Costco Wholesale has for their
Members: Lenovo IdeaCentre 3i Desktop (90VT0065US) on sale for
$399.99. Shipping is $14.99.
Thanks to Community Member
whenry83 for sharing this deal.
Specs:
- Intel i5-14400 10-Core (6P+4E) / 16-Thread Processor
- 16GB DDR4 3200MHz Memory
- 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive
- Integrated Intel UHD 730 Graphics
- Wi-Fi 6 (2x2) and Bluetooth 5.1
- Wired Keyboard & Mouse
- 260W Power Supply
- Windows 11 Home
- Ports:
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C (Support Data Transfer and 5V @ 3A Charging)
- 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- 2x USB 2.0 Type-A
- 1x VGA Out
- 1x RJ-45
- 1x HDMI-Out 2.1
- 1x Headphone/Microphone Combination Jack
- 1x Microphone Jack
Top Comments
Size: This thing is tiny (photos below).
Performance: I installed my favorite video and RAW image processing software and put it through some quick paces. It performed very well on all tasks, navigating and rendering files and effects more rapidly than my 6 month old ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an i7-1365U processor and 32GB RAM. This is out of the box with the installed 16GB RAM. I haven't set up multiple monitors yet but am eager to see how it does.
This little desktop is cool and silent. There are benefits to small power supplies and no GPU.
Power cord is short -- about 5 feet long.
It's definitely not designed with mods in mind (but we knew that). You need to use a screwdriver to open it up.
The 3.5" SATA HD cage is very accessible and adding a one will be a piece of cake.
Upgrading RAM will be a more labor but not hard. The RAM slots are under the 3.5" drive cage, which means you have to remove the side and front panels, unplug the HD from the motherboard, unscrew the HD cage and lift it up, install the new RAM stick, and then put everything back.
This model is new so there weren't any YouTube videos I could find. Here are some photos: Image 1 [ibb.co] Image 2 [ibb.co]. The size of the HD cage should give you an idea of how small the desktop is.
EDITED: Removed the bullet about the rear audio out. I found it. :-)
HDMI Out is likely limited to 1080p max resolution is 3840x2160@60Hz (4K@60Hz);
The RAM is single stick (16GB x1);
There is one empty RAM slot (2 slots total);
There are no PCI-e expansion slots;
There is room for one extra hard drive.
This is not a 'basic' desktop unless your criteria is 'gaming GPU graphics', in which case, yes, get something else; the 260W PSU won't allow adding big PCIe GPU muscle. I see no clear way to even add PCIe cards, which is a bit of a surprise. The website makes no reference to this in the ports and slots section, and I can't find the manual.
For everyone else, this is a cheap, fully ready to go screaming fast machine with fully current CPU - at around $200 less (plus Costco returns, warranty) vs. almost anywhere else.
282 Comments
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Intel® Core i5-14400 (10-Core) Processor
Wi-Fi 6 (2x2) and Bluetooth® 5.1
Integrated Intel® UHD 730 Graphics
Wired Keyboard & Wired Mouse
Microsoft® Windows 11 Home (64-bit)
https://www.costco.com/lenovo-ide...66935.htm
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On a more positive note, both RAM and SSD should be upgradable - I wonder if it comes with a single 16GB stick. If so, you can spend another $35 to double the ram and make this a good productivity machine.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank dclive
This is not a 'basic' desktop unless your criteria is 'gaming GPU graphics', in which case, yes, get something else; the 260W PSU won't allow adding big PCIe GPU muscle. I see no clear way to even add PCIe cards, which is a bit of a surprise. The website makes no reference to this in the ports and slots section, and I can't find the manual.
For everyone else, this is a cheap, fully ready to go screaming fast machine with fully current CPU - at around $200 less (plus Costco returns, warranty) vs. almost anywhere else.
On a more positive note, both RAM and SSD should be upgradable - I wonder if it comes with a single 16GB stick. If so, you can spend another $35 to double the ram and make this a good productivity machine.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/de...o.com%252F
An answer on this page seems to indicate there's no room for a card.
Not sure how system memory works once you get up to 32g+…. My minisforum 560, the bios doesn't support assigning more than (I think) 512MB to video. Might have been 1GB, but either way not enough to run the software I need.
$220 CPU
$60 SSD
$40 RAM
$20 Wi-Fi card
Genuine copy of Windows
Even if you pulled everything out and put the parts into a new motherboard, you'd be coming out ahead. Not sure if the Windows license would carry over to a different motherboard, tho.
On a more positive note, both RAM and SSD should be upgradable - I wonder if it comes with a single 16GB stick. If so, you can spend another $35 to double the ram and make this a good productivity machine.
So, you could add a GPU, but you'd need to use a riser cable + bigger PSU to power it. Assuming there's no BIOS weirdness that would prevent such.
EDIT: Although there is room for a 16x PCIe slot on the motherboard, it is not populated. I found this image on the Best Buy site from a user review.
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/s
$400, fast machine. If you just need a gamer, move on please. At least three people have clearly stated this.