Beelink Mini PCs: Full Lineup Compared (2026)

Disclosure: Some links in this article are affiliate links. We may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

The best Beelink mini PC for a homelab is the SER8 with the Ryzen 7 8745HS: eight Zen 4 cores, two replaceable DDR5 SO-DIMMs, two Gen4 M.2 slots and an idle draw in the 7 to 10 W range. For a dedicated 24/7 Plex, Home Assistant or pfSense node, the EQ14 in its Intel N150 dual-2.5GbE configuration does more per watt, as explained in the mini PC homelab starter guide.

Beelink's active catalog looks nothing like the SER5 and GTR7 machines that still dominate search results. The current range runs from the GTR9 Pro and GTi15 Ultra at the top down through SER10 MAX, SER9 MAX, SER9 Pro, SER8, SEi14 AI, EQi Core 3 304, EQR5/6/7, EQi12/13/13 Pro and EQ14, with the ME mini and ME Pro covering storage. Older families survive on the used market, and what you pay for them is a dated media engine, gigabit or slower networking, and BIOS files that Beelink matches to a serial number rather than a model name.

What separates these machines is not the CPU badge. It is idle wall draw, whether the RAM is soldered, the controller sitting behind each Ethernet port, and whether the media engine you get is the one your software actually supports. Marketplace listings quietly swap a 8745HS for an 8845HS, or a dual 2.5GbE chassis for a dual gigabit one, under an unchanged title. Each pick identifies the relevant configuration so you can choose the appropriate version.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Beelink Mini PC Lineup at a Glance

What a Beelink Needs to Earn a Place in a Homelab

Five things decide it, and the model number is not one of them.

Idle wall draw. A machine that runs continuously spends most of its life near idle, so that figure matters more than any turbo clock. An N150 box lands in the 6 to 10 W band, the SER8 in the 7 to 10 W band, and the SER9 Pro HX370 in the 7 to 9 W band. The GTR9 Pro starts at 16 W and reaches 25 W, which is a different class of electricity bill for something running all year.

The Ethernet controller, not the port count. Beelink spans Realtek RTL8111H gigabit, Intel I226-V 2.5GbE and Intel E610 10GbE across the current range. A seller title saying "dual LAN" tells you nothing about whether FreeBSD will drive it, which is why the Proxmox host roundup separates boxes by controller rather than by port count.

Replaceable memory. Two SO-DIMM slots turn a 32 GB machine into a 96 GB VM host later. Soldered LPDDR5X locks the configuration you buy on day one, which is fine for a fixed media server and painful for anything that grows.

The media engine you actually get. Intel Quick Sync is the easier path for a Linux Plex or Jellyfin server because the driver stack and application support are mature. AMD VCN on the Radeon 780M and 890M is capable, but it is more dependent on kernel, driver and application specifics.

Storage paths and their lane width. Two M.2 slots are useful, but a slot wired at PCIe 3.0 x1 will not deliver the sequential speeds printed on a Gen4 drive.

1. Beelink EQ14 N150: Best Budget Beelink for 24/7 Duty

The EQ14 is the machine to buy when the workload is Plex, Home Assistant, a DNS resolver or a small Docker stack and the priority is the electricity meter. Its N150 is a four-core, four-thread part running up to 3.6 GHz with Intel UHD graphics and 24 execution units, and the Quick Sync engine behind it is the reason a four-core chip is worth more here than the core count suggests. The dual 2.5GbE version uses Intel I226-V controllers, which is the configuration worth hunting for; a dual gigabit variant also exists under the same name.

• Intel N150, 4 cores / 4 threads, up to 3.6 GHz
• Intel UHD Graphics, 24 EUs, Quick Sync support
• 1× DDR4 SO-DIMM, 16 GB official maximum
• 2× M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0, up to 8 TB total; the shipped SSD may be SATA rather than NVMe
• Dual 2.5GbE Intel I226-V on the preferred configuration, dual 1GbE on the other
• Wi-Fi 6 AX101, Bluetooth 5.2, 2× HDMI 4K60, no USB4

Idle draw sits in the 6 to 10 W range, with short bursts around 32 W settling toward 24 W under sustained load. A reasonable planning figure for hardware transcoding is two to three concurrent 4K HEVC to 1080p jobs in favourable conditions, and that number collapses the moment HDR tone mapping, Dolby Vision or PGS subtitle burn-in enters the picture. Check that the iGPU is passed through properly to the container or VM before blaming the silicon, as covered in the Plex minimum requirements breakdown.

