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August 12, 2026August 12, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

MINISFORUM Elite Mini M2 Air-304 barebone Wildcat Lake mini PC sells for $263

MINISFORUM Elite Mini M2 Air-304 is a barebone mini PC powered by an Intel Core 3 304 Wildcat Lake penta-core processor with a DDR5 SO-DIMM slot and an M.2 PCIe Gen4 x4 socket for NVMe SSD storage. There’s currently a limited number of Wildcat Lake mini PCs which you can purchase or pre-order, such as the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake and the BOSGAME E6 Eco. These are ready to use out of the box with memory, storage, and Windows 11 pre-loaded. The MINISFORUM model is the first Wildcat Lake barebone mini PC we’ve seen, where users can bring their own memory, storage, and OS. MINISFORUM Elite Mini M2 Air-304 specifications: SoC – Intel Core 3 304 “Wildcat Lake” 5-core CPU – 1x P-core @ 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) […]

August 11, 2026August 11, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GEEKOM IT13 Max review – Part 2: An Intel Core Ultra 9 185H mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro (in 2026)

We previously checked out the hardware of the GEEKOM IT13 Max mini PC with an unboxing and a teardown of the 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 185H mini PC in the first part of the review, before booting it up to Windows 11 Pro. We’ve now had time to test it in more detail. So we will report our experience with the GEEKOM IT13 Max on Windows 11 Pro, covering feature testing, system performance benchmarks, AI benchmarks, YouTube 4K and 8K video playback in Firefox, 2.5GbE and Wi-Fi 6 network performance testing, and thermal performance, as well as measurements of fan noise and power consumption. Since we had already reviewed the GEEKOM GT1 Mega mini PC with the same Intel Meteor Lake CPU in 2024, we’ll compare the results to report any improvements or regressions since then. Software Overview and Feature Testing The System->About window confirms we have an “IT13_Max” […]

August 7, 2026August 11, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

GEEKOM IT13 Max mini PC review – Part 1: specifications, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

We’ve just received a sample of the GEEKOM IT13 Max mini PC powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU for review. With up to 35 TOPS, sixteen cores clocked up to 5.1 GHz, and up to 24 GB LPDDR5 memory, the Meteor Lake mini PC is well-suited for AI workloads, creative tasks, coding, and heavy multitasking. Two configurations are available: one with 16 GB DDR5 SODIMM RAM and a 1 TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and another with 24 GB soldered-on LPDDR5-5600 memory and a 500 GB SSD. Both feature two 40 Gbps USB4 ports, five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two HDMI 2.0 ports, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and dual 2.5 GbE networking, and come pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro. GEEKOM specifically sent us the IT13 Max mini PC with 24 GB LPDDR5 and a 500 GB M.2 SSD for testing. In this article, we will cover […]

August 6, 2026August 6, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Antmicro releases open-source hardware Thunderbolt to dual 10GbE adapter

Antmicro has just released an open-source hardware Thunderbolt to (dual) 10GbE adapter that serves as a reference design for a high-speed Ethernet accessory, further customizable for smart terminals, Point of Sale systems, smart cameras, IoT gateways, and more. The company has a history of releasing open-source hardware designs, and we previously covered a baseboard for Quectel SA800U-WF System-on-Module (Qualcomm Snapdragon 845) and an AMD Xilinx Kintex-7 K410T FPGA development board, both designed in KiCad. The Thunderbolt to 10GbE adapter adds to the list. Antmicro Thunderbolt to 10GbE adapter specifications: Networking – 2x 10GbE RJ45 ports via Intel X710-AT2 Ethernet controller Host interface – Thunderbolt 3 USB-C connector via Intel JHL6340SLLSQ Thunderbolt 3 controller (PCIe Gen3 x4) Misc Passive cooling via heatsink 4-pin PWM fan connector 3x LEDs Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port and DC jack Dimensions – 110 x 70 mm The company tested the adapter, I assume with iperf […]

July 25, 2026July 25, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Beelink ME Pro 2-bay hybrid NAS gets Wildcat Lake treatment, gains 10GbE and Thunderbolt 4, loses a few M.2 slots

Beelink “ME Pro 2-Bay AI NAS Mini PC Intel Wildcat Lake 304” offers two SATA bays and one M.2 PCIe Gen4 socket, and is equipped with 16GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM memory and 512GB UFS 3.1 storage. It’s an upgrade to the Beelink ME Pro Intel N95/N150 NAS and mini PC introduced last February. Besides the faster processor, the NAS trades its 5GbE port for a faster 10GbE port, and gains two Thunderbolt 4 ports. One downside, due to the lower number of PCIe lanes in Wildcat Lake processors, is that it now features one M.2 PCIe Gen4 socket, instead of three M.2 PCIe Gen3 sockets, which is somewhat mitigated by the built-in UFS storage. Beelink ME Pro 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 […]

July 19, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Beelink EQi 304 review – Part 3: Ubuntu 26.04 on a Wildcat Lake mini PC

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake mini PC Ubuntu 26.04 review

After checking out the hardware with an unboxing and a teardown of the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake mini PC, we reviewed the Intel Core 3 304 computer with Windows 11 in detail. We’ve now had time to test the Beelink EQi mini PC running Ubuntu 26.04 with Linux 7.0/7.1 kernels. We’ll report our experience with feature testing, benchmark results, 2.5GbE, 10GbE, and WiFi 6 networking evaluation, storage and USB/Thunderbolt tests, and more, including power consumption measurements. Ubuntu 26.04 installation and system information I’d usually resize the Windows partition to install Ubuntu alongside it in dual boot configuration. However, since the Beelink EQi mini PC also comes with two PCIe Gen4 x1/x2 sockets, I installed Ubuntu 26.04 on a 256GB NVMe (PCIe Gen3 x4) SSD fitted into the PCIe x2 socket and left the Windows 11 partition on the UFS storage alone. Despite the Intel Core 3 304 chip being a […]

July 12, 2026July 19, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Beelink EQi review – Part 2: An Intel Core 3 304 “Wildcat Lake” mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 Windows 11 mini PC review

We’ve already checked out the specifications and hardware of the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake mini PC in the first part of the review, with an unboxing and a teardown, before booting the mini PC into the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro for a first quick look. We’ve now had time to test the Intel Core 3 304 mini PC in more detail on Windows 11 Pro, so we’ll report our experience. The review includes feature testing, benchmark results, 4K and 8K YouTube video playback, 10GbE, 2.5GbE, and WiFi network performance evaluation, cooling performance, and measurement of fan noise and power consumption. Software Overview and Feature Testing After fully updating Windows 11 Pro and drivers to the latest version (excluding previews), I went to System > About window again. We still have a 1.50 GHz (base frequency) Intel Core 3 304 processor with 16GB 6400MT/s memory, and 834GB of storage from the […]

July 6, 2026July 19, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 mini PC review – Part 1: Specifications, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 review

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 […]