Radxa Dragon Q8B Review: Twice the Pi 5 Speed for $209?

The Radxa Dragon Q8B has its first detailed independent review, and the benchmarks back up the pitch. Jeff Geerling published his hands-on with the Qualcomm-powered single-board computer on October 9, 2026, and his headline finding is right in the title: roughly twice the performance and twice the expansion of a Raspberry Pi 5, at a similar price for the 8 GB model.

• Price tested: $209 for the 8 GB Radxa Dragon Q8B, which Geerling calls almost the same as an 8 GB Raspberry Pi 5.
• Chip: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, the same SoC as Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit 2023.
• Speed: Geekbench 6 single-core is "not quite double" the Pi 5; multi-core is more than double.
• Expansion: two 2.5GbE ports, two M.2 2280 slots, an M.2 2230 Wi-Fi slot and a Pi-style PCIe connector.

How Fast Is the Radxa Dragon Q8B Against a Raspberry Pi 5?

Geerling ran his usual suite. In Geekbench 6, single-core performance came in just short of double the Pi 5, and multi-core landed at more than twice the Pi's score. He reports a large jump in the HPL linear algebra benchmark, faster memory, and 3D graphics that are far ahead of the Pi 5.

The hardware explains it. Radxa's product page lists a 5 nm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 with eight Kryo cores, four at 3.0 GHz and four at 2.4 GHz, alongside an Adreno 690 GPU. That is twice the Pi 5's core count on a newer process node.

Efficiency is good too. Geerling measured better overall efficiency in HPL than the Pi 5 even though the board draws more power in absolute terms. Under full load it pulls over 20 W, so he recommends a 65 W USB-C adapter, especially with NVMe or Wi-Fi cards installed. In day-to-day use, he says the board "feels like an N150 mini PC, maybe even a bit faster," with smooth 4K video playback.

What Expansion Does the Q8B Offer?

This is where the ARM board separates itself from most Raspberry Pi alternatives:

• Networking: two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports.
• Storage: two M.2 2280 slots on the underside, which Radxa lists as PCIe 3.0 x4 and x2, plus two UFS connectors and microSD.
• Wireless: an M.2 2230 slot on top for a Wi-Fi card.
• Maker I/O: a full GPIO header and a PCIe FPC connector like the Pi 5's.
• Display: HDMI 2.1 plus two USB-C DisplayPort outputs, per Radxa.

Radxa also quotes an AI Engine of "up to 29+ TOPS" and pitches the board for running language models of up to 3 billion parameters locally. That is a vendor figure; Geerling's review focuses on CPU, GPU, memory and network results.

What Should Buyers Know Before Ordering?

The review is positive on hardware and candid about the rough edges, which are mostly software and logistics. Geerling could not boot a generic arm64 installer from USB and used Radxa's own OS images instead, which ran well. Radxa asks users to update through its Rsetup tool, which is one more thing to learn. Idle power is higher than it needs to be because the board ships in performance mode by default.

Availability is the bigger factor. Geerling ordered in June and received his board in September, so plan ahead. On the encouraging side, he notes Qualcomm appears committed to Linux support, which is the foundation a board like this needs to improve over time.

Is the Dragon Q8B the Right SBC for You?

If you want a single-board computer for a small NAS, a router with fast dual Ethernet, or an ARM desktop with real NVMe storage, the Q8B's numbers are hard to ignore at $209. For beginners and classroom projects, the Raspberry Pi 5 still has the smoother software experience and is easy to buy today.

We covered the launch specs in June in our Radxa Dragon Q8B and Q5E overview; this review confirms the performance is real. More in our mini computer coverage.

Sources: Jeff Geerling — Radxa's Q8B has 2x the performance and expansion of the Pi 5 — October 9, 2026; Radxa — Dragon Q8B product page — accessed October 10, 2026.