Really appreciate including details for future viewers like 4:27 Many people can read specs off a spreadsheet but insights into practical aspects of owning a system, not so easy. Thanks for your work, Patrick!
Honestly the whole set of Lenovo Thinkcentre Pc’s are pretty damn awesome. I have an M93P SFF that I picked up for $89 back in February running as a Plex/PiHole/Sonarr/Radarr/Tdarr server with a Quadro P400 for transcodes. It’s taken everything I thrown at it and keeps smiling. I’ve been thoroughly impressed with their systems.
@@cartoonhead5819 Depending on the product ranges, Lenovo products can be either shit or actually be pretty good. I had a Lenovo Android tablet from ~2014 and it was a pile of junk while at the college I did a 3 courses at I did 1 week of work experience as IT Support and they had a mixture of mostly Lenovo and some Acer desktop PCs and a mixture of Dell & HP AIOs and a few generic AIOs with a UK brand name slapped on the chassis (I forgot what brand exactly but I think it was a successor to Amstrad computers but not sure) and most of their problems were with either HP or Dell computers and not the Lenovo Thinkcentre PCs they were using which used either an ATX chassis or an SFF chassis, mostly an SFF Chassis from the early to mid 2010s (I did work experience in the start of 2020) and so I think their Lenovo Thinkcentres were the most reliable PCs that they were using compared to the American and Taiwanese brands they were using which were most certainly designed by a Taiwanese ODM more than anyone else...
So, I had already purchased this at the Lenovo Black Friday sale with the same specs as in the video before I saw the review (and thank you for all the reviews - is swung me in the direction of Lenovo) Lenovo's Black Friday price was much better than previous /lower end models at retailers, so it was a good buy. I had been looking for a smaller footprint computer for home/home office that would last me for quite a few years. First impression - its great. Its fast, and its surprisingly quiet. Note that when you first install it and it goes through Windows 10 updates, the fan does get louder, but once all the updates are done, it settled down - weird. I've been using it for general surfing the web, MS office, some lite photo editing and occasionally the fan noise does increase slightly but only for seconds and then it drops down .... I'm impressed. I'll be doing some more heavy duty photo editing later but don't mind some more noise if it pushes the CPU. The specs are great and I already added a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro (Gen 4 m.2 SSD) to replace the stock 500gb that it came with (that is an OEM Samsung gen4). Oh yes and super easy to open and service.
Thats actually a pretty good deal. I cant wait for the M90 Gen3 with 12th gen. Personally would love it if Intel made a 4+24 core "i9" for laptops and small form factor, in theory, a 40 E core would outperform a threadripper 24 core, but instead of 200+w, this 40 E core would only use 160w, according to BuildZoid's performance scaling data Waiting patiently for the M95 Gen3, hopefully with 3D V cache Zen3+, and RDNA2, i just hope it doesnt come with AMD PSB turned on by default, because with the Ryzeen 7 4750GE that came in my M75Q gen2, i cant use it on any other motherboard because it is vendor locked to Lenovo
@@iyke8913 You're probably right, but one can only hope, AMD said the main reason Zen3 was larger than Zen2 was the room made for those through silicon vias, and Zen3 APUs werent excluded from this larger size. Personally, i think -it- -was- the reason Zen3 APUs were lareger was because of changes made to the I/O, iGPU and accelerators, the RAM controller and infinity fabric. my 5700G will hit 2200 on the FCLK, MCLK and UCLK on the same RAM and motherboard that my 4650G and 4750G can only hit 1966 before they have issues with iGPU or something else like USB. Personally, i think this APU can hit 2300-2500, but my RAM is already overclocked to 4400CL18-18-18-18-36
@@denvera1g1 One can hope, but yeah, most likely not. The APUs also have cut down L3 caches, so it does not make sense to throw V cache there. Rather, you would just keep the original L3 size to begin with, and not introduce extra steps (the adding of the V cache) in the manufacturing process. I'm really curious on what changes Zen3+ brings in terms of logic. Well at least besides the obvious, LPDDR5, and RDNA2.
@@denvera1g1 True, though at the cost of increased power usage. Which may contradict the "low power usage" target that APUs have. And honestly, instead of a bigger L3, I would love to see a "virtual" L3 implemented, like what IBM has done on their newest chips. Maybe a V cache like implementation on top of a virtual L3 would be really performant. Though I guess it would be some type of L2 that is 3D stacked? Anyway, it's fun to dream 😁. I do look forward to a day when AMD puts an iGPU and possibly other accelerators on their desktop parts. 👍
The beauty of the m920q m720q p330 tiny x920q is the 65w processor support. If I was looking for this much CPU power for cheap, I'd buy the copper 65w heatsink for the 8th/9th gen system and a non K, non T 8700 or 9700 and probably be quicker than this system. Much like with laptops, these tiny systems are more sensitive to the TDP and cooling than the numbers on the box. (Which is why I'm rocking Clevo p770DM with Pascal and i5 Coffee lake, it can hold its numbers when heat soaked, and probably even runs higher numbers out of the box compared to modern laptops running sub 45 or even 25w processors)
I'm testing the 12th Core i9-12900K right now as a desktop system and it is, without a doubt, quite the killer system. I'm running a matrix solver on it now and I am putting it head-to-head against an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (both running with 16 cores/threads as said matrix solver doesn't do HyperThreading/SMT) and the 12900K so far, is an average of 29.3352% faster in like-for-like matrix sizes doing a left-solve which is just crazy!!! (Both systems have 128 GB of DDR4-3200 unbuffered, non-ECC RAM installed.) So I am REALLY excited for what the 3rd gen tiny mini micro systems are going to bring when the 12th Intel processor hits this market. I think that one of the biggest limiting factors is going to be thermal management because it has been already widely reported that the Core i9-12900K can hit 241 W TDP no problem, and it would be very difficult to cool that with the "laptop style" blower/heatsink configuration, so it will be interesting to see what the OEMs come up with in terms of a thermal management solution to deal with these higher power CPUs.
