The Budget Mini to Beat - Beelink EQ12 Mini PC Review

In this video we check out the Beelink EQ12 mini PC featuring the Intel N100 CPU. With a nice port selection, great performance and a reasonable price, the Beelink EQ12 is a nice budget mini PC.

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► This review unit was a free sample

00:00 - Intro & Specs
00:59 - Ports
01:20 - In the Box
01:32 - Look Inside
02:20 - Linux
02:29 - Benchmarks
03:23 - TDP
04:48 - More Power
05:26 - AV1 Video Playback
05:53 - Game & Emulator Test
07:32 - Power, Temps & Noise

[neilquinn]

I just got this one too. Was super hesitant to mess w/ the N100 because it has no performance cores, but it's surprisingly snappy with an SSD and a good internet connection.

[arandomthoughttoday]

A few things to add.

This unit can be powered off a USB battery by using a DC 5.5x2.5mm Power PD Charge Cable. The higher end EQ12 Pro draws 15 -17w under load so I suspect that this will draw less power. This does not support powering from the USB-C port.

The Intel AX101 wifi card included doesn't have any support other than Windows sadly.

This and the Pro version should make a good homelab server but I was only able to get Windows Server 2019 and ESXi 8.0 installed and working on it.

[mobby_kl]

Thanks for addressing the power question! :) Looks like Intel really is boosting these Alder Lake-N processors much more than previous Tremont CPUs. Which makes sense considering that we're seeing 2x performance compared to the N5105 for example.

[olafonm]

It would be perfect if this Beelink had power delivery via USB-C.

[funkified-]

You got a new sub, purely based on your humour. The review was good too lol

[rexrecio]

It would be nice comparing these latest low end processors against the flagship processors of previous years.

[renegade_patriot]

Just picked up one of these to use as a PFsense router. It was the only option I could find that supports 2.5' SSD's AND had dual 2.5GBPS LAN at that price. Other options in this form factor were hundreds of dollars more expensive and overkill for my application.

[tehaiks]

Great video! Super informative with a spot-on approach to the technical aspects. Really helpful and funny-ish. :D Thanks a lot!

[AgentZeroNine]

Can't wait to see:

1. A fanless device using these e-core only CPUs, especially one with 8 cores on a laptop

2. A mini PCs and laptops with the N300 and N305

3. The Crestmont e-cores upcoming with 14th gen. Hopefully Intel focuses on efficiency over power for them

[gumbywwf]

Now that’s a review, no fucks given. Subscribed.

[varianbohling]

Good video. Really curious about the EQ Pro. 8 threads and DDR5. Could be interesting.

[karper]

I would really love to see a review of the Asus PN42, because it is very similar to this one except its fanless.

[BradCastYourSlf]

Let's hope that my comment sticks this time. Must have rubbed the algo the wrong way.
05:26 "No joke. After going through like 30 videos on YouTube, I finally found one that actually had AV1 support."
YouTube's channel named "YouTube Developers" ( @youtubedevs ) has a playlist named "AV1 Beta Launch Playlist" with 14 transcoded AV1 videos for testing. From the description: "At time of writing, these transcodes are encoded at a very high bitrate for decoder performance testing.".
Forget the instruction in the playlist description to set "Prefer AV1 for SD". Choose "Auto (recommended)" or "Always prefer AV1" instead. We're 5 years on and hardware AV1 decoding exists. ;)

[samh]

Would be good if you can show TDP of SOC in your gaming/emulation tests.
Even though you upped the TDP upper limit on this, I doubt it actually uses much more than the morefine one in games

[chromerims]

Great video 👍 Thank you for your excellent videos.
If the CPU fan breaks (not the ssd/ram fan revealed at 1:40), how hard would it be to get the mobo out? At 2:14, understandably you didn't go further below. But wondering.
Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.

Not sure how recommend this mini pc is when you can buy a ser 5 or ser 5 pro and disable the turbo boost which makes the mini pc almost fanless. In any case it is amazing Beelink keep releasing new products!! Excellent review as usual!

[Urosaurus]

Thanks for the power limit info. Trigkey seems to sell this same thing. Who knew?

[edalder]

I would love a MiniPC. The heaviest things that I do are streaming video and streaming music. I assume this MiniPC would work just fine, right?

[graysonpeddie]

I could see myself using this NUC as a router due to the dual 2.5Gbit LAN ports. One for WAN and one for WAN. :) Just put a VLAN-capable rack-mounted 2.5Gbit switch in between the NUC and my devices and I'm good to go! :)

[dave_r]

Rob, Rob, Rob: You have complained numerous times, fairly, about getting a mini without the appropriate power connector for AUS; this one has it and you don't give it credit... One question: It seemed to me that the noise on this unit (both idle and at power), while they may not have been all that loud in either case, had a really annoying whine/something, that bothered me a lot more than louder, but "whooshier" sound would have. Was that just my PC, or did it sound like that in 'real life'? Fun review though, and it's nice to see the extra cooling fan starting to appear on low-end units.