Beelink EQ14 mini PC with Intel N150 evaluate

Advent and unboxing

Mini PCs are an effective way to cater in your computing wishes whilst protecting your table blank and minimalist. The times of previous tower PCs you tuck below the table solely to remove area out of your toes (acquire mud) are in point of fact over. Most of the people are tremendous with a computer, a Mini PC, or perhaps a robust pill (what is a pc, eh?).

Here is the place the Beelink EQ14 is available in. It is constructed across the very new Intel N150 – the successor to 2023’s Intel N100 – a staple for entry-level programs.

The Beelink EQ14 comes on this Military Blue choice and includes a honeycomb development at the best. It is a trendy Mini PC, which is atypical for the class.

On the time of writing, the configuration we’ve got for evaluate prices $230 (and there is a $40 coupon on Amazon), which incorporates a 500GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, and Home windows 11 Professional preinstalled.

The device has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 integrated, together with a good choice of ports at the entrance and rear.

The EQ14 ships in a sufficiently small field, that includes a separate energy cable and an HDMI cable (1 meter). The facility provide is constructed into the PC, so there aren’t any chunky bricks to fret about.

Design and ports

Mini PCs are not flashy machines and they are no longer intended to be. The Beelink EQ14 is delicate in its Military Blue – it is not a bland black plastic field.

There is a delicate development at the best and an EQ monicker within the nook. There is an EQ at the backside of the device along small holes for air flow.

A excellent having a look mini PC

The ports are superb at the EQ14. In advance are two USBs – one A (USB 2.0, 480Mbps) and one C (Information, 10Gbps), a three.5mm audio jack, and the ability button. Spherical again, there are 3 USB-As (USB 3.2 Gen2, 10Gbps), two HDMI (4k@60Hz), two LAN (1000Mbps), and the determine 8 energy connector.

As you’ll bet from the specifications above, not one of the ports are Thunderbolt, and the USB-C port lacks DisplayPort enhance, so you’ll wish to attach screens by the use of the 2 HDMI ports.

Ports at the entrance and rear

Opening up the Beelink EQ14 is straightforward sufficient. You would wish to take away the 4 rubber covers over 4 Philips head screws and undo the ones. When you are accomplished, pull the small rubber tab to get the ground panel off.

Inside of, you might be greeted by way of a small heatsink (screwed in position by way of two different Philips heads) with two thermal pads at the backside, the ability provide, two PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD slots (the primary is PCIe 3.0 x4, the opposite PCIe 3.0 x1 and loose), and a unmarried DDR4 SODIMM slot with 16GB 3200MHz preinstalled (the utmost supported).

That implies that you’ll simply upload a 2d SSD (or change each for larger ones), or change the RAM in case of failure (you’ll’t have greater than 16GB).

Efficiency

Probably the most noteworthy function of the Beelink EQ14 is its Intel N150 processor. The N150 is the successor to the preferred N100 however it is most commonly a higher-clocked variant of that processor.

The Intel N150 is in response to the Intel Dual Lake structure, which is extra of a tweak of the previous Alder Lake, than a brand new setup. It is in response to Intel’s 7 lithography, which means it is a 10nm processor.

Curiously, Intel has but to announce the processor and does not have an Arc web page printed simply but.

Being bodily just like the N100, the N150 has 4 Potency-only cores and 4 threads. The utmost clock velocity is 3.6GHz – up from 3.4GHz – whilst the cache is similar 6MB. At the GPU aspect, you get the similar Intel Graphics with 24 compute devices, however the height clock has long gone up from 750MHz to 1000MHz.

The N150 has a height TDP of 25W (the everyday TDP is 6W). We ran a number of benchmarks at the Beelink EQ14 to provide you with an concept of what to anticipate from the device. In Geekbench 6, the N150 rankings round 18% larger in single-core and a few 5% larger in multi-core checks than the N100. The Passmark rating is round 5% higher than the N100, as are the Cinebench numbers.

That suggests you’ll be expecting just about equivalent efficiency to the N100, which is completely tremendous for an entry-level computing device or an in-house server.

To position the numbers above into some more or less standpoint, let’s evaluate the N150 in opposition to the Intel Core i3-14100 – the logical step up from the N collection. The Core i3 has the similar 4 bodily cores, however two times the collection of threads at 8, it additionally helps as much as 96GB of RAM to the N150’s prohibit of 16GB. Taking a look at Geekbench 6 numbers, the Core i3 rankings a little bit over two times the rating of the N150. Transferring to Cinebench R23, the Core i3’s single-core rating is 2 occasions larger and its multi-core rating is 3 times larger, on moderate.

The integrated SSD did not galvanize. The preloaded unit is a SATA III SSD and it is price swapping it for a PCIe 3.0 NVME pressure. Take into account, although, that the second one SSD slot is SATA III incompatible so the preinstalled SSD cannot be moved to the second one slot.

Disk velocity and 7zip benchmark

We ran a three-hour tension check at the Beelink EQ14.

The processor began the check at its complete 3.6GHz (round 22W) however then just about in an instant dipped to two.7GHz (round 15W) and stored up a cycle of going as much as round 2.7GHz and taking place to round 600MHz.

It by no means returned to three.6GHz (22W) and stayed round 15W for the check period, which means a sustained 3.6GHz is out of the query. The processor were given as prime as 61°. The PC itself felt just a bit heat at the outdoor.

To sum up efficiency, we will say the Intel N150 is excellent for what it is supposed for – entry-level computing. This is not a sensible choice for gaming or video enhancing, however it’ll be supreme for an workplace pc, a scholar device, or a server. It is speedy sufficient for day-to-day duties not to get in the best way and it is silent and really environment friendly. More often than not it’ll run at round 6W and sip electrical energy.

Fan noise

The integrated fan used to be inaudible in our conventional workplace setting all over our tension check. If you are very close to the EQ14, you’ll pay attention the fan when the machine boots up. We measured beneath 30 dB.

Conclusion

The Beelink EQ 14 is $250 however on the time of this newsletter, you’ll get it for $190 from Amazon.com – there is an 8% cut price plus a $40 coupon. That is a very good worth and tough to overcome – the entry-level Apple Mac Mini is $599. Sure, the Mac has a a lot more robust 10-core M4 processor nevertheless it additionally has the similar 16GB of RAM and part the garage at 256GB with out the choice of a 2d SSD slot.

Apples and oranges, positive, however on the finish of the day, a Mini PC is an reasonably priced and minimalist method to care for your computing wishes, and the Beelink EQ14 is completely in a position to that.

Purchase the Beelink Mini PC EQ14 on Amazon.com

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