How can you run a 12900K? Yes a regular 12900, I got the Gen 3, but I fail to see how you keep that thing cool. Not even sure the power supply can drive the 12900K.
@@AB-80X I was using a Noctua NH-D15 and I replaced the stock fans with Noctua NF-A14 Industrial PPC-3000 PWM fans. I don't remember what the peak temperatures at the time, as I no longer have the system. (After a few months, it eventually failed memtest86 where I had to RMA the board, the RAM, and the CPU, and swapped it for an another AMD Ryzen 9 5950X system instead.) To the best of my recollection though, I don't think that I hit thermal throttling, and I don't remember being close to the thermal throttle limit neither, even when running an extended workload. And the other reason why I also changed from the Intel platform to an AMD platform is because the CFD applications that I was using REALLY did NOT like the whole P-core/E-core hybrid/mix thing. CFD applications would fail to run completely and entirely when E-cores were enabled in the BIOS. So, I had to shut them down to get the CFD to work, which seemed like a waste for me, because I would be paying for CPU capabilities that the software couldn't use (so badly that the CFD application would crash on launch.) So it didn't make sense for me to keep and pay for something that I was only going to, effective, only get HALF of the performance. So yeah, that was the other reason why I ditched the platform, but failing memtest86 was the primary reason.
I have a fist full of these running a kubernetes cluster for playing around with and another running a pfsense box (shoehorned a 4 port nic in the expansion slot). They are really good system.
Quad intel nic....from the factory.... Daaaamn.... That seriously opens doors, especially as a hypervisor running an online firewall ... Can't wait til these hit the 2nd hand market
@@milescarter7803 True. I think I'm actually going to pick up an Elitedesk 800 G4 for ~350 dollars as they have dual slots as well. With a couple of 1tb nvme drives, that will make a killer TrueNas box.
Comes with PCIe slot, nice, my M75Q gen2 has the through hole pins for a PCIe slot, but for some reason they decides not to populate it with an actual slot
12th gen with some kind of dual lan option and I could seriously consider getting rid of all my rackmount crap and pick up a few of these sff deals. It's gonna be hard to say goodbye to the tape library though 🤔
I would love to see some in situ examples of these tiny mini micro computers. The form factor is so interesting to me, I would love to see how people are using them.
I'm using a Dell Optiplex 3060 micro as a proxmox host with a few VMs and a bunch of containers running. Mainly for internal resources like Plex and torrenting with Sonarr, Radarr, and Jackett, as well as home assistant and Beets.
A lot of these 10L PCs are used in places such as Schools and Hospitals or at least that is the case here in the UK where a VESA mount is attached to the back of a monitor and can often be a cheaper option over AIO PCs made by companies such as Dell or HP which are the most common I've seen especially since they take up far less space than a full ATX or SFF PC which is the other most common PC size I've seen used in the UK in a commercial or educational setting. The rather wasteful NHS here in the UK has been buying up loads of Dell & HP computers over the past decade or so which I suppose makes sense except it appears that they are only buying Dell & HPs or at least in the local NHS Trust in SW London which is where I live...
I had terrible experience dealing with their service dept. Bought a brand new high end laptop and it broke twice in a year. Their motherboard had to be replaced twice!
Nice little machines, but at $1k is a little steep for me, at that range I would probably go for a real server like a R730 or something, but then again if you need this form factor and power there is also Apple M1 that is worth considering... My problem with this machine in particular is that at that price range it doesn't come with 2.5G ethernet. If it does then I'd probably consider ditching the usb eth for vlan on the same port. On another note, there is an adapter from Aliexpress for Lenovo's power connector to USB type C, its rated up to 100W and it also comes in L shape. You can couple with a slim 65W GaN power charger, which is roughly the same size as the white POE injector from Ubiquiti, this way you can ditch the bulky brick PSU to power these things. There is also a mod that utilize the internal m2 slot that connect to a 2280 card with a realtek eth chip and a slim cable to a break board with a Rj45 port that can be screwed on the com port from the back.
I tried ordering one of these with a custom configuration a while back. Tried TWICE in fact. Both orders were canceled after a month or so of waiting. No exact reason was given until I contacted them. And the reason changed depending on who I spoke with. There was a huge sale going on which is why I decided to get one. After a bit of searching online, I found quite a few other instances where people's orders were being canceled when Lenovo was having a sale. So while it may be a great little machine I no longer trust Lenovo as they didn't even reach out to deal with the issue.
@@MrFaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I've just decided that I will never buy from Lenovo and I'll pass along my experience with others and they can make their own decision. Lenovo has a lot of competition in this market so it's not difficult to find a different company to do business with.
Hi Patrick, thanks for the great in depth review. I'm currently debating a Dell Optiplex 7090 Micro with the model in this video...both of which have the same exact specs. Is the Dell worth $200 more than the Lenovo? Only difference I can tell is a 3 year warranty vs 1 year. Also, I notice that the model in this video is currently running $1100...$200 more than what you bought it for a couple months ago. Any insight as to when Lenovo will have larger sales events soon?
