This is a multi-part blog looking at the Firefly AIBOX-3588S Mini PC running Linux. This embedded fanless ARM-based computer sports an 8 core Rockchip RK3588S CPU with a maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz. It has an integrated ARM Mali-G10 MP4 quad-core GPU and a built-in AI accelerator NPU providing 6 TOPS of computing power. I’m using the Mini PC with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 32GB eMMC. This configuration is available on Firefly’s website for $299. This is not an affiliate link.
The AIBOX-3588S comes with Debian 12 (codename Bookworm). It’s designed for AI including private AI model deployment, edge computing, data security, smart surveillance, and more. With regard to AI, you can deploy large-scale Transformer-based models and other large language models. There’s also support for RKNN model import/export together with support for various deep learning frameworks including TensorFlow, PyTorch and Caffe. The machine also provides 8k video decoding/video encoding.
For this article in the series, I’m looking at the power consumption of the Firefly AIBOX-358SS fanless PC. I’ll see how the the computer (“AIBOX-3588S”) compares to a variety of single board computers, the Orange Pi 5 Max (“Max”), the Orange Pi RV2 (“RV2”), the Orange Pi R2S (“R2S”), Banana Pi BPI-F3 (“BPI-F3”), the Raspberry Pi 5 (“RPI5”) as well as a few Intel mini PCs with the following CPUs (“N95”, “N100”, and “i7-1360P”).
Let’s start with the power consumption at idle. The results are captured in the chart below.
What an amazing result for the Firefly AIBOX. At idle, it sips power consuming a mere 1.3Wh. Although bear in mind the machine doesn’t have WiFi or Bluetooth. But neither does the R2S and that uses more than twice the number of watts.
The chart needs explanations to put the results into context.
- The chart measures the power consumption of each system (not only the CPU). It doesn’t include the power drawn by a monitor.
- All the machines have onboard graphics only with the exception of the Orange Pi R2S which has no video output.
- None of the machines have power management functionality built into the BIOS.
- The DreamQuest and Intel Mini PCs are using the Power Saver CPU governor. The Firefly AIBOX3588S, Orange Pi 5 Max, the Orange Pi RV2, Orange Pi R2S and Raspberry Pi 5 are using their default settings with no underclocking. At idle the Firefly AIBOX-3588S runs at 400 MHz, Orange Pi 5 Max runs at 408 MHz, Pi 5 runs at 1500 MHz. The Orange Pi RV2, R2S and Banana Pi BPI-F3 run at 1600 MHz.
- WiFi and Bluetooth are enabled on all machines with the exception of the Orange Pi R2S and the Firefly AIBOX-3588S which don’t have either.
- The AIBOX-3588S is running Debian 12 (Bookworm), the Orange Pi 5 Max is running Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish), while the RV2 is running Ubuntu 24.04.2 (Noble Numbat). The Orange Pi R2S is running Ubuntu Server 24.04. The Pi 5 is running the Raspberry Pi OS (which is based on Debian 12). The Banana Pi BPI-F3 is running Bianbu OS 24.04. The other machines are running Ubuntu 25.04.
Next page: Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Power Consumption With System Idle
Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed
Page 4 – Electricity Costs / Specifications
All articles in the series:
| Firefly AIBOX-3588S | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduction to the series and interrogation of the AIBOX-3588S |
| Benchmarks | Benchmarking the AIBOX-3588S Embedded Fanless PC |
| Power | Comparing the AIBOX-3588S power consumption with other SBCs and Mini PCs |