Only two of the 10GbE mini PCs we found on Amazon ship complete for under $500, and both are Beelink boxes with the Core 3 304. Everything else at this price is a barebone, and once you add DDR5 at 2026 prices a $440 barebone becomes an $850 to $1,090 machine. We checked every price and stock level on October 20, 2026, so this guide gives you the box price and the real cost side by side.
We have not tested these boxes in our own lab. The throughput and power figures come from the reviews we link, and the driver notes come from kernel sources and dated owner reports, with each source named where it is used. The first thing to settle is the port type, because an RJ45 box and an SFP+ box need different switches.
| Mini PC | 10G ports (chip) | Linux driver | Price, Oct 20 | What you still buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beelink EQi, Core 3 304, 16 GB | 1x RJ45 (Realtek RTL8127) | r8169, kernel 6.16+ | $469 | Nothing; NVMe optional |
| Minisforum MS-A2, Ryzen 7 7745HX | 2x SFP+ (Intel X710) | i40e | about $440 barebone | DDR5 and NVMe |
| Minisforum MS-01, Core i5-12600H | 2x SFP+ (Intel X710) | i40e | $449 barebone | DDR5 and NVMe |
| Qotom Q10932H6, Core i3-N305 | 2x RJ45 (Marvell AQC113C) | atlantic | $492 barebone | DDR5 and NVMe |
Step 1: Match the port type to your switch
A 10G port is only useful if the other end of the cable runs at 10G too. SFP+ boxes pair with a cheap passive DAC cable and a switch with SFP+ cages, which is the cool and inexpensive way to run a short link. RJ45 boxes need a 10GBASE-T switch port, or an RJ45 SFP+ module, which runs hot and is picky about which NIC it talks to.
- SFP+ switch at home: MS-A2 or MS-01
- 10GBASE-T switch or a direct cable to a NAS: EQi or Qotom
- No 10G switch yet: decide that first
Our 10GbE switch guide is built around SFP+ switches, so it suits the Minisforum picks best, and the DAC, fiber and 10GBASE-T comparison explains why we would pick a DAC for anything inside one rack. If you already own a mini PC with no 10G port, the 10GbE homelab under $400 shows the USB4 adapter route, which costs less than replacing the box.
Step 2: Buy the Beelink EQi for a complete box
The EQi with 16 GB of LPDDR5 and a 512 GB UFS drive is $469 on Amazon, with 18 units listed as left on October 20. It has one 10G RJ45 port on a Realtek RTL8127 and one 2.5G port on an Intel I226-V, plus two M.2 2280 slots and a built-in 85 W power supply. You add nothing before first boot, which none of the other three main picks can say.
Does the 10G port really reach 10G on a five-core chip? CNX Software measured 9.41 Gbit/s on a single iperf3 stream in each direction on Ubuntu 26.04, and 9.40 and 9.35 Gbit/s with both directions at once. It also measured 5.6 to 5.7 W at idle with the 10G link up. Our Core 3 304 comparison covers the CPU itself, so we will not repeat it here.
The risk is the driver, and it matters most if you plan to run Proxmox. The RTL8127 is supported by the in-kernel r8169 driver from kernel 6.16, and our RTL8127 driver guide lists which Proxmox releases include it. On a sibling Beelink ME Pro with the same chip, one owner found that r8169 did not work at all on Proxmox VE 9.2 and fixed it with the Realtek r8127 driver. Its 10G link partner was an 82599ES card with an RJ45 SFP+ module, so interoperability may have played a part. On the Beelink GTR9 Pro, the second RTL8127 port vanishes after a warm reboot; the original poster traced it to firmware rather than the driver, and a second owner worked around it with r8127. Neither report is from an EQi. If you plan to run Proxmox on one, keep the r8127 driver in mind as your fallback.
Two smaller limits are worth checking against your plans:
- One owner reports that Home Assistant OS cannot see the UFS drive
- No Wake-on-LAN option in the BIOS (LinuxLinks)
- 16 GB is soldered and cannot be upgraded
If you want more memory, the EQi with 24 GB of DDR5 uses a different board with one SO-DIMM slot and costs $599, so it falls outside this guide. LinuxLinks measured 5.5 W at idle on the 16 GB unit, which makes the EQi the cheapest box here to leave running all year.
