Lenovo ThinkCentre M90s Gen 5 2024

A tiny desktop with a massive i9 heart—perfect for number-crunching, but skip it if you ever plan to game or edit video. At the right price, it's an office MVP; at the wrong price, it's a ripoff.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre M90s Gen 5 is a small desktop that thinks it's a workstation, stuffing a 24-core i9 and 32GB of DDR5 into a compact chassis. For office grinds, data crunching, or running back-to-back virtual machines, it's an absolute overachiever. Just don't ask it to play games or edit video—the integrated Intel UHD 770 graphics are strictly for spreadsheets and web browsing.

The i9-14900 here is the real deal, landing in the 85th percentile of our database—one of the fastest CPUs you can get in a machine this small. Multithreaded apps fly, and even sustained loads stay cool thanks to smart thermal management. But the GPU is a letdown. At the 32nd percentile, it struggles with anything beyond 4K YouTube. I was surprised by how much connectivity Lenovo crammed in: dual DisplayPort, HDMI 2.1, eight USB-A ports, and a DVD±RW drive. It's like they knew you'd need every dongle-free port you can get.

At around $2000 from some retailers, the M90s Gen 5 is a solid deal for a business-grade i9 desktop with 32GB RAM and vPro. But prices shoot up to nearly $3600 elsewhere, which is absurd. If you spot it at the low end of that $1590 spread, grab it. Otherwise, wait for a sale or look at a Mac mini M4 for similar CPU performance with a better GPU.

Compared to the Apple Mac mini M4, the Lenovo has more cores and better business management features, but Apple's tiny box runs circles around it in graphics and efficiency. The Dell XPS desktop offers similar specs in a larger tower with optional dedicated GPUs—better if you ever want to add a card. And don't even glance at gaming rigs like the HP OMEN or ASUS ROG; those are for an entirely different world. For pure office muscle in a small footprint, the ThinkCentre wins, but you're trading away any GPU futureproofing.

Gamers, video editors, and anyone who needs a GPU should look elsewhere immediately. For the same money, a Mac mini M4 crushes it in graphics, or a mid-tower Dell XPS with a dedicated card will run actual games. This ThinkCentre is strictly an office compute beast.

If you need screaming CPU performance in a no-nonsense office SFF, the M90s Gen 5 delivers. Buy the base config near $2000, ignore the overpriced listings, and know that you'll need a separate machine for anything graphical. It's a purpose-built workhorse that nails its niche.