Have you tried a 65W TDP i9-10900 in the 1st Gen? I'd imagine that you'd be hitting the thermal limits of the chassis with a 65W 10-core, but I believe Lenovo still technically claims support, and the added power would allow much more performance.
We have not done the 65W in the Gen1. We have done a number of 35W to 65W comparisons and often the results are underwhelming to the point that we mostly focus on 35W.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Wow, that's really surprising. I've primarily seen a pretty linear increase in perf, directly based on power % increase. I would've assumed the 85% power allotment would translate to a similar multicore perf increase.
In the 10th and 11th generation the TDP limit from intel is really a joke.. that's why I assume this unit get so loud under load.. its 35w on paper not in reality. 12th gen intel is more transparent with the new thermal rating
@@branopetricek2211 Agreed, although I'll have to go back and see power draw data on the 35W CPUs. My assumption is that they skew much closer to 65W variant numbers than the TDP classes would imply.
They don't. Have the Gen 3 with the 12900 core. Great machine and I push it hard with a lot of video editing. Run 64 Gb DDR5 too. It runs hard and always fairly cool.
What's wrong with the 12th gen? I run both a 12900 and 12900K, the former in the Gen 3 M90Q. Both processors perform flawlessly for the graphics and video editing that I do.
Checked it and the "LENOVO THINKCENTRE M75Q TINY GEN2" is available in my country with a Ryzen 7 5750GE For a quite affordable price. [900 euro] as the 5750GE is one of the top end there is no use for CPU upgrades. and the difference in price between the version with a 5650GE, is the same price difference as a 5600G and a 5700G. Might go that route, if the Asrock jupiter X300 does not get released any time soon in my country.
I wish I could get a 5750GE version for that. Also check the HP EliteDesk 805 G8's. The review for the G6 (Ryzen 4000 series version) is coming, but it is a very good platform.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Luckily from what i could find the price difference for a better CPU is not DELL/HP crazy. wanted a Mini PC as a ultimate media-center pc. [currently using a NUC with 3rd gen intel i3], its getting a bit slow, and does not support 4K. The only HP elitedesk 805 g8 is one with a Ryzen 5 5650G. and is 100 euro more expensive than the lenovo one. atm there is no Ryzen 5750GE from HP There is a version with a 5600G that is just as expensive as the lenovo one. they do not have one with a Ryzen 7 5700G Both the dell and lenovo one come with windows 10 PRO, which is a plus itself. --- Dell does not sell a version with a Ryzen CPU in my country {YET} --- Yet i still hope the Asrock Jupiter X300 gets releases/being in stores. which means i am not limited by any BIOS settings/limitations which HP, lenovo and Dell are known for. and could just use a ryzen 7 5700G. [and underclock it if needed] ---
Buy anyting older than an 8100T for what usecase and price? Except for gen 1 and gen 2 devices not much newer was available in NL at auctions or other places for a long time. Last few weeks a few came on offer at auction site BVA a very inflated starting prices. Noboddy seems to be bidding. I saw probably the same systems go on auction for several weeks now. Most intresting ones were still I 3 based. Even gen 1 and gen 2 systems have ridiculous prices now.
How does one know if it's Gen 1 or Gen 2 or what? I just got a refurb used one with a lame i5-8500T CPU. Oh wait, I just heard you say the one you're reviewing is first Tiny with 11th gen CPUs.... makes me feel pretty confident I have only Gen 1. I'd still like to know how to tell!
@@ServeTheHomeVideo can you try installing the Intel thunderbolt drivers on it? The ASRock 1165G7 NUC box I have is not thunderbolt 4 certified, but it works fine with the USB-C 10 / DP port on the front of the unit with an eGPU and an RX6900XT... wondering if this is the same
We are transitioning GPU reviews from William to Will and do not have the A4000-A6000 right now. It has been easier to get A100/ A40's. Will see what we can do.
hmm so you're saying I could fit a sfp+ card in there and have 10Gbe to that box with an idle of around 15-20W 🤔 All it's missing to me then is a second SATA slot
All very nice and compact.. but .. needs a power brick. Sigh. 🙄 How big is the power brick? Wouldn't it be great if this little box included the power supply.
Nice video. Don't you think the base clock speed is too low for this machine for high performance? I mean I understand that the cores have increased but at the same time, lower clock speeds like 1.4GHZ may be equal to 4 cores with 2.7GHz base frequency.
I don't know about the laptop chips but at least on the desktop 11th gen was on par with, or even worse than the same numbered 10th gen parts, so sounds like you'd be much better getting an older 10 core, and the only thing you lose is a gen 4 ssd
My 720q at idle, the fan spins at 1000rpm in silent mode, and it makes this annoying clicking toicking sound that my older 4th gen Lenovo tiny doesn't make. Is the fan on these less annoying...not a hum, but weird ticking or clicikng?
Thanks for the review - I'm trying to source the part number for an additional USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 add on card on the back but having a heck of a time finding it. Does anyone know it?
I just ordered an additional 16g memory for this model. Do I need to change any settings to get the dual-channel or will it automatically detect the extra memory and switch to dual on its own? Thanks!
Needs to be 1 slot short length low profile. P400, p600, p620, p1000 are the only cards I know. I've converted 3 m720q/m920q. Just order the riser, back panel and ventilated lid. Check the PSREF for the part numbers of those.
Oh and make your mind and stick with ONE set of video ports - I am getting double-vision from this. Especially if that port gives you ALL features and up to date standards, you know DP!