Step 3: Pick the MS-A2 7745HX for the cheapest SFP+ ports
If you want two Intel X710 SFP+ ports in a mini PC, the MS-A2 barebone with a Ryzen 7 7745HX is the cheapest way we found to get them. It is about $440 on Amazon. Minisforum publishes one spec table for every MS-A2 CPU option, so this model has the same two SFP+ ports, two 2.5G ports, three M.2 slots and PCIe 4.0 x8 slot as the Ryzen 9 versions. The 7745HX is an eight-core, sixteen-thread Zen 4 chip.
Both SFP+ ports share one PCIe 3.0 x4 link, and a German homelab test on a Ryzen 9 unit found that the i40e driver warns about the available PCIe bandwidth. An owner in Germany ran an Intel-coded 10GBASE-T module at 9.41 Gbit/s for 12 minutes with no retransmits, and also found that the X710 rejects some modules that are not coded for Intel.
These are the MS-A2 problems owners report most often, and two of them have a known fix:
- No SFP+ link on Proxmox: turn off firmware LLDP (Proxmox forum)
- Random link drops on the 2.5G ports in a Proxmox cluster (unresolved)
- Memory training after a RAM change looks like a dead box for minutes
The BIOS 1.03 passthrough bug in our MS-01, MS-A2 and MS-03 comparison was reported on Ryzen 9 9955HX units. Minisforum ships a separate BIOS line for the 7000-series CPUs, and we found no report either way for the 7745HX, so check the BIOS notes before you plan PCIe passthrough. Also check the prebuilt: the MS-A2 7745HX with 32 GB and 1 TB fitted is $989, which is cheaper than building the same box yourself.
Step 4: Consider the MS-01 i5 for Intel and vPro
The MS-01 barebone with a Core i5-12600H is $449 on Amazon. It has the same pair of X710 SFP+ ports, plus two Intel 2.5G ports, one of them an I226-LM with vPro remote management. If you want an all-Intel network stack with no Realtek port, or out-of-band access to a headless node, this is the box to pick over the MS-A2.
Scott Laird measured 13.2 W at idle on an i5 MS-01 with no add-in card, about half the 25 to 29 W ServeTheHome measured on the i9 version. His own i9 unit idled at 14.4 W, so the setup matters more than the CPU. Minisforum lists 96 GB of DDR5 on the store page but 64 GB on the spec sheet. Owners run two 48 GB sticks in practice, but you would be outside the official spec. The crash reports on the Proxmox forum include an i5-12600H on BIOS 1.26 that crashed at idle with no posted fix, so update to the current BIOS and run a long burn-in before you load VMs onto it.
One more trap matters before you order. The primary M.2 slot shares its position with a U.2 adapter, and ServeTheHome warns that the voltage switch on the board can kill an M.2 drive if it is set to U.2. Check it with the lid off before the first boot. Also watch for the MS-01 SE, which has the same i5 chip at about $375 but no SFP+ ports at all, only two 2.5G ports.
Step 5: Use the Qotom Q10932H6 as a 10G router
The Qotom Q10932H6 is $492 as a barebone, and it is built for a different job from the other picks. It has two 10G RJ45 ports on Marvell AQC113C chips and four Intel I226-V 2.5G ports, with an eight-core i3-N305, one DDR5 slot and one M.2 slot. That is the layout you want for a firewall or a router between a 10G uplink and a 2.5G LAN, and our firewall hardware guide covers the software side.
ServeTheHome reviewed the N355 sibling, measuring 13 to 15 W at idle and 38 to 40 W under load, and ran OPNsense in a VM because of AQC113C problems on FreeBSD at the time. Qotom still labels these models as not Unix-compatible, but an OPNsense user running one of these Qotom boxes reports that the OPNsense package repository carries an AQC113 driver module from release 26.1.6. On Linux the AQC113C uses the in-kernel atlantic driver.
Three details are different from what the listing suggests:
- It has a fan in the bottom cover
- The 2.5G ports are numbered out of physical order
- The M.2 slot is PCIe 3.0 x1, so storage is slow
SATA needs an optional cable and there is one memory slot, which makes it a network appliance more than a VM host. If you mainly want Proxmox with many guests, the MS-A2 or MS-01 is the better use of the money.
Step 6: Know the cheaper boxes and the ones just over $500
Two cheaper boxes have 10G ports, but neither has the reviews that the four picks above have, so we would only buy them with the caveats below. The Beelink EQ mini is $409 with 12 GB and a 512 GB UFS drive, and Beelink does not name the 10G chip anywhere we could find. No review or lspci output for it exists yet, so you would be the one to find out which driver it needs.
