Compact and PCIe‑enabled: New SBC is a compelling Raspberry Pi alternative

The Orange Pi Zero 3W is a compact developer board and a natural alternative to comparable single‑board computers from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. At just 65 × 32 millimeters, it fits neatly into space‑constrained projects. The board is powered by an Allwinner A733 SoC, which combines two Cortex‑A76 cores with six Cortex‑A55 cores, supported by an NPU that delivers 3 TOPS (INT8). That performance is not enough to accelerate local LLMs, but it could suit tasks such as processing and evaluating sensor data.

The Orange Pi Zero 3W uses LPDDR5 RAM, with up to 16 gigabytes depending on the configuration. For storage, optional eMMC provides internal memory, and a microSD card can also be used. An HDMI 2.0 port supports 4K output at 60 frames per second, while a second display with the same resolution and refresh rate can be driven over USB Type‑C. MIPI‑DSI is also supported for direct‑attach displays. Wireless networking comes via WiFi 6, with support for external antennas, and MIPI‑CSI is available for connecting cameras. The board includes a fan connector for active cooling and exposes a PCIe 3.0 lane through an FPC connector for expansion cards.

Possible alternative: The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W on Amazon