Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2: Tiny Desktop, Big Performance

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 is a marvel of compact engineering. This small form factor (SFF) desktop weighs just 1.25 kg and measures a mere 179 ? 183 ? 34.5 mm, yet it packs serious power. Supporting AMD Athlon and Ryzen CPUs up to the Ryzen 7 5755GE, it is a versatile mini PC suitable for both Windows and Linux users.

In my YouTube video I reviewed a unit that comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600GE, boasting 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.4 GHz and boost up to 4.4 GHz. The motherboard supports up to 64 GB DDR4-3200 RAM, and my setup was upgraded from 8 GB to 40 GB. Storage options are flexible, with support for both M.2 NVMe SSDs and SATA drives, ideal for fast Ubuntu Linux installations or even a home server.

Although the M75q Gen 2 supports TPM 2.0 and is capable of running Windows 11, in my opinion a Linux distribution is the better option for this mini PC. I installed Ubuntu 22.04, later upgrading to 24.04, running the GNOME desktop environment on either Wayland or X11. Performance under load is impressive; during a Linux kernel cross-compilation for Raspberry Pi 5, the Ryzen 5 CPU stayed below 80C, showing excellent thermal management. For developers, hobbyists, or anyone needing a compact yet powerful desktop, the ThinkCentre M75q Gen 2 proves that good things really do come in small packages.