Cont'd from previous as this keeps getting deleted ... I realize that I'm just one person and they are a HUGE company. However, it's not just my order that affects them. It's also the people I talk to and what I post online. If I had gotten the unit and been happy with it then I spread that info and others may be interested. Perhaps I make a video and share my experience on UA-cam which again points others to their products. It's amazing in today's world how one customer can make a difference and an unhappy one can have quite an effect on future sales.
Intel decides to rebrand and put a new sticker out for the next generation just because they want to....AMI for years can't be bothered to change out the wrong sticker which is actually the sticker that means you got a little legitimate product not just a branding sticker....
Hey I got the gen 3 just now & trying to figure out if I can install an LTE/sim card in the extra M.2 slot. Anyone tried this or have a card they can test with? Thinking if it doesn't work in the extra m.2 I could swap out the wifi card.
Remember, friends don’t let friends Transcode 4K ;) Direct Play is the way to go my friend. This will do direct play all day long on multiple streams. That said, the I7-11700T does quicksync so you’d have no issue transcoding if you needed too.
I've heard that Lenovo computers beacon back to China regardless of what OS is installed because of some hardware that is built in. Have you observed this with this computer?
Cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores ... this and as much as possible RAM is all that MATTERS when it comes to virtualization!!! The more cores you have (and give to the VMs) the faster your VMs will go back to idle.
This would be the tiny secondary Proxmox node of my dreams if it had dual NICs. How difficult would it be to get another in there using the expansion slots? I just logged into the Lenovo PRO web store, and I didn't see any customization options. Even on the non-pro store, I only see two "ready to ship" options. Do I have to do something non-obvious to see the BTO options, or are they not offering that right now?
"Hey guys" is automatically non-subscribable channel even though I'm a guy. Alongside with "a further ado" and other phrases that should have died with 20th century cable TV, pick a phrase any phrase... Thank you Jeff, very cool but I just can't! [3:30 minutes later] Can you speak slower? I can't really understand anything you talk about, I'm almost 4 minutes into the video and I have no idea what it is about other than the system PCB and a fan and information overload. I am not a hater, I am just drunk and most people nowadays can bear to access cable TV or "P.C." youtube ONLY while being drunk so please slow down if you can't drop "Hey Guys" thing... But if you have beer I'd love to see it... {thank you Jeff, very cool!}
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Really appreciate including details for future viewers like 4:27
Many people can read specs off a spreadsheet but insights into practical aspects of owning a system, not so easy.
Thanks for your work, Patrick!
Thank you Ansen.
Honestly the whole set of Lenovo Thinkcentre Pc’s are pretty damn awesome. I have an M93P SFF that I picked up for $89 back in February running as a Plex/PiHole/Sonarr/Radarr/Tdarr server with a Quadro P400 for transcodes. It’s taken everything I thrown at it and keeps smiling. I’ve been thoroughly impressed with their systems.
I spend so much time replacing these hunks of shite... Never waste money on any of this Lenovo crap & build your own.
@@cartoonhead5819 Depending on the product ranges, Lenovo products can be either shit or actually be pretty good. I had a Lenovo Android tablet from ~2014 and it was a pile of junk while at the college I did a 3 courses at I did 1 week of work experience as IT Support and they had a mixture of mostly Lenovo and some Acer desktop PCs and a mixture of Dell & HP AIOs and a few generic AIOs with a UK brand name slapped on the chassis (I forgot what brand exactly but I think it was a successor to Amstrad computers but not sure) and most of their problems were with either HP or Dell computers and not the Lenovo Thinkcentre PCs they were using which used either an ATX chassis or an SFF chassis, mostly an SFF Chassis from the early to mid 2010s (I did work experience in the start of 2020) and so I think their Lenovo Thinkcentres were the most reliable PCs that they were using compared to the American and Taiwanese brands they were using which were most certainly designed by a Taiwanese ODM more than anyone else...
Very good. I’m glad you’re doing this. I’m actually in the market for one of these tiny PCs
So, I had already purchased this at the Lenovo Black Friday sale with the same specs as in the video before I saw the review (and thank you for all the reviews - is swung me in the direction of Lenovo) Lenovo's Black Friday price was much better than previous /lower end models at retailers, so it was a good buy. I had been looking for a smaller footprint computer for home/home office that would last me for quite a few years. First impression - its great. Its fast, and its surprisingly quiet. Note that when you first install it and it goes through Windows 10 updates, the fan does get louder, but once all the updates are done, it settled down - weird. I've been using it for general surfing the web, MS office, some lite photo editing and occasionally the fan noise does increase slightly but only for seconds and then it drops down .... I'm impressed. I'll be doing some more heavy duty photo editing later but don't mind some more noise if it pushes the CPU. The specs are great and I already added a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro (Gen 4 m.2 SSD) to replace the stock 500gb that it came with (that is an OEM Samsung gen4). Oh yes and super easy to open and service.
Whenever I see you with so much energy I get energetic as well
Lenovo PCIE adapter part # 5C50W00876. Can be had for around $30 on eBay and elsewhere online.
5C50W00877 for the x16 one. That is the x4 one^^
Thats actually a pretty good deal. I cant wait for the M90 Gen3 with 12th gen. Personally would love it if Intel made a 4+24 core "i9" for laptops and small form factor, in theory, a 40 E core would outperform a threadripper 24 core, but instead of 200+w, this 40 E core would only use 160w, according to BuildZoid's performance scaling data
Waiting patiently for the M95 Gen3, hopefully with 3D V cache Zen3+, and RDNA2, i just hope it doesnt come with AMD PSB turned on by default, because with the Ryzeen 7 4750GE that came in my M75Q gen2, i cant use it on any other motherboard because it is vendor locked to Lenovo
V cache won't be on AMD's APUs, at least not for Zen3+ generation.
