Poking at the Radxa Dragon Q8B Raspberry Pi 5 Killer

What happened

Although this Qualcomm SoC (a whole computer’s parts built onto a single chip) isn’t new, its primary use is for Windows laptops , which gives somewhat of a hint as to what its performance may be like, tempered by the fact that it was announced in 2021. Although the asking price of $209 plus shipping seems high for the Radxa Dragon Q8B, featuring the Qualcomm SC8280XP and 8 GB of LPDDR4X, this is 2026, and amid the RAMpocalypse, even the 8 GB LPDDR4X-equipped Raspberry Pi 5 now costs $175.

There’s also a written summary of the results and details in a GitHub issue, though the direct comparison with the Raspberry Pi 5 is in the video. The Dragon QXB offers about 2x everything over the RPi5, plus Windows and UEFI support.

For Linux, it appears that you still need customized images, which seems perplexing in light of the UEFI aspect. You also have to pick between different Linux images from Radxa and use their Rsetup update tool, making it a less than ewbie-friendly offering.