on the small slot and a 10G NIC on the large one. It delivers good performance but with more complicated recovery in case of boot failure. I fully assembled the machine with its enclosure, SSDs and the console port, but never had the balls to switch everything yet after more than one year.
I guess this speaks volumes about how cheap those Realtek 10 Gbps Ethernet controllers are.
Nikkei Asia reported that Intel is pressuring OEMs to adopt 18A chips (like Panther/Wildcat) so they can make more server/industrial chips on Intel 7. I wonder if that will affect Alder Lake-N supply.
I forgot to add that part in the article. It’s from the product page from Hardkernel:
Status Report: ODROID-H4 Series
The Hardkernel team apologizes for the recent H4 series stock shortage. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused. The global semiconductor market remains highly unstable, and as major manufacturers focus on producing enterprise AI components, it is having a severe impact on the supply and pricing of general-purpose CPUs and memory chips.
We are prepared to immediately resume H4 series production as soon as CPU supplies are secured, but we have not yet received a definitive supply schedule from our suppliers. Additionally, we must inform you that securing the parts required for future H5 production is also facing significant difficulties.
Despite these supply chain issues, we remain committed to the H series. We will make every direct and indirect effort to resolve these issues.
Wildcat lake would have been great for this SBC.
The price would probably be around $400 with a Wildcat Lake SoC.
Noo, why only one 10G port! It would have been a great 10G router for my home internet…
You can add another 10GbE port through an M.2 module.
In fact not just one but three since only one of the M.2 slots is limited to PCIe Gen3 x1 but the others are x2 🙂
So for sata NAS usage it needs external power supply compared to H4 🙁
I am very happy with my H4 but I almost fried a 3.5 HDD using the board power supply.
Using a STX power supply solved this issue.
Using SATA for SSD is probably a dead end in 2026.
but why RJ45 instead of SFP+ … if you find a SFP+ to SFP28 L3 switch you’d have the USP for IPv6 … filling a 25gbit/s pipe with three node storage clusters on a budget
It’s for compatibility with what’s most common, and serve the widest spectrum of potential buyers. With RJ45 you have 10/100/100/2500/10000 Mbps on the same connector and cable. Sure SFP+ is better and consumes less juice. But it doesn’t run in walls. However you can definitely find affordable 10G NICs with single or dual SFP+ (even 25G) that you can connect to one of the M2 ports.