Lenovo ThinkCentre M920x Tiny Review and Guide

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Lenovo ThinkCentre M920x Tiny Performance and Power Consumption

Instead of going through the entire Linux-Bench test suite, we are going to show a few performance and power numbers here to give a general sense of performance. We actually planned to do storage testing, but then we realized that there was a huge variability in terms of what drives could be found in machines.

Python Linux 4.4.2 Kernel Compile Benchmark

This is one of the most requested benchmarks for STH over the past few years. The task was simple, we have a standard configuration file, the Linux 4.4.2 kernel from kernel.org, and make the standard auto-generated configuration utilizing every thread in the system. We are expressing results in terms of compiles per hour to make the results easier to read:

Intel Core I5 8500T And Core I5 6500T Linux Kernel Compile Benchmark
Intel Core I5 8500T And Core I5 6500T Linux Kernel Compile Benchmark

Although this unit has a fairly wide variety of options, we wanted to again focus on the Core i5-6500T v. Core i5-8500T comparison. The move to the Core i5-9500T was relatively small as you can see above. On the other hand, compared to the previous generations, the i5-8500T is an enormous generational update.

7-zip Compression Performance

7-zip is a widely used compression/ decompression program that works cross-platform. We started using the program during our early days with Windows testing. It is now part of Linux-Bench.

Intel Core I5 8500T And Core I5 6500T 7zip Compression Benchmark
Intel Core I5 8500T And Core I5 6500T 7zip Compression Benchmark

Since this system does technically accept the 9th generation of CPUs, which you can order on Lenovo’s website today, we also wanted to show performance compared to the Core i5-9500T. As you can see, the i5-9500T is better, but we still have a 6 core and 6 thread design so performance uplift is limited.

OpenSSL Performance

OpenSSL is widely used to secure communications between servers. This is an important protocol in many serverĀ stacks. We first look at our sign tests:

Intel Core I5 6500T V I5 8500T OpenSSL Sign Benchmark
Intel Core I5 6500T V I5 8500T OpenSSL Sign Benchmark

Here are the verify results:

Intel Core I5 6500T V I5 8500T OpenSSL Verify Benchmark
Intel Core I5 6500T V I5 8500T OpenSSL Verify Benchmark

Just as a quick note here, these 6 core SKUs are more similar to the higher-TDP Xeon E-2200 series quad core parts, without Hyper-Threading. Modern CPUs scale performance with power consumption, so this makes a lot of sense.

Next, we are going to discuss power consumption before getting to our final words.

6 COMMENTS

  1. @Patrick – SHOWOFF!!!!!!!!

    How the h… did you get hold of a geforce 3090gtx? :-) – hope we’ll see a review soon? Can see it’s a founders edition in the video, so i presume it was sent directly to you from Nvidia. :-)

  2. @Patrick Can this bad boy run run 10Gbe NIC instead of the RX 560? It’s the only thing that has kept me from pulling the trigger on this box, as it would be perfect for a small at-home 4 node vSAN deployment lab, especially with 8 Cores per unit.

  3. I am running a Mellanox ConnectX-3 (type CX311A) 10Gbps NIC in in m920q with a 01AJ940 riser card. Note: the top cover will not close completly if the braket is left on the NIC. Though it will be covered completly, but you notice that the cover doesn’t snap completely into place.

  4. Hey

    Love the content, i am having trouble finding information as to whether or not this thing supports pcie bifurcation over pcie, thinking of getting a low profile pcie quad m.2 adaptor. But i believe it must support bifurcation for that to work :-)

    Cheers

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