Mini PC Takeover! Are Desktop Towers Dead?

Looking at the Beelink EQ12 to see if it's got what it takes to be your next desktop solution, and to understand why these Mini PCs have been grabbing our attention.

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Timecodes:
00:00 - Opener
00:42 - Intro/Agenda
02:17 - What's in the Box?
02:35 - Specs & Features
04:49 - Internals
05:28 - Temps and Noise.
05:55 - Setup
06:30 - Browser Testing
07:27 - Productivity Testing
08:27 - Content Creation Testing
09:39 - The Big Takeaways

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Audio file(s) provided by Epidemic Sound

[garryconnors]

Awsome review as usual but Bro, The video quality, cinematography I think is the term, is mind blowing! You have surpassed channels with millions of subs. 🤯

[tayloroxelgren]

Always impressed by the quality of your videos. Thank you for all the effort you put in!

[hugginsio]

These BeeLink mini PCs are a terrific package. I’ve found them especially useful in homelab environments.

[coolestrock]

CJ, i am not sure if this is your cup of tea, but you are one of my fav creators in PC space, so going to request it:

Can you do a review of this mini PC as a router/firewall and in the process show how to set up pfSense or OPNSense on this?

[Argent_]

I have a second pc that I use for some basic tasks and monitoring purposes for my homelab. It used to be a 6th gen NUC with a celeron processor and that device frustrated me a great deal. It was pokier than my raspberry pi’s in almost every way.

Well, I replaced it with a ryzen5 based beelink that more or less looks the same as the one in this video and it’s really been a joy to work with. It’s not replacing my gaming pc for that purpose, but if you need a simple multimedia playback/browsing/office work PC for $300 or so - it’s just perfect, imo.

(I also run mine headless over a VNC connection to my regular pc monitor/kb, if that matters to anyone.)

[bits]

I LOVE that you do actual real life bench not just synthetic with few games and zip and call "real life" :D

[davidg]

I've been pushing mini PCs for every non-gamer situation. I got one for a family member last year. This year I upgraded a client's office PC with one and will likely be replacing all of their computers with them soon. The performance is great, the prices are excellent, and the tiny size is a winner with most users.

[Watchandlearn]

For the type of work I do (heavy software engineering), something like this won’t really cut it but it is still impressive to see that kind of performance for the price. I could easily see getting this for my parents or one of the kids in my family who don’t do much more than web browse.

[zar]

Great review, great beard my good sir!

[JamesJones-ztyx]

I'm way overdue to get my sister set up with a new computer. A good mini is the way to go; it'll take up far less space on her desk and will scream compared with what she has now. (I'm happy with my ASRock Deskmeet X300, but wish I'd waited just a little longer and gotten a mini.)

[bryans]

I've had a few NUCs over the years. I really like the mini PC form factor, but these days I prefer SFF PCs because of the ability to install a graphics card. My current Windows computer is an upgraded Dell 7010 SFF desktop.

[Mr.Fleckstone]

Hey quick question: is it possible to turn unused framework expansioncards into a dedicated dockingstation? I would love the idea of an upgradeable one to build into a desk.

[volsungogg]

I wonder why on a computer aiming for a budget audience there are two 2.5 Gbps ethernet ports instead of just one. Are they expecting a common use case to use one of these as a network gateway?

[Alexnr]

Well despite the fan noise and the upside-down USB ports I kind of like the whole package you get for about 175€ including Windows 11 for a U59. The only problem I have is it's randomly without any interaction booting up without video signal.

[patricklepoutre]

I was comparing intel N100 vs my still usefull i7 2600K and it's about the same perf (depending on the task), though N100 uses 6W vs 95W for the old one... N100 is quite a good chip for everyday basic use

[neilquinn]

Also have this and was surprised how good it is with only efficiency cores. Ssd+fast internet mean a lot. Note that currently the sei12 with the i5-1240p is also a screaming deal with 2 perf cores

[jon_franklin]

Not very far in but I want to say that some gaming coverage for machines like this might not be a bad idea as I feel like this could easily be the family PC. In which case it's good to know if it can run any games at all. Just a thought

[donnervaix]

So theoretically this is neck to neck with a max mini for running adobe suite?

[DerekDavis]

Desktop towers are great on the floor, next to the desktop.

Excellent and quiet cooling, and even huge video cards will fit in that case. Mini PCs are no competition!

[digvjbeniwal]

Would you recommend this over MINISFORUM UM450?