The Qotom Q11022S6 is $348 as a barebone with an N150, two Intel 82599ES SFP+ cages and two Intel X540 RJ45 ports, all on the ixgbe driver. Qotom itself rates each pair at up to 12 Gbps, which suggests that two ports in a pair share one link rather than running at full speed together. The Amazon title also lists four 2.5G ports, while Qotom lists two. An OPNsense thread on a similar SFP+ firewall box recommends a DAC rather than an RJ45 module, because 10G SFP+ modules tend to get very hot.
If your $500 is a soft ceiling, these are just over the limit:
- Beelink EQi 24 GB: $599, upgradable SO-DIMM
- Minisforum MS-A2 Ryzen 9 8945HX barebone: $559
- Minisforum MS-01 i9-13900H barebone: $659
Step 7: Add up the real cost of a barebone
A barebone needs memory and storage before it boots, and both are expensive in 2026. A 16 GB DDR5 SO-DIMM is about $240, so two of them for dual channel cost about $480. A single 32 GB SO-DIMM is about $460, and a 1 TB Crucial P310 is about $170. Our explainer on memory and flash prices covers why. This is what each pick costs once it can boot:
| Mini PC | Box | With 16 GB and 1 TB | With 32 GB and 1 TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beelink EQi 16 GB | $469 complete | $469 (about $639 with a 1 TB NVMe) | Not possible, soldered |
| MS-A2 7745HX | about $440 | about $850 | about $1,090 (2x 16 GB) |
| MS-01 i5-12600H | $449 | about $859 | about $1,099 (2x 16 GB) |
| Qotom Q10932H6 | $492 | about $902 | about $1,122 (1x 32 GB) |
| Qotom Q11022S6 | $348 | about $758 | about $978 (1x 32 GB) |
If you buy a single stick, the Minisforum boxes run in single-channel mode and lose memory bandwidth. On the MS-A2, the $989 prebuilt with 32 GB and 1 TB saves you about $101 against the dual-channel build in the table. If you have DDR5 SO-DIMMs from an old laptop, a barebone makes sense again, and our homelab starter kits show how the same math plays out across a whole lab.
Step 8: Test the 10G link inside the return window
Run these checks in the first week, while the return window is still open. Some of the problems above only appear after a warm reboot or after days of traffic, so include a reboot and a long transfer in the test. Start by finding the interface name and the driver that claimed each port:
lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 ethernetThe Kernel driver in use line should read r8169 or r8127 on the EQi, i40e on the Minisforum boxes and atlantic on the Qotom. Next, list the interfaces and set the 10G one as a variable for the commands that follow:
ip -br linkReplace enp1s0 with the name of your 10G port from that list:
export IFACE=enp1s0Check that the port negotiated 10G and sees a link:
ethtool "${IFACE}" | grep -E "Speed|Link detected"If an X710 port on an MS-A2 or MS-01 shows no link on Proxmox, the fix from the forum thread above is to turn off the firmware LLDP agent, which the i40e driver documentation exposes as a private flag. A Proxmox shell runs as root and has no sudo, so run it as it stands:
ethtool --set-priv-flags "${IFACE}" disable-fw-lldp onThen confirm that the flag took effect:
ethtool --show-priv-flags "${IFACE}"The flag you just set only lasts until the next reboot or driver reload. To keep it, add a post-up line for the port in the Proxmox network config, then reboot once to prove that the link comes back. A fresh Proxmox install has nano but not vim, so open the file with nano:
nano /etc/network/interfacesAdd this line under the iface stanza for the 10G port. Use the real port name in place of enp1s0, because this file does not read shell variables:
post-up /usr/sbin/ethtool --set-priv-flags enp1s0 disable-fw-lldp onFinally, measure real throughput against another 10G machine. You need iperf3 on both hosts first. On Proxmox and Debian it is one package, and on Ubuntu you put sudo in front:
apt install iperf3Start the server on the other host:
iperf3 -sRun the client from the mini PC, with 10.0.1.50 replaced by the IP address of the server host. Repeat it with -R added for the reverse direction, then run a longer pass with -t 600 to catch drops that only show up under sustained load:
iperf3 -c 10.0.1.50 -t 30CNX measured close to 9.4 Gbit/s on a single stream on the EQi. The MS-A2 test above reached 9.41 Gbit/s with four parallel streams, so add -P 4 before you compare against that figure. If you see much less, swap the cable or module before you blame the box, and try a DAC if you are on an RJ45 module. Our 10GbE NIC guide for Proxmox explains why X710 ports accept only some third-party optics.
