We’ve received our first Wildcat Lake hardware for review, as Beelink has sent us an EQi mini PC powered by the Intel Core 3 304 entry-level 5-core processor with a 15 TOPS AI accelerator.
The mini PC ships with either 16GB of LPDDR5 (soldered-on) or 24GB/32GB of DDR5 (SO-DIMM) memory and 512GB UFS 3.1 storage. It also features two M.2 Key-M PCIe Gen4 sockets, 10GbE and 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, three display outputs via HDMI and USB4 ports, and more.
We’ll start the review by listing the specifications, checking out the hardware with an unboxing and a teardown, before giving it a quick try with Windows 11 Pro. In the second part of the review, we’ll focus on Windows 11 Pro, with feature testing and benchmarks, before switching to Ubuntu 26.04 to test a recent Linux distribution on a Wildcat Lake mini PC.
Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 specifications
- SoC – Intel Core 3 304 “Wildcat Lake”
- 5-core CPU – 1x P-cores @ 1.5/4.3 GHz (Turbo) + 4x LPE-cores @ 1.4/3.3 GHz (Turbo)
- Cache – 6MB L3 cache
- GPU – 1-core Intel Xe3 Graphics @ 2.3 GHz (9 TOPS)
- NPU – 15 TOPS
- Manufacturing processor – Intel 18A
- System Memory – 16GB LPDDR5, 24GB, or 32GB DDR5 memory
- Storage
- 512GB UFS 3.1
- Supports up to 2x NVMe SSDs via M.2 Key-M (PCIe Gen4 x2) and/or M.2 Key-M (PCIe Gen4 x1) sockets
- Video Output
- HDMI 2.0 video output up to 4Kp60
- 2x DisplayPort via USB-C ports up to 4K @ 60 Hz
- Audio
- 3.5mm audio jack
- Digital audio output via HDMI and USB-C
- Networking
- 10GbE RJ45 port
- 2.5GbE RJ45 port
- Dual-band Wi-Fi 6 up to 2.4 Gbps and Bluetooth 5.2 via MediaTek MT7922 module
- USB
- 2x USB4 (40 Gbps) ports
- 1x USB 3.2 (10Gbps) Type-C port
- 1x USB 3.2 (10Gbps) Type-A port
- 2x USB 2.0 (480Mbps) Type-A ports
- Misc
- Power button
- Power status LED (white when powered on)
- Clear CMOS button
- Quiet active cooling system (32 dB noise levels)
- Power Supply – Built-in 85W PSU with 100-240V AC, 50/60Hz, 1.9A input
- Dimensions – 126 x 126 x 44.2mm
- Weight – 500 grams
The mini PC ships with Windows 11 Pro installed on UFS storage.
Unboxing
I’ve received the mini PC in a basic retail package, simply reading Beelink EQ.
The key specifications can be found on the sticker on the bottom side of the package. I received an EQi mini PC powered by an Intel Core 3 304 processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, 10GbE and 2.5GbE LAN ports, and a 100-240V AC 1.9A power supply.
The mini PC ships with a power cord for your country/region (I got an EU power cord), an HDMI cable, a “Hello” card (which looks bland in the photo below), a multilingual user manual, and a small sheet about USB power settings.
You can basically configure jumpers depending on whether you need to support wake-up from USB (e.g., keyboard/mouse) or not. I’d assume this can lower power consumption somewhat.
The front panel features a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a 3.5 audio jack, a USB 3.2 Type-C port, a power button, and a power LED. The case appears to be made of ABS plastic, which feels like a cheaper design than some mini PCs we recently reviewed.
The rear panel comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports with DisplayPort Alt mode, two USB 2.0 ports, a 4Kp60-capable HDMI video output, 10GbE (left) and 2.5GbE (right) RJ45 ports, and the AC power jack.
Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake teardown
Since it’s user-serviceable, the mini PC is designed to be opened. To do so, we’ll need to remove four rubber pads, loosen the four screws underneath, and pull the bottom cover with the small rubber bit on the bottom left corner in the photo below.
We can see the AW-XB591NF wireless module (MT7922-based for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity), a relatively large heatsink, and the 100-240V power supply.
You’ll also notice the 3-pin jumper to configure USB power behavior. We’ll keep the current “USB ON” configuration for now, and change that when measuring power consumption in the Windows 11 review.
The heatsink can be removed to access the two M.2 sockets. As a side note, the mainboard is named “EQI_LP”, probably referring to LPDDR5, and the 24GB/32GB model should have a different motherboard supporting SO-DIMM memory. The heatsink is clearly made for SSDs or AI accelerators with two pink thermal pads for cooling.
One of the sockets is PCIe Gen4 x2 and the other is PCIe Gen4 x1.
I don’t own any spare PCIe Gen4 SSDs, so instead, I’ll use MAKERDISK PCIe Gen3 x4 SSDs designed for the Raspberry Pi, one with 256GB capacity connected to the PCIe x2 socket, and the other with 128GB capacity connected to the PCIe x1 socket.
Let’s put the heatsink back in place to complete the SSD installation.
First boot to Windows 11 Pro
Time to reassemble everything and boot the mini PC to Windows. I initially tried to connect a USB-C cable to my display, but it didn’t work. So instead, I connected power to the display and used an HDMI cable, plus a USB RF dongle for a keyboard/mouse combo.