Check the Beelink EQ14 on Amazon

Pros: genuine low idle draw, two 2.5GbE ports on the right SKU, two M.2 slots, Quick Sync, cheap.
Cons: one memory channel capped at 16 GB officially, PCIe 3.0 storage, no USB4, no ECC.

Verdict: the best Beelink to leave running unattended. Match it against the N100 mini PC buying guide if you want the cheaper N100 equivalent instead.

Best for: a dedicated media server, a pfSense or OPNsense box with a managed switch, or a Home Assistant host.

2. Beelink SER8 8745HS: Best Mainstream Homelab Beelink

The SER8 is the point where a Beelink stops being a media box and starts being a server. Eight cores and sixteen threads of Zen 4, a Radeon 780M with 12 RDNA 3 compute units, two SO-DIMM slots and two Gen4 x4 M.2 positions give it room for a Proxmox host with a Home Assistant VM and a handful of containers. Idle draw stays in the 7 to 10 W band and full load lands at 77 to 79 W with no sustained throttling.

• Ryzen 7 8745HS, 8 cores / 16 threads; Radeon 780M, 12 CUs, up to 2.6 GHz
• 2× DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM; Beelink's current product page quotes support well beyond the 32 GB these ship with
• 2× M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4, up to 8 TB total
• 1× 2.5GbE, Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
• HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, USB4 40 Gbps
• No NPU on the 8745HS; the 8845HS version adds Hawk Point Ryzen AI functionality

The single 2.5GbE port is the structural weakness for anyone building a router or a storage host, and there is no VESA mounting and no particularly convenient internal access. The 8745HS loses the NPU compared with the 8845HS, which matters for almost nothing a server does. One warning that is worth more than any benchmark: listings commonly mix the 8745HS and 8845HS descriptions, so confirm the CPU in the live title before you buy or link.

Check the Beelink SER8 8745HS on Amazon

Pros: verified low idle, 8C/16T, replaceable dual-channel RAM, two Gen4 M.2 slots, quiet under sustained load, USB4.
Cons: one 2.5GbE port, no VESA mount, ASIN drifts between CPU revisions.

Verdict: the mainstream pick. It does not win on any single spec, and it is the machine most homelab buyers should actually end up with.

Best for: a Proxmox or Docker host, a general-purpose home server, or a first homelab that will grow.

3. Beelink GTi15 Ultra: Best Premium Beelink for Virtualisation and Networking

The GTi15 Ultra is the network-heavy option and the only Beelink here shipping dual Intel 10GbE, which changes what the machine can be: a storage node, a router with real headroom, a virtualisation host pushing backups at line rate. The Core Ultra 9 285H brings 16 cores and threads, Arc 140T graphics with hardware AV1 encode and decode, socketed DDR5-5600 and two Gen4 x4 M.2 slots, all in a chassis that stays near its noise floor at idle.

• Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, 16 cores / 16 threads, up to 5.4 GHz
• Intel Arc 140T, up to 2.35 GHz, Intel Quick Sync
• 2× DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM
• 2× M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4, up to 8 TB total
• Dual 10GbE on Intel E610-family controllers
• Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, DisplayPort 1.4a, HDMI, 40 Gbps USB-C

The caveat is idle power, and it is a real one. Measurements diverge hard: one lab recorded roughly 9 to 12 W idle and around 75 W under CPU load, while others measured roughly 20 to 24 W idle under Windows and higher still under Debian, with a suspected power-state or firmware problem. BIOS revisions addressed other issues without clearly closing the gap. Treat any single idle figure for this machine as configuration-dependent, and if it is destined for a 24/7 low-load role, that variance matters more than the spec sheet.

Check the Beelink GTi15 Ultra on Amazon

Pros: dual Intel 10GbE, socketed DDR5, Arc media engine with AV1 encode, quiet at idle, strong Proxmox candidate.
Cons: idle power varies wildly by firmware and OS, no verified simultaneous-transcode figure, premium positioning.

Verdict: the strongest premium all-rounder if the 10GbE is the point. If it is not, the SER9 MAX costs less for the same class of work.

Best for: storage and virtualisation hosts, high-throughput backups, and anyone who genuinely needs two 10GbE ports in a compact chassis.

4. Beelink SER9 MAX: Best AMD Premium All-Rounder

The SER9 MAX fixes the two things that held back the earlier SER9 Pro: it restores socketed DDR5-5600 SO-DIMMs and moves to a single 10GbE port. The Ryzen 7 H255 and H260 variants run 8 cores and 16 threads with Radeon 780M graphics, while the Ryzen AI 7 H350 carries Radeon 860M. Two M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 slots, USB4 and HDMI plus DisplayPort round out a machine that is more balanced than the GTR9 Pro for ordinary virtualisation, compilation and desktop work.

