Released in 2004, these machines are an "Ultra Small Form Factor" (USFF) desktop PC. Surprisingly these systems have escaped LGA 775 and instead use socket 478; which allows a high performance Northwood to be installed (although that the expense of some instruction sets present on Prescott that may cause a performance hit on certain things). DDR1 (400 Mhz) is also used instead of DDR2; which is actually beneficial as early iterations of DDR2 had latency issues, so you'll get a much faster outcome with low-latency DDR400 memory modules.

These ThinkCentres are some of the least common of the period as most were simply the Small Form Factor variants (which allowed larger heatsinks for the hotter LGA775 Prescotts, and also a bay for floppy diskettes in businesses that needed the legacy support). Developed by IBM Japan for space conservation, they were popular for situations where only a very tiny desktop could fit, but without compromise to the machine itself; requiring that an integrated PSU, full length PCI, and all standard features are still present. Like the IBM T221 which was also developed heavily by IBM Japan, these never saw as much popularity outside of Japan.

To make matters confusing, these miniature ThinkCentres can be referred to as 'A50' or 'S50'-- however there are larger counterparts under the same model-- like the A50p towers for instance.

As usual in IBM fashion, the risercard was chosen over a half-height vertical slot for more practicality (most OEMs will cheap out and won't use a risercard for proper full length cards).

The power supply design is not too dissimilar to designs found in the PS/2 Model 56 and Model 80, as well as the tool-less aspects.

To get the best performance from these machines, install 2 GB of low latency DDR400, and a 3.2 Ghz Northwood (go with the Prescott if you need youtube and other things of that nature). The IBM documentation does not list a 3.4 Ghz Northwood, so I cannot guarantee the PSU or VRM can handle it. If it's like the IntelliStation M Pro 9229, it could potentially fail to power up with the fastest CPU on the platform (9229s will fail to power up after awhile with the QX6800).

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