Hardkernel's ODROID-C4 Aims to Dethrone the Raspberry Pi 4, Offers Four USB 3.0 Ports and More

Single-board computing specialist Hardkernel has announced its answer to the popular Raspberry Pi 4: the ODROID-C4, which includes an Amlogic S905X3 quad-core processor running at 2GHz and up to 4GB of RAM.

Brought to our attention by CNX Software, the ODROID-C4 is an upgraded variant of the earlier ODROID-C2 designed to go toe-to-toe with the Raspberry Pi Foundation's latest boards. At its heart is the Amlogic S905X3 system-on-chip, which features a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU running at 2GHz and an Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 1.0, and Vulkan 1.0 support. There's 4GB of DDR4 memory, and storage is available using a microSD card or — in a move which puts it ahead of its competition — using an on-board eMMC connector, with modules up to 64GB available directly from Hardkernel itself.

The board's design includes a single full-size HDMI 2.0 port with 4k60 support - a downgrade from the dual-display capabilities of the Raspberry Pi 4 — while audio is handled via HDMI or an optional S/PDIF optical output routed through a seven-pin I2C expansion header. Hardware acceleration is included for 4k75 10-bit H.265 footage, while an encoder can handle an incoming 1080p60 stream and turn it into H.265 or H.264 format video.

Expansion is provided via four USB 3.0 ports — up from two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 on the Raspberry Pi 4 — and a 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header with 25 user-accessible GPIO pins, six pulse-width modulation (PWM) pins, two 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADC), two I2C, one SPI, and one UART buses, all running at 3.3V bar the ADC which has a 1.8V limit. An infra-red receiver is also included, while network connectivity is handled by a Realtek RTL8211F gigabit Ethernet controller.

Interestingly, Hardkernel has opted to fit a heatsink to the board as standard — despite a claimed peak power draw of 3.64W under CPU stress loads putting it comfortably below the power draw of the uncooled Raspberry Pi 4. The company also claims a 1.8W idle power draw, again somewhat below that of the Raspberry Pi 4. The company has also skipped the ODROID-C3, explaining that it was originally planning to build a board around the Amlogic S905X2 two years ago about decided to wait for the more powerful S905X3 and skip a generation.

More information, including demonstration videos and benchmark results, is available on the ODROID forum; the board itself, meanwhile, can be ordered from Hardkernel for $50 for the 4GB model.