• Ryzen 7 H255, H260 or Ryzen AI 7 H350, 8 cores / 16 threads
• Radeon 780M or Radeon 860M integrated graphics
• 2× DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM, dual-channel
• 2× M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0
• 1× 10GbE, Wi-Fi 6 AX200, Bluetooth 5.2, USB4, HDMI, DisplayPort
• Configurations seen include 32 GB / 1 TB and 64 GB / 1 TB

Two cautions. First, "SER9", "SER9 Pro" and "SER9 MAX" coexist and describe different CPUs, memory topologies and network speeds, so the suffix is the whole product. Second, no reliable wall-idle figure has been established for each H255, H260 and H350 revision, and the 7 to 9 W measured on the HX370 model must not be transplanted onto this one.

Check the Beelink SER9 MAX on Amazon

Pros: socketed DDR5, 10GbE, two Gen4 M.2 slots, USB4, three display paths.
Cons: no established idle figure, AMD media acceleration under Linux is less turnkey than Quick Sync.

Verdict: the best current AMD pick below the GTR9 and SER10 specialists, and the right answer for buyers who want replaceable memory plus 10GbE without GTi15 money.

Best for: AMD-based Proxmox hosts, developers, and anyone who wants a fast desktop that can also be a server.

5. Beelink GTR9 Pro: Best Beelink for Local AI

The GTR9 Pro is a specialist and should be bought like one. The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 runs 16 cores and 32 threads with Radeon 8060S graphics and 40 compute units, paired with 128 GB of soldered LPDDR5X-8000 unified memory. That memory pool is the product: it is the difference between running a large model locally and not running it at all, and nothing else in the lineup comes close.

• Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 16 cores / 32 threads, up to 5.1 GHz
• Radeon 8060S, 40 compute units
• 128 GB LPDDR5X-8000, soldered and not upgradeable
• 2× M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0, up to 16 TB total
• Dual 10GBase-T on Intel E610 controllers
• MediaTek MT7925 Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1, 2× USB4

Idle is 16 to 25 W, roughly double an N150 or SER8-class box, with AI workloads around 120 W and very large model workloads at 125 to 128 W. The Intel E610 NICs can disappear after a Windows update and return after a subsequent update, which is a driver episode rather than a hardware fault, but it is the kind of thing worth knowing before you build a firewall around them.

Check the Beelink GTR9 Pro on Amazon

Pros: 128 GB unified memory, dual 10GbE, 40-CU Radeon 8060S, two Gen4 M.2 slots.
Cons: soldered memory, 16-25 W idle, price, poor fit for a generic always-on server.

Verdict: the local-AI winner and nothing else. It is not the universal best Beelink just because it is the fastest.

Best for: local LLM inference, large unified-memory workloads, and GPU-compute projects that fit in 128 GB.

6. Beelink ME mini: Best Beelink NAS

The ME mini is a storage appliance, not a virtualisation host, and reading it any other way leads to disappointment. Six M.2 positions, dual Intel I226-V 2.5GbE and an internal AC power supply make it a quiet all-flash box that fits almost anywhere. Its N150 is deliberately power-limited, so CPU benchmarks trail an unrestricted N100 machine while its real job, serving storage, is unaffected.

• Intel N95 or N150, 4 cores / 4 threads, with Quick Sync on the N150
• 12 to 16 GB LPDDR5-4800, soldered
• Six M.2 positions total, with the bulk data slots wired at PCIe 3.0 x1
• Dual Intel I226-V 2.5GbE
• Wi-Fi 6 AX101, Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C at 10 Gbps rather than USB4
• eMMC or M.2 system disk depending on SKU; official compatibility lists include the Crucial P3 Plus and WD_BLACK SN850X

Two limits define the platform. The soldered 12 to 16 GB of RAM and the absence of ECC are the real ceiling for ZFS and multi-VM use, and ZFS in particular eats into that pool in a way ext4 does not. The PCIe 3.0 x1 data slots mean a flagship Gen4 drive will not run at the speed on its label, so spend on capacity, endurance, thermals and efficiency instead. See the NAS mini PC roundup for the wider field.

Check the Beelink ME mini on Amazon

Pros: six M.2 slots, dual 2.5GbE, internal PSU, quiet, small footprint.
Cons: soldered non-ECC memory, x1 data slots, not a high-core-count host.

