Beelink EQi 304: Wildcat Lake's 10GbE Mini PC, Evaluated

October 29, 2026 · 6 min read

Wildcat Lake is real now, and the Beelink EQi 304 is the most interesting box in the first wave — not because of its chip, but because of its ports. Dual Thunderbolt 4, a 10GbE port next to a 2.5GbE one, and a chassis smaller than a Mac mini. The question for this page is narrow: does it earn a shortlist slot, or does it stay a watch-list box?

What it is

The EQi 304 runs Intel's Core 3 304 — Wildcat Lake on Intel 18A, five cores (one performance, four efficiency) up to 4.3GHz, with a single Xe3 graphics core and 24 TOPS of local AI. Around it: a 126 × 126 × 44.2mm chassis at 500g, a built-in 85W power supply, Windows 11 Pro, and a three-year warranty. This is an efficiency-first chip in a connectivity-first box.

Spec-for-spec

*Approximate prices; they move. Check current listings.

Pricing, carefully

Launch/preorder pricing was $509 (16GB), $659 (24GB), $739 (32GB). Beelink's own US store now lists $469, $629, and $699 for the three configs, and an owner spot-check on Amazon US on October 29 found $469 for the 16GB model and $599 for 24GB. So the honest current range is from $469, with the 24GB config at $599–$629 depending on where you buy. Do not confuse this box with the EQi14 (Intel Core 5, a different product line) that shows up next to it in search results.

Where it wins

10GbE at this price is genuinely rare. A 10GbE port next to a 2.5GbE one, plus dual Thunderbolt 4, in a 500g box — nothing else near $469 offers that combination. If your whole job is moving big files to a NAS over a fast network, this is the cheapest way to get a 10GbE endpoint. It has also been independently tested (networking, storage, power, thermals, Linux support), which is more than most launch-wave boxes can say. And it sips power: an efficiency-first chip in a box built to sit on all day.

Where it loses

The base model is soldered where it hurts. 16GB of LPDDR5 you can never upgrade, and a 512GB UFS boot drive you can never replace — UFS is phone storage, slower than NVMe, and the M.2 slots only add secondary storage. For a homelab box you expect to grow with, that's a red flag; the upgradeable configs start at $599–$629, which changes the value math. The chip is modest too: one performance core and a single Xe3 graphics core. Notebookcheck's verdict is blunt — faster alternatives cost over $100 less — and early benchmarks (Geekbench ~2,150 single / ~5,685 multi in one test) confirm this is not a performance box.

Against our shortlist

At $469–$699, the EQi 304 sits in the gap between our ~$190 N150 tier and our ~$940 power tier — and it beats neither at their own jobs. The EQ12 (~$199) does Docker and Plex duty with dual 2.5GbE for less than half the money. The K11 (~$940) and UM890 Pro ($463 barebone) bring 8945HS muscle the 5-core Wildcat chip can't touch. The EQi's only clean win is 10GbE — and 10GbE only matters if the rest of your network already speaks it.

A note on the cheaper sibling: the EQ mini (12GB soldered LPDDR5, $429) is the same Wildcat idea with even less headroom. It was not evaluated here and is not a candidate either.

Verdict

Watch, don't add — yet. The EQi 304 is the most interesting Wildcat Lake box so far, but it earns a shortlist slot only if 10GbE is your whole job. For general server duty, the EQ12 wins on value; for power, the 8945HS boxes win outright. Revisit if Beelink drops an upgradeable 32GB config near $500, or if a future revision fixes the soldered base. Until then, it stays on the watch list — and our Wildcat Lake verdict stands: the $199 box still wins.

Related reading

• Wildcat Lake Mini PCs Are $400. The $199 Box Still Wins
• Mini PC + NAS: How They Work Together (and When One Box Is Enough)
• N100 vs N150 for Docker and Plex: is the upgrade worth it?