Orange Pi 6 is a compact single board computer (SBC) powered by CIX P1 (CD8180) 12-core Arm Cortex-A720/A520 SoC coupled with up to 32 GB 128-bit LPDDR5 memory.
It shares many of the features of the Orange Pi 6 Plus board introduced last October, but comes in a smaller and lighter form factor (90 x 90mm vs 115 x 100mm), features two 2.5GbE ports instead of two 5GbE jacks, drops support for LiPo batteries, and is offered with lower RAM capacity options (8GB-32GB vs 16GB-64GB).
Orange Pi 6 specifications:
- SoC – Cix P1 (Codename: CD8180)
- 12-core DynamIQ processor
- 4x Cortex‑A720 big cores @ up to 2.6 GHz
- 4x Cortex‑A720 medium cores @ up to 2.4 GHz
- 4x Cortex‑A520 LITTLE cores @ up to 1.8 GHz
- Cache – 12MB shared L3 cache
- GPU – Arm Immortalis G720 MC10 with hardware ray-tracing support, graphics APIs: Vulkan 1.3, OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 3.0
- VPU
- Video Decoder – Up to 8Kp60 AV1, H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8, H.263, MPEG‑4, MPEG‑2
- Video Encoder – Up to 8Kp30 H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8
- AI accelerator – 28.85 TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with support for INT4/INT8/INT16, FP16/BF16, and TF32; Note: Up to 45 TOPS of AI performance with CPU+GPU+NPU
- Manufacturing Process – TSMC 6nm
- 12-core DynamIQ processor
- System Memory – 8GB, 16GB, or 24GB 128-bit LPDDR5 (32GB was also given as an option by email, but not in the specs)
- Storage
- 64Mbit SPI NAND flash
- 2x M.2 M‑Key (PCIe Gen4 x4) 2280 sockets for NVMe SSD
- MicroSD card slot
- Display interfaces
- HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 via PS185 bridge chip (DisplayPort 1.4a to HDMI 2.0b)
- DisplayPort 1.4 up to 4Kp120
- 2x USB‑C ports with DisplayPort Alt Mode up to 4Kp60
- eDP connector up to 4Kp60 + touch panel connector
- Audio
- 3.5mm (headphone+mic) audio jack
- 2x speaker connectors
- Analog microphone connector
- Camera I/F – 2x 4-lane MIPI CSI connectors
- Networking
- 2x 2.5Gbps Ethernet RJ45 ports
- Optional WiFi + Bluetooth module via M.2 E‑Key socket (PCIe Gen4 x2 + USB)
- USB
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) “full function” Type-C port with DP Alt Mode (4Kp60) and Power Delivery
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports
- 2x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
- 9-pin socket with USB 2.0
- Expansion
- 2x M.2 Key-M (PCIe Gen4 x4) sockets for NVMe SSD or AI accelerators
- M.2 Key-E (PCIe Gen4 x2+ USB) socket for wireless module
- 40-pin color-coded GPIO header with UART, I2C, SPI, PWM
- Misc
- Power, BOOT, and Reset buttons
- Power and System LEDs
- Fan connector with PWM control
- 2-pin RTC connector
- UART debug connector
- Power Supply – 20V/5A via USB-C ports
- Dimensions – 90 x 90mm
- Weight – 106 grams
Orange Pi mentions support for Debian, Ubuntu, Android, Windows, OpenHarmony, and ROS2. While all these operating systems should boot, some will lack drivers to have a fully functional system, notably Windows 11. The documentation page has placeholder links to the OS images, but those all currently point to empty Google Drive folders.
Orange Pi has been known for its low-cost boards over the years, but the CIX P1/CD8180 is a powerful Armv9 SoC, about 3x-4x faster than the Broacom BCM2712 in the Raspberry Pi 5, and (welcome to 2026!) the price of RAM is very high, so the Orange Pi 6 is not quite as affordable as one may have expected:
- 8GB RAM: $239
- 12GB RAM: $269
- 16GB RAM: $315
- 24GB RAM: $399
- 32GBRAM: $569
The prices above include a $5.99 cooling fan. The company also sells for $9.99 65W power supply suitable for standard workloads, and a $15 100W power supply for more demanding workloads and many connected peripherals. In other words, select the 100W PSU if you don’t want random reboots…
While the RAM capacity is supposed to range between 8GB and 32GB, the company only provides two AliExpress purchase links for now. The first one is for the Orange Pi 6 8GB LPDDR5 with the active cooler, going for $239, and the second adds a 100W power adapter for a total of $263.90. Math is funny since the power supply is only supposed to add $15… If you can’t see any purchase links, that’s your adblocker…
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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