Verdict: the best Beelink for storage-dense, low-power duty. Buy it for capacity per watt, not for throughput per drive label.

Best for: all-flash NAS builds, Jellyfin or Plex libraries served from local storage, and quiet always-on file servers.

7. Beelink SER9 Pro HX370: Best Efficiency at the High End

For a machine that idles in the 7 to 9 W band and pulls about 78 W under load without significant sustained downclocking, the HX370 SER9 Pro is unusually well balanced. Twelve Zen 5 cores and twenty-four threads, Radeon 890M graphics with 16 compute units and two Gen4 x4 M.2 slots put it near the top of the compact AMD stack.

The trade-offs are structural rather than thermal. Memory is 32 or 64 GB of soldered LPDDR5X-8000, so the configuration you buy is the configuration you keep, and there is a single 2.5GbE port where the SER9 MAX now offers 10GbE and replaceable SO-DIMMs. A reported buzz under GPU load on one review unit is worth noting as a unit-level observation, not a family-wide defect.

Check the Beelink SER9 Pro HX370 on Amazon

Pros: 7-9 W idle, 12C/24T, Radeon 890M, no sustained throttling observed, two Gen4 M.2 slots.
Cons: soldered RAM, one 2.5GbE port, late-cycle against the SER9 MAX.

Verdict: still the most efficient high-end Beelink, and a defensible buy while it lasts. If you need the RAM to be replaceable, the SER9 MAX is the same money and a better server.

Best for: compact compute nodes where idle draw is the constraint and 32 or 64 GB is enough forever.

8. Beelink SER10 MAX: Newest SER Flagship

The SER10 MAX is the new top of the SER line: a Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 with 12 cores and 24 threads, Radeon 890M graphics at up to 3.1 GHz, socketed DDR5-5600, two Gen4 x4 M.2 slots and a single 10GbE port. It keeps the replaceable RAM that the newer MAX generation restored, which is the point.

For conventional virtualisation, compilation and desktop work it is better balanced than the GTR9 Pro. For Plex and Jellyfin it is capable through AMD VCN, though the Intel path is still simpler on a dedicated Linux server. It is also new enough that long-term owner reliability data does not exist yet, and its memory bandwidth is what limits how far the AI-PC marketing translates into large-model performance compared with a Strix Halo machine. Judge it on the platform, not on the badge.

Check the Beelink SER10 MAX on Amazon

Pros: socketed DDR5, 10GbE, two Gen4 x4 M.2 slots, USB4 40 Gbps, latest HX-series compute.
Cons: too new for reliability history, no verified idle figure, AMD media path.

Verdict: the highest-end general-purpose SER. Wait for independent idle and Linux measurements before treating it as a proven 24/7 host.

Best for: buyers who want the newest AMD compute with upgradeable memory and 10GbE.

9. Beelink EQi Core 3 304: Provisional Network-Centric Pick

On paper the EQi Core 3 304 is one of the more interesting homelab machines Beelink has built: an Intel Core 3 304 with five cores and five threads up to 4.3 GHz, Xe3-LPG graphics with the Intel media engine, 10GbE plus 2.5GbE, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Storage runs to two M.2 2280 slots, but they are not both full x4, with the official specification listing a PCIe 4.0 x2 path and a PCIe 4.0 x1 path.

Memory is where the SKU matters most. Beelink lists several designs under the same name, including 24 and 32 GB DDR5 versions with an expandable slot and a 16 GB onboard-memory version, and some configurations use 512 GB of UFS 3.1 as system flash. The integrated UFS may not appear as an ordinary installation target for Home Assistant, making an NVMe drive necessary.

Check the Beelink EQi Core 3 304 on Amazon

Pros: 10G plus 2.5G networking, dual Thunderbolt 4, Intel media engine, expandable DDR5 on some SKUs.
Cons: no independent idle, Proxmox or media testing yet, mixed storage lane widths, SKU-dependent memory and UFS.

Verdict: a watch-list model. It could displace the SER8 for network-centric homelabs once independent power and Linux data catches up, and that has not happened yet.

Best for: buyers who value 10GbE and Thunderbolt 4 in a low-power Intel chassis and can verify the exact SKU.

10. Beelink EQ12 N100: Best Legacy Buy

The EQ12 is the machine that built Beelink's homelab reputation, and it still earns a slot when it is meaningfully cheaper than an EQ14. The N100 with 24-EU Intel UHD graphics and Quick Sync handles Proxmox, Plex and Home Assistant stacks, and the classic dual 2.5GbE configuration is the one to look for. The EQ12 can handle at least three concurrent 4K hardware-transcoded streams in favourable setups, which sits in the same bracket as the N150 machines and illustrates how little the N150 generation actually adds.

