Lenovo ThinkCentre Neo 50q QC Internal Hardware Overview
Removing the sole thumbscrew from the rear of the PC that is holding on the lid of the ThinkCentre Neo 50q QC, we are granted extremely quick access to the internals of the system. This makes the 50q QC one of the easiest-to-open mini-PCs we have ever reviewed, right up there with other, similar Lenovo mini-PCs.
A single fan and a heatsink are essentially all that remain between the user and getting access to the chips that make up the mini-PC. Even then, the only user-serviceable parts are not covered by the fan or heatsink, so it is not necessary to disassemble the 50q QC any further to make any upgrades. But where is the fun in that?
Removing the fan and heatsink, we finally get our sights on the rest of the chips in the 50q QC.
At the bottom of the box (in this orientation) is the Snapdragon X SoC and associated LPDDR5X DRAM. Lenovo only offers a single CPU/SoC SKU here, using Qualcomm’s most basic Snapdragon X part, the X1-26-100.
With just 8 Oryon CPU cores and a top clockspeed of 3.00GHz – below every other Snapdragon X SKU – this is not Qualcomm’s strongest-performing chip by any means. But it is well-positioned to be the most efficient, which is a boon for the tiny 1L PC.
Otherwise, with Snapdragon X hardware first and foremost being designed for laptops – and in particular being paired with LPDDR5X memory – we find the soldered-down DRAM in this system. Our review unit has 16GB of LPDDR5X-8448 memory, while Lenovo also offers a 32GB SKU.
Even this low-end SKU includes Qualcomm’s Hexagon NPU, however. Meaning that this is a Copilot+ certified PC. Otherwise, graphics are driven by the integrated Adreno GPU, which supports a DirectX 12_1 feature set. For gaming uses this makes the Adreno a bit dated, but for the business-focused Lenovo this is hardly a concern compared to items like power consumption and AV1 support.
A quick look at the removed heatsink shows us that while the Snapdragon X is a pretty cool processor overall, Lenovo did not take any chances here with regards to cooling, covering it, the DRAM, and the voltage regulation modules with a relatively large heatsink. This only covers roughly half the floorplan of the mini-PC, but in terms of volume it is a good chunk of that 1L of space the entire PC occupies.
Getting away from the SoC, it is interesting to note just how small the motherboard is for the 50q QC. Even with the small size of the PC, it still does not cover the entire floor plan.
Wasting no space, Lenovo has used this void to place the PC’s M.2 SSDs and Wi-Fi card – which itself is also mounted via an M.2 slot.
As a result, Lenovo is able to use the metal chassis as a heatsink itself. A pair of thermal pads sit below the M.2 SSDs, providing some heat transfer away from the drives. Though the fact that the pads are on the back side of the SSDs makes it a less than ideal cooling setup.
There are two M.2 2280 slots available in the 50q QC. Both slots support a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection, providing more than sufficient bandwidth for any SSD that is going to operate at a low enough power envelope to work well in a mini-PC. Lenovo ships in configurations with one or both slots filled, filling the left (white) slot when a SKU ships with just one drive.
Our specific 50q QC box came with a 1TB version of Samsung’s PM9C1a SSD, a DRAMless PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD that, according to spec sheets, uses TLC NAND. With that said, Lenovo is a major OEM and regularly switches between SSDs, so this is more of a snapshot in time than a guarantee of the SSD to be used.
As for Wi-Fi connectivity, this is an optional feature on the 50q QC. But for those SKUs that do include it, it is provided by a Qualcomm adapter as well: the QCNFA765.
The QCNFA765 provides both Wi-Fi 6E connectivity as well as Bluetooth 5.3 support. There are two antennas leads present: one leads to an internal antenna, while the other is routed to the external antenna connector.
Finally, we have a quick look at the additional DisplayPort output installed into the punch out port position.
It is connected back to the rest of the system via a small connector beneath the board.
So how does this all come together as a complete product? Let us take a look at performance.
These will deprecate in value quickly.
1L is too big for this pc. Specially with the soldered ram.
Same lack of linux support as any random unknown ARM SBC.
It was my, admittedly layman’s, understanding that the UEFI ARM stuff was supposed to be generically discoverable and not require hardcoded device tree data. Is that only kind of/sort of true; and ARM vendors only care on server hardware?
Am I the only one looking at the first picture thinking it is a CD-ROM?
Qualcomm is synonym of not able to run Linux
I also understand the Neo 50q Tiny QC is unable to run Linux.
For a home server that makes this hardware a nonstarter. Unsuitability for use in a home lab or other server environment is something I would expect emphasized in an article from a site called Serve the Home.
If, in fact, there were a way to load a mainstream distribution such as Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat or Suse, then it would be greatly appreciated to test that claim and explain how.
Qualcomm says it wants to be a player in the PC space, but their behavior still resembles something of a locked in cell phone. The Nuvia tech they acquired and bragged about for so long as surpassing Apple’s M chip is exactly why everyone scoffed at Nuvia pre-buyout. It never could and it still can’t.
I have tried working with Qualcomm on the 7C and it was a massive waste of time. Just too many proprietary bits and stupid design decisions to keep out the educated. Even working with their “Developer Community” portal, was a massive joke (on me).
You wont see them anywhere in my world. Good riddance.
You wrote “it can run our Windows applications, something the more widely popular ARM-based Mac Mini family could not do.”
But that’s not really true, is it?
This review would have been much more interesting if you had compared it head-to-head with a Mac Mini. Put Windows on the Mini, both with UTM (free) and Parallels or VMWare, and bench them that way. Also telling us about compatibility issues with Windows for both ARM PCs would be great.
