Orange Pi 6 Plus Review: CIX P1 SoC with 12-Core CPU and Dual 5GbE
Original: The Orange Pi 6 Plus
Why This Matters
Demonstrates emerging competition in high-performance ARM SBC market with unique CIX P1 chipset
Tech reviewer tests Orange Pi 6 Plus single-board computer featuring CIX P1 SoC with 12 CPU cores (4xA520 + 8xA720), 16GB RAM, dual 5GbE ports, Mali G720 GPU, and dedicated NPU promising 45 TOPS combined performance.
The Orange Pi 6 Plus uses the CIX P1 (CD8180/CD8160) system-on-chip instead of the common RK3588, featuring an asymmetric 12-core CPU configuration with 4 Cortex-A520 cores running up to 1.8GHz and 8 Cortex-A720 cores reaching 2.6GHz. The board includes 16GB RAM (14GB visible to Linux), dual Realtek RTL8126 5GbE ethernet ports, RTL8852BE Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, Mali G720 GPU, and a three-core Zhouyi NPU. The reviewer spent two months testing the hardware, building custom OS images using a fork of orangepi-build, and noted that while the hardware specifications are promising for homelab and edge AI applications, software compatibility issues required extensive customization work with boot chains and vendor GPU drivers.