April 14, 2026
12 cores, zero chill in the comments
The Orange Pi 6 Plus
Beastly board, messy software, and a comment war
TLDR: Orange Pi 6 Plus brings monster specs in a tiny board, but the reviewer had to build custom software to make it usable. Commenters split: Raspberry Pi loyalists say software support matters most, AI skeptics question the NPU’s real accuracy, and many are tired of boards that need custom Linux just to work.
Meet the Orange Pi 6 Plus: a tiny powerhouse boasting 12 CPU cores, a gaming‑class Mali GPU, a built‑in AI chip, and dual 5‑gigabit network ports. On paper, it’s a pocket rocket. In practice? The reviewer had to build their own operating system to tame the software, spending two months in driver drama and bootloader limbo.
That lit the fuse in the comments. Team Hardware Hype drooled over the specs, with one fan confessing they want to buy every single mini‑computer that crosses their feed. Team Reality Check dragged it back to Earth: BirAdam says they’ve been burned before by Orange Pi’s software and are retreating to Raspberry Pi where things “just work,” even if the hardware isn’t as flashy.
Meanwhile, the AI subplot turned spicy. Neywiny called the on‑board NPU (the chip for AI tasks) “disappointing,” demanding accuracy tests instead of speed flexes and big “TOPS” numbers. Translation: fast but wrong is still wrong. Practical types chimed in with dongle‑life zen—adrianwaj says just give us a couple of USB‑C 3.2 ports and a hub and move on.
The meme of the day? zzzoom’s weary sigh: do we really have to flash custom Linux images forever? The real story isn’t 12 cores—it’s whether the software ever gets out of the way.
Key Points
- •Orange Pi 6 Plus uses the CIX P1 (CD8180/CD8160) SoC with 12 CPU cores (4× Cortex‑A520, 8× Cortex‑A720), a Mali G720/Immortalis-class GPU, and a three-core Zhouyi NPU.
- •The reviewer built custom OS images (fork of orangepi-build) and collected two months of benchmarks and Graphite telemetry to assess software readiness.
- •The board includes 16 GiB RAM, with approximately 14 GiB recognized by Linux during testing.
- •Networking features include dual Realtek RTL8126 5GbE Ethernet ports and a Realtek RTL8852BE Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth module, each on dedicated PCIe root ports.
- •CPU clocks are asymmetric: Cortex‑A720 cores reach about 2.6 GHz, while Cortex‑A520 cores top out around 1.8 GHz, as seen in system reports.