After all, you seem to be OK with Linux through WSL, which is at least as much a stretch as UTM or another virtualization tool. Oh, and speaking of which, how about comparing and benching WSL with Linux in UTM?
This feels like a really not-useful review, because it doesn’t really answer the most important questions.
justsomeguy: Hey the Mac Mini advocate is back! Just as an aside, UTM Windows is only free for evaluation purposes!
This device has no reason to exist. It costs $629 (Amazon) yet gives worse performance than a 2018 Intel Core i5 Mac Mini that you can get refurbished for under $200. It is appalling that no good workstation or even prosumer ARM APU exists after all this time. They are simple to make.
1. Use 16-32 Cortex X cores i.e. Cortex X-3 or Cortex X-295.
2. Use 8-16 Neoverse N1, N2 or V1, V2 cores.
Nothing keeps the ARM client companies like MediaTek and Qualcomm from doing 1. Nothing keeps ARM server companies like Ampere and Marvell from doing 2. And nothing keeps Nvidia, who makes ARM client AND server chips, from doing so.
No, you can’t run Windows on them because of this ridiculous contract that Microsoft signed with Qualcomm for Windows on ARM exclusivity to cut Microsoft’s losses. But you can run Linux on them, and let’s face it, developers, systems architects and other Linux users are going to be the only ones with a real need for an ARM workstation that doesn’t run macOS in the first place.
@rano: I’m hardy a Mac Mini advocate. I believe in the proper tool for the proper job, which is why all my servers are EPYCs. But it’s an astonishingly compact and low-energy device for so much power. That makes it tempting to find novel uses for it.
Your claim that “UTM Windows is only free for evaluation purposes” is BS. UTM is free, period. (So is VMWare for Mac, last I checked, though that company seems utterly toxic now and I’m avoiding them.) Of course, *windows* isn’t free, but that’s true on every platform.
Also… “Nothing keeps the ARM {client, server} companies…” Clearly *something* is doing exactly that, because they haven’t done it. That something is, of course, economics. Which comes right back to the main question, which is, it the Mini a better (= “more economical”) solution to some problems? It clearly isn’t, for your problems. But your problems are just one category.
@justsomeguy:
” Of course, *windows* isn’t free, but that’s true on every platform.” Which is what I meant: the Windows license is only free for evaluation purposes.
Sorry, but any temptation to find novel uses for a device with 2100 single core performance, worse than a Core i3 14100F and not much better than a Ryzen 3 110, is removed by the $630 price. “But it’s an astonishingly compact and low-energy device for so much power” is only true for a Mac Mini. You can set one to low power mode and still get better single core performance at less than 25W.
Is the Mini a better solution for some problems? Clearly. But not all of them which is why we need better Linux ARM tech. System76 will sell you a 32-core Ampere Altra CPU, 4 GB VRAM Nvidia card and 64 GB RAM system for $3300, which is M4 Max 16″ MacBook Pro money. ($350 more will get you a 16GB Nvidia 5060 Ti.) The Nvidia DGX Spark is cheaper, but not much and isn’t practical for much more than LLM development.
I say that a good ARM SOC would sell and that MediaTek, Nvidia, Samsung etc. are leaving money on the table by not making them. Indeed, Samsung actually wanted to do something in this area for Chromebooks but Google wouldn’t let them. Google later tried to design one themselves, didn’t like the early results and just gave up. Right now it looks like Valve’s desire for an ARM APU to replace the AMD one in the Steam Deck is the best bet to finally get movement on this.
No Linux compatibility. Soldered RAM. Only 1GbE. I’ll pass.
What I believe is more interesting is that Lenovo thinks Windows on ARM has (or will have) a big enough part of the market to justify making this thing.
@rano: No argument about the Lenovo. My comment about novel uses was referring to the Mac Mini, not the Lenovo (or QC PCs in general, so far).
It’s not clear to me that the Ampere is a better buy than an M4 Studio or M3 Ultra, depending on configuration and what you’re trying to do. (Clearly, if you need a ton of fast SSD, the Mac’s going to be crazy expensive, and depending on how parallelizable your tasks, the Ampere might have a performance edge… though probably not in most cases.) It will probably again be a question of compatibility.
So, yeah, better Linux ARM tech sounds good. But you don’t have it right now, and that makes for interesting questions when you don’t want to (or can’t) use x86.
@justsomeguy:
Oh no, Mac Minis aren’t just good for novel stuff. They are great for anything that doesn’t absolutely require running Linux (or Windows) natively as opposed to virtually. Sadly, there are more than a few things that do.
But I think that you are missing my point. The Ampere with more than 4 GB VRAM is $3600. Your M3 Ultra Mac Studio is $4000. Both are WAY more powerful than most people need and you are very much paying for all that power. Meanwhile you can get a great x86 system, Ryzen 9 with Nvidia 5080, for $2500. You can get a very good one, Intel 7 with Nvidia 5070, for $1500. And you can get a mini PC with integrated graphics that are as good as an Nvidia 3050 on a lot of workloads for under $700. Those are what a lot of people need and ARM options simply aren’t available. And if you need discrete graphics or to run a different operating system natively, not even Macs are an option.
My take on this is that there’s zero benefit over an i5 or Ryzen U unless it’s fanless or cheaper (and it’s neither of those things). If that requires a differently shaped chassis (to accommodate eg a Macbook Air-style cooling system), so be it.
Incidentally, happy to see Ryan Smith’s byline – miss Anandtech a lot.
“Even then, the only user-serviceable parts are not covered by the fan or heatsink, so it is not necessary to disassemble the 50q QC any further to make any upgrades. But where is the fun in that?”
Love it!