Beelink EQi 304 Mini PC Review – Power Consumption

Power Consumption With Light Usage

In this test, I used each machine over many days while performing a variety of general desktop tasks, including web browsing, email, compiling source code, watching video, listening to music, and running virtual machines.

The chart shows total system power consumption, not just CPU power draw.

Under a light load, the Beelink EQi 304 draws 13.9W in Balanced mode, making it the third most economical system in the chart. It consumes only 1W more than the N100 machine and just 0.4W more than the Core Ultra 7 356H system.

This is an excellent result given that the Core 3 304 has a 15W TDP, compared with the N100’s 6W TDP. Despite its substantially higher power envelope and greater performance headroom, the EQi 304 imposes only a very small power-consumption penalty during lighter everyday workloads. It also uses less power than every Ryzen-based system tested and uses considerably less power than the more powerful Core Ultra machines.

Notes about the chart:

• The tasks do not include GPU-intensive activities such as gaming, running locally hosted AI apps, video recording, or live streaming.
• Although the software stack uses the GPU, including for the Wayland session, GPU load remains minimal. The i5-12400F is the exception, as its dedicated graphics card draws significantly more power at idle.
• Two screens are used with each machine.
• The i5-12400F machine hosts a dedicated graphics card, whereas the other machines all use onboard graphics.
• The Balanced power profile is used.
• The machines are running Ubuntu.

Next page: Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Power Consumption With System Idle
Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed
Page 4 – Electricity Costs

Complete list of articles in this series: