IBM ThinkCentre M50

IBM ThinkCentre M50

The Bottom Line
While IBM sells its ThinkCentre desktop systems to the general public, these systems are best suited for a corporate environment and not the home.
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Pros

* Includes Windows XP Professional
* Gigabit Ethernet Interface
* Three Year Warranty

Cons

* Only 256MB PC2700 Memory
* No FireWire
* No Optical Burner

Description

* Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Processor with 800 MHz Frontside Bus
* 256MB PC2700 DDR Memory
* 40GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
* 48x CD-ROM Optical Drive
* SoundMAX Cadenza Audio without Speakers
* Intel Extreme 2 Integrated Graphics with 64MB of Shared Memory
* Intel Gigabit Ethernet Port
* Eight USB 2.0 Ports
* Windows XP Professional Operating System and Lotus SmartSuite Millenium Productivity Software

Guide Review - IBM ThinkCentre M50

2/12/04 - IBM's primary focus for computer systems is the corporate market and it shows very clearly with the ThinkCentre line of desktop computers. Many features one normally expects for consumers are missing while corporate features are there instead.

The ThinkCentre M50 is powered by an Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz CPU with 800MHz bus. This should give the system enough computing power for most any tasks. In fact, it is more computing power than most people need for simple business suite applications. The systems primary fault though is the memory. It comes with a small 256MB of memory and of the PC2700 speed which restricts the memory bus from its full potential.

Storage is very meager in the M50. There are no optical burners at all in the system. Even budget priced computers now offer CD-RW drives, but the corporate market frowns upon such drives. Hard drive space is also a very small 40GB of space. This is much smaller than the average mainstream desktop computer.

Graphics are very limited. IBM uses the integrated Intel Extreme2 graphics. This is not a graphics processor that should be used for any serious 3D applications. In addition, it uses system memory further reducing the already limited amount of memory. Audio is powered by the SoundMAX Cadenza audio processor, but no speakers are included.

In the end, the ThinkCentre is very much a machine that is designed for the corporation but marketed also to consumers. It doesn't make a good consumer PC though.