Hardkernel has revealed the ODROID-H5, an Alder Lake-N single-board computer that swaps the SATA-heavy design of its predecessor for a storage and networking layout built around M.2. The board pairs Intel's eight-core Core i3-N300 with a single 10GbE port and four M.2 sockets, aimed squarely at homelab tinkerers who want fanless x86 silicon with serious I/O.
The N300 runs at up to 3.8 GHz with a 7W TDP, paired with 32 EU Intel UHD Graphics and up to 64GB of DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM memory. Three of the M.2 slots run at PCIe Gen3 x2 and one at Gen3 x1, all sized for 2280 NVMe drives, and an eMMC connector sits alongside them. Display output covers HDMI 2.0 plus dual DisplayPort, all capable of 4Kp60 with triple independent display support, and the 24-pin I/O header exposes I2C, UART, USB 2.0, HDMI-CEC, and power rails for embedded use.
The headline upgrade is networking. A Realtek RTL8127AT 10GbE controller hangs off a PCIe Gen3 x2 link and reached 9.49 Gbps in iperf3 testing, with Wake-on-LAN support intact. The new RTL8127 is cheaper and more power-efficient than the older Aquantia-class chips found in competing 10GbE Alder Lake-N boards like the iKOOLCORE R2 MAX and MW-N100-NAS. For Linux users, the RTL8127A landed in mainline as an extension to the r8169 driver in kernel 6.16, and out-of-tree packages cover distributions still shipping older kernels. The trade-off compared with the ODROID-H4 Ultra is the loss of native SATA ports and dual 2.5GbE, plus a USB layout reduced to one USB 3.0 and three USB 2.0 Type-A ports. The 2.5GbE add-in card and M.2 expansion cards from the H4 lineup are no longer compatible, though the 10GbE M.2 card and the 6-port SATA M.2 module still work.
The 120 x 120 x 44 mm (4.7 x 4.7 x 1.7 inches) board ships with a passive heatsink, dual BIOS with backup battery, and a PWM fan header. Power draw lands at 3.3W headless idle, 4.5W at the desktop, and around 25W under combined CPU and GPU stress, fed by an 11-20V DC input. Hardkernel demonstrated the board running Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04 as the host with Windows 11 and Debian 13 guests through VT-x hardware virtualization, each on its own display.
The ODROID-H5 sells for $250 (€230) as a barebone, with memory, storage, and the recommended 15V/4A power supply (around $11) sold separately. Hardkernel has posted full details on its wiki and in the forum announcement, and the existing range of Mini-ITX cases and accessories carries over for anyone planning a NAS, router, or AI inference box around four NVMe drives and a Hailo accelerator, the latter supported under Linux through Hailo's open-source PCIe driver.