@@iyke8913 You're probably right, but one can only hope, AMD said the main reason Zen3 was larger than Zen2 was the room made for those through silicon vias, and Zen3 APUs werent excluded from this larger size. Personally, i think -it- -was- the reason Zen3 APUs were lareger was because of changes made to the I/O, iGPU and accelerators, the RAM controller and infinity fabric. my 5700G will hit 2200 on the FCLK, MCLK and UCLK on the same RAM and motherboard that my 4650G and 4750G can only hit 1966 before they have issues with iGPU or something else like USB. Personally, i think this APU can hit 2300-2500, but my RAM is already overclocked to 4400CL18-18-18-18-36
@@denvera1g1 One can hope, but yeah, most likely not.
The APUs also have cut down L3 caches, so it does not make sense to throw V cache there. Rather, you would just keep the original L3 size to begin with, and not introduce extra steps (the adding of the V cache) in the manufacturing process.
I'm really curious on what changes Zen3+ brings in terms of logic. Well at least besides the obvious, LPDDR5, and RDNA2.
@@iyke8913 I mean, the APUS would see a greater bennifit from adding stacked cache than CPUs, seeing as they have half the cache to begin with
@@denvera1g1 True, though at the cost of increased power usage. Which may contradict the "low power usage" target that APUs have.
And honestly, instead of a bigger L3, I would love to see a "virtual" L3 implemented, like what IBM has done on their newest chips. Maybe a V cache like implementation on top of a virtual L3 would be really performant. Though I guess it would be some type of L2 that is 3D stacked? Anyway, it's fun to dream 😁.
I do look forward to a day when AMD puts an iGPU and possibly other accelerators on their desktop parts. 👍
The beauty of the m920q m720q p330 tiny x920q is the 65w processor support. If I was looking for this much CPU power for cheap, I'd buy the copper 65w heatsink for the 8th/9th gen system and a non K, non T 8700 or 9700 and probably be quicker than this system.
Much like with laptops, these tiny systems are more sensitive to the TDP and cooling than the numbers on the box. (Which is why I'm rocking Clevo p770DM with Pascal and i5 Coffee lake, it can hold its numbers when heat soaked, and probably even runs higher numbers out of the box compared to modern laptops running sub 45 or even 25w processors)
I'm testing the 12th Core i9-12900K right now as a desktop system and it is, without a doubt, quite the killer system.
I'm running a matrix solver on it now and I am putting it head-to-head against an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (both running with 16 cores/threads as said matrix solver doesn't do HyperThreading/SMT) and the 12900K so far, is an average of 29.3352% faster in like-for-like matrix sizes doing a left-solve which is just crazy!!!
(Both systems have 128 GB of DDR4-3200 unbuffered, non-ECC RAM installed.)
So I am REALLY excited for what the 3rd gen tiny mini micro systems are going to bring when the 12th Intel processor hits this market.
I think that one of the biggest limiting factors is going to be thermal management because it has been already widely reported that the Core i9-12900K can hit 241 W TDP no problem, and it would be very difficult to cool that with the "laptop style" blower/heatsink configuration, so it will be interesting to see what the OEMs come up with in terms of a thermal management solution to deal with these higher power CPUs.
How can you run a 12900K? Yes a regular 12900, I got the Gen 3, but I fail to see how you keep that thing cool. Not even sure the power supply can drive the 12900K.
@@AB-80X
I was using a Noctua NH-D15 and I replaced the stock fans with Noctua NF-A14 Industrial PPC-3000 PWM fans.
I don't remember what the peak temperatures at the time, as I no longer have the system.
(After a few months, it eventually failed memtest86 where I had to RMA the board, the RAM, and the CPU, and swapped it for an another AMD Ryzen 9 5950X system instead.)
To the best of my recollection though, I don't think that I hit thermal throttling, and I don't remember being close to the thermal throttle limit neither, even when running an extended workload.
And the other reason why I also changed from the Intel platform to an AMD platform is because the CFD applications that I was using REALLY did NOT like the whole P-core/E-core hybrid/mix thing.
CFD applications would fail to run completely and entirely when E-cores were enabled in the BIOS.
So, I had to shut them down to get the CFD to work, which seemed like a waste for me, because I would be paying for CPU capabilities that the software couldn't use (so badly that the CFD application would crash on launch.)
So it didn't make sense for me to keep and pay for something that I was only going to, effective, only get HALF of the performance. So yeah, that was the other reason why I ditched the platform, but failing memtest86 was the primary reason.
I have a fist full of these running a kubernetes cluster for playing around with and another running a pfsense box (shoehorned a 4 port nic in the expansion slot). They are really good system.
Very cool!
what a waste of $900, like why ?
@@dm3on Why....Not
@@UCO7tvLXKv53SflIbIMqYxwg not if you need the single core performance and want something physically small and low power consumption.
Pfsense????
Good work.Nice series. I would like to see more comparisons in noise, temperatures and 'gaming'. By gaming I mean something 3D 1080p.
can't wait to see the Gen 3 with the new intel 12th gen cpus. little beasts.
