This $659 Intel Wildcat Lake mini PC is smaller than the Mac mini, but faster alternatives cost over $100 less
As PC component prices continue to climb, getting your hands on new hardware is becoming more difficult by the day. For instance, Nvidia recently raised GPU prices due to increasing DRAM costs, and there is little sign that these price hikes will slow anytime soon. Against that backdrop, picking up the latest Intel Wildcat Lake mini PC for around $600 sounds like a compelling deal, especially considering it includes more than 16 GB of DDR5 RAM and 500 GB of storage. But that's only until you don't look at the competition.
Recently, YouTuber ETA Prime published a video featuring a quick teardown, along with performance and gaming analysis of the Beelink EQi 304. The Intel Wildcat Lake-powered mini PC features an Intel Core 3 304 processor, 24 GB of DDR5 RAM running at 5,600 MHz with support for up to 64 GB, and 500 GB of UFS 3.1 flash storage. The Intel chip is designed with efficiency in mind, featuring a single performance core and four low-power efficiency cores. As for graphics, the processor is equipped with just a single Intel Xe core.
Additionally, the Beelink EQi 304 is even smaller than the Apple Mac mini M5, which is slightly larger in every dimension, making the Beelink the more compact of the two.
In the video, the Intel Core 3 304 scores 2,150 in the Geekbench 7 single-core test and 5,685 in the multi-core test. In our internal testing, the same processor scored around 2,472 in the Geekbench 6.7 single-core test and 6,708 in the multi-core test.
In terms of gaming, the Beelink EQi 304 delivered mediocre performance in ETA Prime's testing. For instance, it struggled to maintain 60 FPS in Skyrim at 900p using medium settings. Likewise, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at around 30 FPS at 720p with low graphics settings. And at its maximum gaming load, the CPU consumed just 25W.
However, at $659, the Beelink EQi 304 does not offer particularly good value for money, especially when mini PCs like the GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra are available for just $549 on Amazon US. The latter packs an AMD Ryzen 7 7640HS processor, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512 GB PCIe Gen 3 SSD.
Moreover, Notebookcheck's internal data shows the Ryzen 7 7640HS scoring 2,545 in the Geekbench 6.7 single-core test and 10,642 in the multi-core test. That translates to nearly 58% higher multi-core performance than the Intel Core 3 304, despite being found in a mini PC that costs over $100 less and offers better overall specifications.
In our review of the GMKtec NucBox M6 Ultra, The Ryzen 7 7640HS also delivers significantly better gaming performance thanks to its Radeon 760M iGPU. In Notebookcheck's internal testing, it achieved 157 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at the lowest graphics settings.
Some advantages of the Beelink EQi 304 include its low power consumption and dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, which are useful if you plan to connect multiple accessories or high-speed peripherals.
You can check out the full teardown and tesing video from ETA Prime below.
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