Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 2024

The M75q Gen 5 scores 83.9 for compact builds, making it a strong tiny desktop for office work. The 1TB NVMe SSD and 16GB of DDR5 are solid, but the Ryzen 3 PRO 8300GE CPU sits at the 36th percentile. Gaming is a 13.9 out of 100, so keep this one on the desk, not the battlestation.

Let's talk about the storage first, because that's the quiet hero here. The 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 Opal 2.0 SSD lands at the 65th percentile. That's solid. Boot times and app launches will feel snappy, and 1TB means you're not constantly juggling files. The 16GB of 5200 MHz DDR5 RAM is right around average at the 53rd percentile. Enough for a dozen browser tabs, a spreadsheet, and a video call without breaking a sweat.

The Ryzen 3 PRO 8300GE is where things get honest. Four cores at 3.5GHz is fine for everyday productivity, but it's in the bottom third of CPUs we've tested. If you're doing anything CPU-intensive like video editing or large data crunching, you'll feel the ceiling. The Radeon 740M integrated graphics are about average for what they are, but that's not saying much. This is a work machine, not a play machine.

Stacked against the competition, the M75q Gen 5 is a niche player. The Apple Mac Studio M4 Max absolutely destroys it on raw performance, but that's a different class of machine and a different price bracket. The HP OMEN GT22-3080 and MSI Aegis ZS2 are gaming towers that will run circles around the Radeon 740M, but they're also huge and power-hungry. The Dell Tower ECT1250 is a more direct business comparison, and it likely offers better CPU performance for similar money. Where the M75q wins is the form factor. None of those competitors fit in a 1L chassis. If desk space is your top priority, this is the one to beat. If raw speed matters more, look elsewhere.

Pricing is all over the map depending on where you shop. In the US, you'll see USD 1,349 to USD 1,535 across two listings. That's a USD 186 spread for the same machine, so shop around before you click buy. The lower end of that range is the better deal. In Europe, the gap is even wider at EUR 322 between the cheapest and most expensive listings, running from EUR 2,606 to EUR 2,928. For what you get, a compact business desktop with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, the US pricing feels reasonable but not a steal. The European pricing is harder to justify unless you really need the tiny footprint.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 scores 71.2 out of 100 in our database, which puts it firmly in the middle of the pack for desktops. But that number hides a more interesting story. For compact builds, it jumps to 83.9, and that's where this little box actually shines. You're getting a Ryzen 3 PRO 8300GE, 16GB of DDR5, and a 1TB NVMe SSD stuffed into a 1L chassis. That's a lot of desk space saved without giving up the basics.

The catch is the CPU. At the 36th percentile, the Ryzen 3 PRO 8300GE is a modest quad-core chip. It's fine for office work, web browsing, and light multitasking, but it's not going to impress anyone doing heavy lifting. The integrated Radeon 740M sits at the 54th percentile, which is about average for integrated graphics. Gaming? A 13.9 out of 100. Don't even think about it.

If you need any kind of graphical horsepower, skip this. The gaming score of 13.9 is one of the worst in our database, and the integrated Radeon 740M won't save you. The CPU at the 36th percentile also means heavy multitaskers, video editors, or anyone running demanding software will hit a wall fast. And if you're hoping to upgrade later, the 65W PSU and tiny chassis leave almost no room to grow. This is a buy-it-and-use-it-as-is machine.

The ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 is a purpose-built machine. It's for offices, reception desks, and anyone who wants a capable Windows 11 Pro PC without a tower taking over their workspace. The compact score of 83.9 tells the real story. The 1TB SSD and 16GB of DDR5 are genuinely useful specs. But the CPU at the 36th percentile and the gaming score of 13.9 mean this is not a flexible machine. Buy it for what it is, not what you hope it could be.