Quad intel nic....from the factory.... Daaaamn.... That seriously opens doors, especially as a hypervisor running an online firewall ... Can't wait til these hit the 2nd hand market
I still contend the only thing this has over the M75q G2 is the dual nvme M.2 slots. Looks like a great system, though.
P330 tiny has dual m.2
@@milescarter7803 True. I think I'm actually going to pick up an Elitedesk 800 G4 for ~350 dollars as they have dual slots as well. With a couple of 1tb nvme drives, that will make a killer TrueNas box.
Comes with PCIe slot, nice, my M75Q gen2 has the through hole pins for a PCIe slot, but for some reason they decides not to populate it with an actual slot
I find it always funny to watch someone explain the whole specsheet
small and powerful, does what it says on the tin and more
12th gen with some kind of dual lan option and I could seriously consider getting rid of all my rackmount crap and pick up a few of these sff deals. It's gonna be hard to say goodbye to the tape library though 🤔
I would love to see some in situ examples of these tiny mini micro computers. The form factor is so interesting to me, I would love to see how people are using them.
I'm using a Dell Optiplex 3060 micro as a proxmox host with a few VMs and a bunch of containers running. Mainly for internal resources like Plex and torrenting with Sonarr, Radarr, and Jackett, as well as home assistant and Beets.
A lot of these 10L PCs are used in places such as Schools and Hospitals or at least that is the case here in the UK where a VESA mount is attached to the back of a monitor and can often be a cheaper option over AIO PCs made by companies such as Dell or HP which are the most common I've seen especially since they take up far less space than a full ATX or SFF PC which is the other most common PC size I've seen used in the UK in a commercial or educational setting.
The rather wasteful NHS here in the UK has been buying up loads of Dell & HP computers over the past decade or so which I suppose makes sense except it appears that they are only buying Dell & HPs or at least in the local NHS Trust in SW London which is where I live...
I had terrible experience dealing with their service dept. Bought a brand new high end laptop and it broke twice in a year. Their motherboard had to be replaced twice!
Looking forward to seeing intel 12th gen or AMD 5th gen (with integrated Vega 8) in this systems.
Ryzen 5000 series is found in the M75q Gen 2 (think I have that model right) though finding stock at Lenovo or elsewhere has been hard.
Is there a way to get a 10GB card in this unit? Looks like the OEM riser is EOL?
thats a cool little computer.. thanks for the review!
Nice little machines, but at $1k is a little steep for me, at that range I would probably go for a real server like a R730 or something, but then again if you need this form factor and power there is also Apple M1 that is worth considering...
My problem with this machine in particular is that at that price range it doesn't come with 2.5G ethernet. If it does then I'd probably consider ditching the usb eth for vlan on the same port.
On another note, there is an adapter from Aliexpress for Lenovo's power connector to USB type C, its rated up to 100W and it also comes in L shape. You can couple with a slim 65W GaN power charger, which is roughly the same size as the white POE injector from Ubiquiti, this way you can ditch the bulky brick PSU to power these things. There is also a mod that utilize the internal m2 slot that connect to a 2280 card with a realtek eth chip and a slim cable to a break board with a Rj45 port that can be screwed on the com port from the back.
I tried ordering one of these with a custom configuration a while back. Tried TWICE in fact. Both orders were canceled after a month or so of waiting. No exact reason was given until I contacted them. And the reason changed depending on who I spoke with. There was a huge sale going on which is why I decided to get one. After a bit of searching online, I found quite a few other instances where people's orders were being canceled when Lenovo was having a sale. So while it may be a great little machine I no longer trust Lenovo as they didn't even reach out to deal with the issue.
That is really scummy. You could always write a letter of concern about it to your local AG
@@MrFaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I've just decided that I will never buy from Lenovo and I'll pass along my experience with others and they can make their own decision. Lenovo has a lot of competition in this market so it's not difficult to find a different company to do business with.
Hi Patrick, thanks for the great in depth review. I'm currently debating a Dell Optiplex 7090 Micro with the model in this video...both of which have the same exact specs. Is the Dell worth $200 more than the Lenovo? Only difference I can tell is a 3 year warranty vs 1 year.
Also, I notice that the model in this video is currently running $1100...$200 more than what you bought it for a couple months ago. Any insight as to when Lenovo will have larger sales events soon?
Alex is editing the 7090 review video today. It should be up this week. I would not pay a premium for the Dell
Have you tried a 65W TDP i9-10900 in the 1st Gen? I'd imagine that you'd be hitting the thermal limits of the chassis with a 65W 10-core, but I believe Lenovo still technically claims support, and the added power would allow much more performance.
We have not done the 65W in the Gen1. We have done a number of 35W to 65W comparisons and often the results are underwhelming to the point that we mostly focus on 35W.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Wow, that's really surprising. I've primarily seen a pretty linear increase in perf, directly based on power % increase. I would've assumed the 85% power allotment would translate to a similar multicore perf increase.
In the 10th and 11th generation the TDP limit from intel is really a joke.. that's why I assume this unit get so loud under load.. its 35w on paper not in reality. 12th gen intel is more transparent with the new thermal rating
@@branopetricek2211 Agreed, although I'll have to go back and see power draw data on the 35W CPUs. My assumption is that they skew much closer to 65W variant numbers than the TDP classes would imply.
Finally a powerful Intel mini that might not live at 100C, I've been waiting lol.
They don't. Have the Gen 3 with the 12900 core. Great machine and I push it hard with a lot of video editing. Run 64 Gb DDR5 too. It runs hard and always fairly cool.
