Probably better power use than a bunch of PIs, but no, not than one or two, and not quieter. The one I bought is basically silent, though, with the stock cooler. Just hard to compete with fanless.
I thought RPis were extremely power efficient. Is that wrong?
They only draw about 5 watts under heavy usage, 2-3w at idle. Though I'm not sure how that compares on a watt per CPU cycle comparison.
Sometimes it's not about power efficiency, but repurposing hardware you already have instead of buying new.