Key Lesson Learned for TMM
In this series, we wanted to also focus on some key lessons learned. This is a fun unit because we have reviewed both previous generations as well as competitive products. As such, we have a lot more experience and data compared to when we looked at the P320 and P330 Tiny.
On one hand, the GPU is great. Having access to four additional display outputs is going to be a big winner for many of our readers. Likewise, there are applications that have NVIDIA CUDA acceleration, and having even a lower-end GPU like the Quadro P620 is great. At the same time, for many of our readers, this is probably the wrong system.
One of the reasons for that is that many applications do not need Quadro and just need CUDA. Also, Intel was certainly allowing CPUs to use more power in these generations. For many of our readers, the AMD Ryzen 5000 series APUs are the better option. Lenovo has AMD-based units like the Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny Gen2 and they are very good, but they are two tiers below the P340 Tiny in Lenovo’s stack. Dell has somewhat competitive units with the OptiPlex 7090 Micro series, but those are a M90q Tiny competitors. HP has the 805 G6/ G8 Mini that has GeForce low power options with the AMD CPUs and features like dual NVMe SSDs. The reason we are excited about those units is not just performance. It is also this picture:
This is getting more than a little silly in terms of PSU size. It makes one appreciate the Apple Mac Mini M1 even with 10GbE and its internal PSU. The Intel plus older NVIDIA combination uses a lot of power and spins fans as a result. While Lenovo’s bottom SODIMM and NVMe SSD design we really like, it also means that Lenovo has a single expansion slot and so the HP can add a GPU plus a second NIC.
To be clear, this is a very nice system, but there are other options out there if one wants more performance.
Final Words
There is no question that the Lenovo Tiny units are great. With Intel-based systems, the serviceability and configurability of these systems are excellent. The ThinkStation Tiny’s are a step beyond ThinkCentre Tiny’s like the M90q. If you are not looking for a GPU, then the M90q likely makes more sense. So this is more of a high-end unit compared to other systems in Lenovo’s stable.
We have discussed power enough, but it is clearly higher in this system so the power brick is now large enough that this should almost be a 1L system with an asterisk. This just looks silly.
While there are undoubtedly caveats, these systems are going to be increasingly becoming available in the next 12 months. There are also NVIDIA T1000 6GB cards that can come in these systems that we think should be much better. In terms of availability finding used P340 Tiny’s may be easier than finding new systems in small quantities.
Overall, this is a nice little system and is certainly one of our favorites that we have reviewed thus far.
I’d like the HP review now please
Are GPU performance tests coming in the next article? Without the heat pipe does it throttle under load?
Woah. Stop the press. That is a 16x PCI Express slot. This will fit a single port 10G NIC for sure. Might fit a dual port one.
Patrick,
The unusually large power supplies are also to allow customers to insert these Tinys into the TIO (Tiny-In-One) displays. Normally these come with 90W, depending on the display size, 22″, 24″: 90W & 27″ come with 170W.
Typically if the Power supply that comes with the Tiny is 135W or larger it’s designed to replace the power supply that ships with the TIO. They both use the same “Slim Tip” rectangular power supply connectors.
@PNWah01 If you look on Reddit’s homelab area you will find that someone has put in an X710-DA4 into a Tiny. It’s an x8 3.0 electrical connection though. Which is still 8GB/sec (or being lazy with the rough rule of 10 bytes to bits, 80Gb/sec.)
The Rocket Lake (11th gen Intel) version P350 Tiny x8 of PCIe 4.0 slot & 2 * PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives and also Nvidia T600 & T1000 GPUs.
When I first heard about this tiny PC with all the power under my desk, it sounded too good to be true. But when you think about how much space we renting out in our office by plugging or unplugging accessories every day–the benefits become clear! This machine has everything from processing speed and storage capacity down low enough that even tall guys can use them without stretches (don’t worry if your head doesn’t reach above where they’ll put these things). And don’t forget: no more bulky tower computers taking up desktop real estate while providing less functionality than what most people need.
Does the bios on these support Intel SGX? The 10th gen procs do but trying to find out if the system bios does.
Lenovo has discontinued the P350 Tiny Rocket Lake model.
Hmmm… Might make a killer Plex server.
Will these take standard PCIe cards? I’d like to put a dual 10g x550 nic with active cooling in one of these…