• Intel N100, 4 cores / 4 threads, up to 3.4 GHz
• Intel UHD Graphics, 24 EUs, Quick Sync
• DDR5 memory on common versions; a 32 GB DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM can work despite more conservative official specifications
• Dual 2.5GbE on the homelab-friendly configuration
• No USB4

Check the Beelink EQ12 on Amazon

Pros: proven platform, dual 2.5GbE, Quick Sync, frequently discounted.
Cons: legacy stock, memory support beyond the official limit is a community result rather than a guarantee.

Verdict: buy it if the price gap against the EQ14 is real. Do not replace a working N100 box just to get the N150 badge, because the media engine barely changes. Broader budget options sit in the cheapest mini PC roundup.

Best for: a first homelab on a tight budget, or a second node for testing.

Other Current Beelink Models Worth Knowing

Several active models do not earn a category win but are worth a place in the comparison, and all of them are configuration-sensitive.

The recurring lesson across this table is that a family name is not a specification. The EQR6 and EQR7 listings disagree with themselves about 1GbE against 2.5GbE, the GTi14 has changed between dual 2.5GbE and dual 10GbE material, and the SEi12 family moved from the i5-1235U to 12th-generation H-series CPUs during its life.

Legacy Beelink Models: What They Are Worth Now

Older Beelinks remain widely sold and are not automatically bad purchases. They are used-market buys, and they should be valued against current N150 hardware rather than against their original retail positioning.

Two Beelink facts apply to every legacy machine. First, BIOS downloads are board and revision specific, and support routinely asks for a serial number and a BIOS screenshot before releasing the correct image. Flashing the wrong package is the fastest way to brick an otherwise healthy box. Second, one SER9 flashing package may bundle a WinRing0 driver that security tools flag as vulnerable, which is a reason to scan anything you download from a support forum before running it.

Beelink Upgrade Paths: RAM and NVMe

Where the memory is replaceable, the upgrade logic is straightforward and cheap.

For the SER8, GTi15 Ultra, SER9 MAX and SER10 MAX, a matched pair of DDR5-5600 SO-DIMMs preserves dual-channel bandwidth, which matters for Radeon integrated graphics that borrow from system memory.

• Crucial 64 GB DDR5-5600 kit (2×32 GB) for socketed DDR5-5600 machines
• Crucial 64 GB DDR4-3200 kit (2×32 GB) for EQR5-class and compatible older boards that support 64 GB
• Crucial 32 GB DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM for single-slot N-series systems with community-confirmed 32 GB support; going past a vendor's official limit is never a guarantee

More capacity buys VM density, ZFS cache, local databases and compilation headroom. It does not increase Quick Sync throughput, which is fixed-function silicon, and replacing already adequate dual-channel memory purely for size gains you very little unless the workload was memory-starved.

For storage, match the drive to the slot rather than to the label:

• Crucial P3 Plus 2 TB for general expansion and ME mini builds, where its rated sequential speed cannot be reached in an x1 slot anyway
• WD_BLACK SN850X 2 TB for the full PCIe 4.0 x4 slots in SER and GT machines
• Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2 TB as a Gen4-class alternative where full M.2 bandwidth is available

Budget sensibly across the whole build rather than over-indexing on storage; the mini PC price guide covers where money is best spent.

Full Comparison Table

Conclusion

Beelink's current range splits cleanly by workload, and the ranking follows from measured behaviour rather than from the spec sheet. The EQ14 N150 wins on efficiency for a 24/7 node. The SER8 8745HS wins on balance for a homelab that has to do several jobs. The GTi15 Ultra wins on networking and the GTR9 Pro wins on memory, each at a real cost in idle power or price. Nothing in the lineup is the best answer to every question, and any roundup that names a single winner has not looked at the NIC controllers.

The most useful habit when buying any Beelink is verifying the exact configuration: CPU revision, NIC controller and speed, memory type and whether it is soldered. The model name on the box will not tell you.

Start with the Beelink brand guide for how the families relate, then go deeper on the workload that matters: the Proxmox host roundup, the NAS picks, and the broader mini PC reviews hub.

If you are buying today and only read one thing, read the EQ14 and SER8 entries again, then check the live listing against the configuration described here before you order.

Check the Beelink EQ14 on Amazon