After I pressed the power button, the mini PC booted into… Ubuntu 24.04. Well, that’s unexpected. That’s because I probably used one of the SSDs for a Windows review a while back. So I went to the BIOS and booted from the “Windows Manager” partition instead. I could go through the setup wizard, select the region, the keyboard layout, and configure WiFi, after which Windows stayed in the “Just a moment…” loop for over one hour…
I eventually stopped it and moved inside to carry on with an Ethernet connection. It took another 20 minutes or so. The onboarding process was awful, but I finally managed to get to the Windows 11 desktop…
The System->About window in the Settings confirms we have an Intel Core 3 304 processor clocked at 1.5 GHz (Base frequency) with 16GB of RAM, running Windows 11 Pro 25H2. I have 834 GB of storage because of the 512GB UFS chip, pls the 128GB and 256GB NVMe SSDs.
HWiNFO 64 provides a few more details about the processor, motherboard, networking chips (RTL8127, Intel i226-V, MT7922), and so on.
We’ll go into much more depth in the second part of the review with Windows 11 Pro testing all features and running various benchmarks, before checking out Ubuntu 26.04 in the third part of the review to find out how the Intel Core 3 304 mini PC handles itself under Linux.
I’d like to thank Beelink for sending the EQi Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 mini PC for review. The model reviewed here, with 16GB LPDDR5 and 512GB UFS 3.1 storage, can be purchased for $509 on the Beelink store.
Continue reading
- Beelink EQi review – Part 2: An Intel Core 3 304 “Wildcat Lake” mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro
- Beelink EQi 304 Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 26.04 on a Wildcat Lake mini PC
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress. We also use affiliate links in articles to earn commissions if you make a purchase after clicking on those links.
Apparently the big news here is that it’s using a UFS 3.1 chip from YMTC.
Also, as per your own article, the MT7922 module supports Bluetooth 5.3.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/07/19/how-to-mediatek-mt7922-bluetooth-ubuntu-24-04/
$500+ for a mini pc that promises to have pretty poor performance. What sad times we live in.
Before people chime in, yes I understand that a lot of the cost is the RAM and SSD… Still sad for consumers though.
The Core 3 304 is the absolute bottom of the barrel Wildcat Lake chip with a missing P-core and restrained clocks, and it still significantly outperforms the Alder Lake-N “flagship” Core i3-N305 in CPU performance (I think graphics performance would be close to being the same, not sure). Those N305 systems often felt pricier than they ought to have been before RAM and storage prices shot up.
I’m not sure if it’s a good value against competing AMD options. And it’s probably a better idea to look at used/refurbs than blow $509 on this.
The performance should be entirely adequate for many users. But the missing P-core is a shame, and the missing Xe3 core cuts the graphics in half. And yeah, I would love for systems with the worst Wildcat Lake chip to be $200 instead of $509.
304 has 1 performance core, no efficient cores though, only low-power cores.
I didn’t say anything about E-cores/LPE-cores. All the Wildcat Lake SKUs have the same 4 LPE-cores.
However, I would argue that Intel is treating LPE-cores differently depending on the product line. Efficiency-oriented mobile chips are using LPE-cores more heavily, as if they were E-cores.
For example, Panther Lake-H has all three types of cores, but the E-cores and LPE-cores have roughly the same base/turbo clocks. Probably the big difference is that the LPE-cores can’t access the main L3 cache (last time I checked). However, they can access a slower “side cache”.
Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 is clocking the LPE-cores at up to 3.3 GHz. And they can hit 3.6 GHz in the Core 7 350/360. In Arrow Lake-H, they are limited to a low 2.5 GHz.
Lunar Lake (which clocked LPEs up to 3.7 GHz), and Panther/Wildcat are efficiency-oriented, while Arrow Lake mobile and future Nova Lake mobile are mainstream. This is the two-track strategy Intel seems to be pursuing for whatever reason.
In my opinion, LPE-cores are being “sent to do the job” of E-cores in Wildcat. When we see 4x LPE-cores in Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs, the LPE-cores will likely recede into the background again, never hitting even 3.0 GHz.
I guess I’ll believe it when I see the side by side benchmarks. I’m skeptical until then.
EDIT: I did go find some benchmarks elsewhere. Very good performance vs N305. I’m surprised, but that’s good.
Going by PassMark, the lone P-core obviously crushes Alder Lake-N in single-threading, and there is a decent multi-threading boost despite being the lowliest 5-core of the lineup.
It also compares well to the budget Alder Lake-U chips like the i3-1315U.
Based on some early results I saw on Notebookcheck, I believe the graphics performance of 2 Xe3 cores should be around double that of the N305. But the 1 Xe3 core could be a sidegrade, or a downgrade from the 1315U. The 304 is to be avoided if you care about graphics.
It’s too bad that Wildcat Lake Refresh is expected to add 2 more P-cores while leaving the graphics unchanged. The CPU performance is already solid.
From the reviews I have seen, this is more than double the performance of the N150 and IMO, had ewe not had the chip price madness, the basic model would likely have had NVME storage only and likely be in the region of £$300-350.
It’s energy efficiency, whilst being rather powerful looks amazing.
ETA Prime reported 4w at idle and 7w when playing 4k video.
It might turn out to be the right kind of product at the wrong time and by the time the madness ends, circa 2028, we may well be looking at the next generation of processor being in the supply chain.
It will be interesting to see what the competition comes up with, likely ditching the thunderbolt 4 ports to bring prices down a little more.
Interesting that it comes with either soldered or SO-DIMM.
Are those microphones or LEDs on the front?
The hole to the right of the power button is the power LED.
The hole in the middle is the CMOS reset button. There’s no built-in microphone.
Not marking port names and numbers is already all but smart, but when the two ethernet ports come with different specs and they’re not visually distinguishable, it becomes a bit moronic from the vendor to do that! Do they imagine that everyone perfectly remembers that it’s left or right port that’s 10G when they pick the device under the TV every 6 months ?
IBECC support?
What a rare find! A CPU with an odd number of cores!
I mean odd and not 1