Is the BPI-R4 Pro still worth it at current prices? (Longevity Concerns & Alternative Setup Ideas)

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been eyeing the Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro for a high-performance, low-power OpenWrt setup. However, looking at the market right now, the pricing has gone completely through the roof. At these inflated prices, it's becoming a serious financial investment, so I wanted to get some honest community feedback before pulling the trigger.

For those who have been using the R4 series or deal closely with SinoVoip/Banana Pi hardware, I have a few critical questions regarding long-term reliability, support, and potential alternatives:

Is it still worth the premium? Given how expensive it has gotten, does the Filogic 880 performance and all-in-one efficiency still justify the cost?

What is the reality of after-sales service and warranty? If a board arrives dead or develops a fault within the official warranty window, how responsive is Banana Pi with RMA/replacements? Is it handled smoothly, or is it a headache to get support?

What happens after the warranty expires? This is my main concern. If something goes wrong with a $300+ SBC after the warranty period, do they offer a paid repair service where I can ship the board back to be fixed at a cost? If they don't offer post-warranty repairs, an expensive board like this essentially becomes e-waste if a single component fails, which feels like gambling with a lot of money.

How is the actual hardware and component quality? Is this board truly built to last for the long haul (5+ years of continuous 24/7 routing)? Are there known points of failure like power delivery components, or is the PCB and soldering top-tier?

If it's NOT worth it, what are the best alternatives? If I decide to skip the R4 Pro due to pricing and lack of support guarantees, what similar setups or routers should I look at? I am looking to achieve:
10G capability (preferably SFP+ cages) and Multi-2.5G ports.

Rock-solid OpenWrt support or any consumer firmware like tplink Asus and other is also good
High performance while keeping power consumption as low as possible.

I love the specs of the R4 Pro on paper, but at current market prices, I need to know if the hardware longevity and manufacturer support back up the premium price tag, or if I should spend my money elsewhere.
Appreciate any insights, experiences, or architecture advice you can share!

2

Not a BPI-R4 user, can't help you that part, how many of those ?

3

That's honestly why I'm asking—since so few people actually have one in the wild, I’m trying to figure out if it’s a legendary piece of gear or just an overpriced gamble!

4

Checked camelcamelcamel for Amazon price history?

To me, $300 is waaay to much.

You can buy a quad port SFP+ x86 for $150 (used, and def not low powered).

5

I completely agree, $300 is pushing into absurd territory for an SBC.

The power consumption is the exact puzzle I'm trying to solve. If I go the $150 used x86 route with a quad SFP+ card, it'll eat through packets effortlessly, but the 24/7 idle power draw is going to scale up drastically compared to the Filogic ARM chip.

What specific $150 x86 setups or thin clients are you thinking of? And if you had to balance the scales between a used x86 box and a lower-power setup without breaking the bank, what hardware would you pick?

6

HP T740, it's around $120 on eBay, but there are boxes using a lot less power than that out there.

Then there's the Dell Edge E42W, but the RJ45s aren't multi-gig.

Btw, the BPI-R4 Pro isn't officially supported (yet ?), unless it's using the non-Pro images.

7

The bpi r4 pro or non pro is worth as much as bag of horse fretiliser. Go with x86 with 10gig sfp+/sfp28 and a nice multigig switch.

8

I was looking for a x86 setup with multi 10g sfp+ and ram and stuff but problem is power consumption

With 8gig ram 2 sfp+ 10g and 2 rj45 10g and 4 rj45 2.5g

With similar power consumption is it possible to build a better or similar x86 router? Can you suggest me some hardware combos if possible.

9

How many ports are required for the routing, what can be outsourced to a smart/dumb switch?

Switches are cheaper, a dumb multi-gig 4-5 port switch with SFP+ uplink is often less than $50.

10

I just need 3 sfp+ at best or 2 is also good one for lan 2 for wan that's all

11

Routing at 10gbit, right ?

12

Yes lan to lan 10gig

Wan one is 2.5g gpon
Wan two id 10g xgs pon

13

Was going to suggest Zimaboard 2 (+ some kind of DIY build for the card), but I don't think the PCIe slot will have bandwidth enough for 10gbit.

14

I've got the BPI-R4, been running it for almost 2 years now. I don't think it's worth the cost right now, I got it for £80, had to get a microSD card, 12V USB-C charger and cable, UART USB dongle, a few heatsinks, thermal pads for the heatsinks and 2 SFP+ modules. which upped the cost quite a bit.

Don't expect aftermarket support, but having a UART dongle and PuTTy has helped me out in many sticky situations. I've now migrated my install to the 128mb NAND so the SD card is not in use.

Efficiency is great with limitations; the processor isn't actually that good, some benchmarks show the cheaper Filogic 830 beating it but the hardware acceleration units should be more capable. If you start using features the NPU (network processing unit) doesn't support, it falls back to CPU which is less efficient. I got it for multi-gig PPPoE which it handled great (current provider is DHCP so don't use that part any more).

Big thing, sort out cooling it. The processor and the SFP+ cages get very warm, if you want to cool them passively, you need big heatsinks with Honeywell PTM7950 thermal pads and even then it'll be very warm.

I use mine as an ethernet router, only the SFP+ cages and power are wired into the box, rest is handled by other hardware and it handles everything with insane speed. Uses much less power than an Intel based solution.