13th gen intel is gonna be amazing for Tiny Mini Micro (not a typo, 12th gen scheduling sucks and the platform is too expensive).
What's wrong with the 12th gen? I run both a 12900 and 12900K, the former in the Gen 3 M90Q. Both processors perform flawlessly for the graphics and video editing that I do.
Why dows Lenovo insist on a external wi-fi antenna?
I have an older Non-VPro and it is awesome.
I use it as a Gaming Server.
Checked it and the "LENOVO THINKCENTRE M75Q TINY GEN2"
is available in my country with a Ryzen 7 5750GE
For a quite affordable price. [900 euro]
as the 5750GE is one of the top end there is no use for CPU upgrades. and the difference in price between the version with a 5650GE, is the same price difference as a 5600G and a 5700G.
Might go that route, if the Asrock jupiter X300 does not get released any time soon in my country.
I wish I could get a 5750GE version for that. Also check the HP EliteDesk 805 G8's. The review for the G6 (Ryzen 4000 series version) is coming, but it is a very good platform.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo
Luckily from what i could find the price difference for a better CPU is not DELL/HP crazy.
wanted a Mini PC as a ultimate media-center pc. [currently using a NUC with 3rd gen intel i3], its getting a bit slow, and does not support 4K.
The only HP elitedesk 805 g8 is one with a Ryzen 5 5650G. and is 100 euro more expensive than the lenovo one.
atm there is no Ryzen 5750GE from HP
There is a version with a 5600G that is just as expensive as the lenovo one. they do not have one with a Ryzen 7 5700G
Both the dell and lenovo one come with windows 10 PRO, which is a plus itself.
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Dell does not sell a version with a Ryzen CPU in my country {YET}
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Yet i still hope the Asrock Jupiter X300 gets releases/being in stores.
which means i am not limited by any BIOS settings/limitations which HP, lenovo and Dell are known for. and could just use a ryzen 7 5700G. [and underclock it if needed]
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Buy anyting older than an 8100T for what usecase and price?
Except for gen 1 and gen 2 devices not much newer was available in NL at auctions or other places for a long time. Last few weeks a few came on offer at auction site BVA a very inflated starting prices. Noboddy seems to be bidding. I saw probably the same systems go on auction for several weeks now. Most intresting ones were still I 3 based. Even gen 1 and gen 2 systems have ridiculous prices now.
Yea prices have gone up in the last year and a half since this series started.
Can someone tell me what they use usb c for on a desktop pc?
Love your tiny-mini-micro series. Brings those ex office PCs a second life at home - including a positive woman acceptance factor.
Yeah, I have a pile of Optiplexes I got as a result of this, though I've not gotten the micro form factor, mostly SFF and USFF.
How does one know if it's Gen 1 or Gen 2 or what? I just got a refurb used one with a lame i5-8500T CPU. Oh wait, I just heard you say the one you're reviewing is first Tiny with 11th gen CPUs.... makes me feel pretty confident I have only Gen 1. I'd still like to know how to tell!
Can you do a video on the naming system Lenovo uses for these devices? I'm quite confused looking at the Lenovo website.
id buy that, look how far weve come
11th gen Tigerlake CPUs have Thunderbolt 4 controllers built into CPU, does this box expose a Thunderbolt 4 port through any of the USB type-C ports?
Not that I have seen yet.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo can you try installing the Intel thunderbolt drivers on it? The ASRock 1165G7 NUC box I have is not thunderbolt 4 certified, but it works fine with the USB-C 10 / DP port on the front of the unit with an eGPU and an RX6900XT... wondering if this is the same
Are we gonna see a review on the new quadro a4000, a5000 and a6000? I’m trying to decide if it’s better to get a used quadro rtx6000 or a new a5000
We are transitioning GPU reviews from William to Will and do not have the A4000-A6000 right now. It has been easier to get A100/ A40's. Will see what we can do.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo thank you for the response Cant wait to see the future content!!
Could you do a review of the p350 tiny?
Will try. P340 Tiny just arrived so that should be the next Lenovo
Is there any usb-c port in your model in the video? I don’t see any. I got one from work same as your don’t find any usb c either.
You can see the Type-C Gen2 10Gbps port on the front. There are also options for one the rear but that is an option.
hmm so you're saying I could fit a sfp+ card in there and have 10Gbe to that box with an idle of around 15-20W 🤔
All it's missing to me then is a second SATA slot
All very nice and compact.. but .. needs a power brick. Sigh. 🙄 How big is the power brick? Wouldn't it be great if this little box included the power supply.
Just checked, what appears to be those flat SATA cables are ~$6 on aliexpress
Nice, a riser card for a 2nd nic. Would make a powerful over kill Pfsense box.
Nice video. Don't you think the base clock speed is too low for this machine for high performance? I mean I understand that the cores have increased but at the same time, lower clock speeds like 1.4GHZ may be equal to 4 cores with 2.7GHz base frequency.
I don't know about the laptop chips but at least on the desktop 11th gen was on par with, or even worse than the same numbered 10th gen parts, so sounds like you'd be much better getting an older 10 core, and the only thing you lose is a gen 4 ssd
My 720q at idle, the fan spins at 1000rpm in silent mode, and it makes this annoying clicking toicking sound that my older 4th gen Lenovo tiny doesn't make. Is the fan on these less annoying...not a hum, but weird ticking or clicikng?
Now that the M90q actually have 2 NVMe slots, what makes them different from P350 Tiny Workstations....?
