LattePanda IOTA: Intel N150 Single Board Computer

DFRobot asked if I wanted to check out their Intel N150-powered LattePanda IOTA. It’s a tiny x86 SBC with 8GB of RAM, gigabit ethernet, and full-sized HDMI. On top of that, it’s a drop-in upgrade from the old LattePanda V1, so they get bonus points for pulling that off.

Let’s stick it together, slap some Linux on it, and see what we can get up to.

IN THE BOX

The review kit came with a gang of accessories, but I decided to pick out what I consider the bare minimum to get the IOTA up and running, a starter kit if you will. This consisted of the IOTA SBC, the M.2 NVMe HAT, and the active cooler.

NOTE: Watch the Interfacing Linux video linked above for detailed assembly instructions.

PCIe EXPANSION

PCIe connectivity comes via the FPC connector, giving you PCIe 3.0 x1 (8 GT/s). You can hook up an M.2 expansion board for extra storage, YOLO accelerator cards for AI vision, or LLM cards.

BIOS

A quick peek at the BIOS shows it has everything you’d expect in a modern mini PC, up to and including a screen rotation policy. Alright, I wasn’t expecting a screen rotation policy, but you never know when something like that could come in handy.

INSTALLING LINUX

Time to get some Linux on this Panda, and I’m going with Ubuntu 24.04 since it’s listed as a supported operating system. Despite being an SBC, Linux installs on the Panda IOTA like any other PC. Write the ISO to a flash drive, pop it into a USB hole, and apply the electrons.

No surprises here, Wi-Fi is detected and connected to the studio AP, gigabit network is gigabiting, and Bluetooth eventually found my Xbox controller.

There are plenty of resolutions to choose from in the dropdown, and sound works on Linux? Yup! HDMI and analogue out, nice.

Plus, there are three power modes to choose from, which I love to see.

Speaking of which…

THERMALS AND THROTTLES

Under load, the N150 tops out around 2.4 GHz all‑core frequency, reaching 80 °C on the thermometer while pulling a little over 20 watts from the mains.

That drops to 4 watts at idle at 700 MHz, with the temps diving into the 40s.

DISK SPEED

Kdismark shows sustained 300 MB reads and 200 MB writes for the built-in eMMC module. The NVMe drive does less worse with 800 MB reads and 500 MB writes, limited by that single lane of Gen3 PCIe.

GEEKBENCH

Ya know, I was wondering why the N100 was missing from the benchmark on the IOTA landing page. Was. Still, both the N150 and N100 are significantly faster than the Raspberry Pi 5 but fall behind the Rockchip 3588 in multicore performance.

GAMING

I made a half-hearted attempt at launching a PS3 title using RPCS3, and it managed to get in-game, but things were a bit scuffed when using the Vulkan render.

DOOM 2016 fared a bit better. It’s my modern-day reverse Crysis, and I was shooting for 720p, around 30 FPS. Yeah, even slammed on low that’s a bit out of reach, but this is an N150, so it gets a participation trophy for running. Even a little bit.

2D games shouldn’t be much of a challenge, at least that’s what I thought, but the frame pacing was all over the place with Silksong. That is, until I enabled vsync, and alright, fine.

Enabling vsync actually fixed something, for once.

VERDICT

Alright, first things first. If you’re looking for a cheap mini PC, the Panda IOTA ain’t it. This is a project board designed for makers looking to avoid the ARM difficulty multiplier.

But if you need an x86 project board with a gang of expandability, maximum compatibility, and a heroic amount of go-faster-ness, the Panda IOTA is going to be hard to beat.

That said, it’s not perfect. To keep the N150 from becoming a blob of molten silicon, the fan on the active cooler jumps to 5K RPM on the regular, and it’s fantastically shouty. I’m not talking “oh, I have sensitive ears, and this is a wee-annoying shouty,” nay. I’m talking “don’t want to be in the same room” shouty.

Then there’s the NVMe HAT that’s connected over PCIe Gen3 by 1. That’s going to limit you to 800–900 MB/s reads and writes on a good day, and I’m still irked about the battery HAT being Windows only. But I’m not giving up on that just yet.

Stay tuned 🙂

PRODUCT LINKS

All the links in this article go directly to the sources they reference. There are no affiliate links and no backlinks to unrelated articles. If you would like to support Interfacing Linux, you can use the affiliate links listed below or consider joining the Patreon.

• Panda IOTA: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2989.html?tracking=cuoFJf
• M.2 HAT: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2985.html?tracking=cuoFJf
• Active Cooler: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2987.html?tracking=cuoFJf

Have questions about your Linux setup? Ask in the forums.