Meet Lenovo’s Compact Powerhouse: The Mini PC with AMD Ryzen

There’s no shortage of compact PCs, but there’s always room for one more. Lenovo just revealed three new Windows desktop computers, including the compact ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5.

Lenovo has been selling the ThinkCentre M75q for years as a compact mini PC, and it has remained a popular option for basic productivity work and thin client setups. The new Gen 5 model measures just 7.05 x 1.44 x 7.2 inches (179 x 36.5 x 182.9 mm) and weighs 2.91 pounds (1.32 kg). That makes it slightly smaller than Apple’s current M2 Mac Mini .

The PC has an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 8700GE processor, which appears to be a modified Ryzen 7 8700G with around 20% worse GPU performance and roughly 50% less power consumption. Power usage isn’t a huge concern with desktop computers like the ThinkCentre, but desktops these small usually require lower power CPUs to prevent overheating. The other internal hardware includes two DDR5 RAM slots for up to 64GB of memory, two M.2 PCIe SSD slots, and Wi-Fi 6. There are a lot of ports crammed into the small package, including DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, Ethernet LAN, an audio combo jack, and seven USB connections (some USB Type-A and some USB Type-C).

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Lenovo said in a press release, “Despite its miniature size, the ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 is still expandable, customizable and easily upgradable. It supports seven USB connections, boasts two Gen 4 SSDs, has built-in driver support for older OS versions, can connect to three compatible displays for maximum multitasking and features toolless access to the SSD and memory module for easy expansion when needed (cards sold separately). For the most space-restricted environments, the ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 can be mounted using a universal VESA mount to free up even more space.”

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 will be available starting in June 2024, at an expected starting price of $749. Lenovo didn’t mention what hardware would be available in that starting price configuration, but hopefully it has at least 16GB RAM.

Lenovo also revealed two larger desktop workstations, the ThinkCentre M75t Gen 5 and ThinkCentre M75s Gen 5, with AMD Ryzen Pro 8000 processors and Radeon RX graphics cards. However, the M75t won’t be available in North America, and the M75s is a fairly standard PC tower computer.

Source: Lenovo