Thanks for the review - I'm trying to source the part number for an additional USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 add on card on the back but having a heck of a time finding it. Does anyone know it?
with the pcr on it they should make a box the same size with gpu in it and have it clip in top or someing like that. then can game on to
Hello!! A question I have dell optiplex 3080 micro, can I change the tenth and eleventh generation processor with this board? it's compatible?
I just ordered an additional 16g memory for this model. Do I need to change any settings to get the dual-channel or will it automatically detect the extra memory and switch to dual on its own? Thanks!
It will automatically detect and work
@@PatrickKennedy2 Thanks!
I've seen "tiny mini micro" on Reddit frequently as well
Is there an option to install an aftermarket GPU or does it use an properitary gpu cooler?
There are some of these systems with GPUs like the P330/P340/P350
Needs to be 1 slot short length low profile. P400, p600, p620, p1000 are the only cards I know. I've converted 3 m720q/m920q. Just order the riser, back panel and ventilated lid. Check the PSREF for the part numbers of those.
Oh and make your mind and stick with ONE set of video ports - I am getting double-vision from this. Especially if that port gives you ALL features and up to date standards, you know DP!
Cont'd from previous as this keeps getting deleted ...
I realize that I'm just one person and they are a HUGE company. However, it's not just my order that affects them. It's also the people I talk to and what I post online. If I had gotten the unit and been happy with it then I spread that info and others may be interested. Perhaps I make a video and share my experience on UA-cam which again points others to their products. It's amazing in today's world how one customer can make a difference and an unhappy one can have quite an effect on future sales.
Intel decides to rebrand and put a new sticker out for the next generation just because they want to....AMI for years can't be bothered to change out the wrong sticker which is actually the sticker that means you got a little legitimate product not just a branding sticker....
Hey I got the gen 3 just now & trying to figure out if I can install an LTE/sim card in the extra M.2 slot. Anyone tried this or have a card they can test with? Thinking if it doesn't work in the extra m.2 I could swap out the wifi card.
Excellent content shared with us, beautifully created this video, happy new year in advance, lk621
Yes. Thank you
Dude wanna se if it can run plex on 4k transcoding .. Would by one then in A heart beat
Remember, friends don’t let friends Transcode 4K ;) Direct Play is the way to go my friend. This will do direct play all day long on multiple streams. That said, the I7-11700T does quicksync so you’d have no issue transcoding if you needed too.
@@danielsimpkins9662 some devises do need to transcode like iPad
got a link to memory i know old post
What kind of gpu can I use on m920q tiny?looking to add one !
Would it be possible to add a little GPU to this system
Probably easier to get the Thinkstation P349/p350 tiny with a GPU
Could you play CSS (not go) on this?
I would probably get the M75q if I wanted to play games, but probably yes on this.
I've heard that Lenovo computers beacon back to China regardless of what OS is installed because of some hardware that is built in. Have you observed this with this computer?
i want that with an i3 10105.
4 cores, 8 threads, 3.7-4.4GHz, iGPU . .
how much FAN Noise is there from this pc ???????????
Cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores, cores ... this and as much as possible RAM is all that MATTERS when it comes to virtualization!!! The more cores you have (and give to the VMs) the faster your VMs will go back to idle.
This would be the tiny secondary Proxmox node of my dreams if it had dual NICs. How difficult would it be to get another in there using the expansion slots?
I just logged into the Lenovo PRO web store, and I didn't see any customization options. Even on the non-pro store, I only see two "ready to ship" options.
Do I have to do something non-obvious to see the BTO options, or are they not offering that right now?
Im contemplating using a desktop like this for a home server but it has more power than my laptop decision decisions
They are good for running things like home assistant … and maybe 2 vms
Competing hard with the ARM-based Mac Mini
Extremely overpriced.
So...what exactly is the point of this small of a PC that's almost $1000?
You can cluster them in very small footprints.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Small footprints except for the pile of power bricks.
HMMM ... so apparently on this channel you can't post about NEGATIVE experiences with Lenovo? My comment keeps being deleted shortly after I post it.
Not sure why. I have not seen them. Maybe a YT thing?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo For some reason I had to split it into two sections. Unsure why as it wasn't that long. Seems to be sticking around now though.
this would be perfect for a 2d cad client pc at my job.
I find tightly edited voice with no pauses to be as obnoxious as robots.
My first … first!?
Touch grass
I think you got the first!
cool
I hate the rectangle Lenovo power port.
1.4 GHz base clock haha NO
Very rarely sits there and not bad for a power saving server.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo It was more a jab at the fact that Rocket Lake is a joke of a architecture.
Good video either way 'Pat.
14nm++++++++++++++++
I think you missed a few
This interesting only after 10 years as fifty bucks toy. For $900+ i can buy something more useful.
"Hey guys" is automatically non-subscribable channel even though I'm a guy. Alongside with "a further ado" and other phrases that should have died with 20th century cable TV, pick a phrase any phrase... Thank you Jeff, very cool but I just can't! [3:30 minutes later] Can you speak slower? I can't really understand anything you talk about, I'm almost 4 minutes into the video and I have no idea what it is about other than the system PCB and a fan and information overload. I am not a hater, I am just drunk and most people nowadays can bear to access cable TV or "P.C." youtube ONLY while being drunk so please slow down if you can't drop "Hey Guys" thing... But if you have beer I'd love to see it... {thank you Jeff, very cool!}
What weird, silly comment.
M90q tiny gen 3 is not available with 2.5gb ethernet hw is it to install and cost for ethernet port? There is a black Friday sale @servethehome