The Lenovo M700 is an ultra small form factor (SFF) PC, primarily designed for enterprise use, however it has gained somewhat of a following in the home server / home lab enthusiast market and makes an ideal (available) high performance alternative to the ever popular raspberry pi.
These all in one computers can be picked up for between $50-$200 dollars on eBay depending on specification.
What people may not know is that they actually contain a standalone and therefore upgradeable CPU.
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Officially supported Lenovo M700 Tiny CPU Upgrade options
According to the official ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Platform Specifications these are the following supported CPU options.
Processor Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium, or 6th Generation Intel Core™ i3 / i5 / i7 Processor
| Processor | Cores / Threads | Frequency Base/Max(GHz) | Cache | Memory Types | Integrated Graphics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pentium G4400T | 2 / 2 | 2.9 G | 3 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 510 | HD 510 |
| Pentium G4500T | 2 / 2 | 3.0 G | 3 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i3-6100T | 2 / 4 | 3.2 G | 3 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i3-6300T | 2 / 4 | 3.3 G | 4 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i5-6400T | 4 / 4 | 2.2 G / 2.8 G | 6 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i5-6500T | 4 / 4 | 2.5 G / 3.1 G | 6 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i5-6600T | 4 / 4 | 2.7 G / 3.5 G | 6 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
| Core i7-6700T | 4 / 8 | 2.8 G / 3.6 G | 8 MB | DDR4-2133 HD 530 | HD 530 |
Unofficially supported Lenovo M700 Tiny CPU Upgrade options!
Now for those of you who are a little more adventurous, there may be other upgrade options out there!
Scouring Reddit, there are threads with people running standard desktop CPU’s as well as xenon’s in their M700’s – however, we don’t actually recommend you try this. For most home lab setups the above officially supported CPU’s will be more than adequate.
The sweet spot is any of the i5 CPU’s which offer 4 cores and 4 threads, whilst not being prohibitively expensive.
How to upgrade the Lenovo M700 Tiny CPU
If you’ve ever upgraded a processor (or built a PC from scratch ) in the past, then upgrading the CPU on a Lenovo M700 will be a walk in the park.
They surprisingly (for the size) have a fairly standard installation process as can be seen in the video below.
What CPU do you have in your M700?
We think these M700’s make a great choice for budget home lab setups, what do you do with yours and what processors have you had success running in them?
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