The motherboard drawing in the P620 Hardware Maintenance Manual shows a Thunderbolt controller header. I wonder if a Gigabyte Titan Ridge is compatible. Or if Lenovo will offer a Thunderbolt 4 add-in card.
I managed to get the Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge 2.0 Thunderbolt 3 controller working in my P620 Thinkstation for a high-speed Samsung X5 drive. The Thunderbolt header doesn't work yet because there's not yet a BIOS Thunderbolt option (Lenovo are apparently working on that and will bring out a refresh), but you can get round it by shorting a couple of pins on the card's header cable. See:
Yeah. The 12 core model might not benefit much from having all 8 channels filled; but even it would benefit from filling at least 2.
Looking on Newegg the specific type of ram they're using (DDR4-3200 ECC RDIMM) doesn't come in anything smaller than 8gb; although if you're willing to accept slowing down to 2400 4gb modules exist. The 8gb dimms should be the default for 64GB or below configurations. (Not sure about the slower 4gb modules for the bottom of the config chart.) These systems mostly aren't going to be sold to people ordering the minimum ram config because they want to save a few percent off the sticker price by swapping their own in, or are gimping the initial ram load with the intent of adding more in a few months when their cashflow improves.
That’s a nice looking machine and is fairly priced. My only concern is the use of small, high power fans for cooling. It makes sense in rack mounted situations, but this is a large workstation with lots of free space. They should stretch their legs with larger heatsinks or water cooling.
Also, in the conclusion: “ On to that, the system also has a PCIe bracket area that is both tool-less and easy two use”
Unless this is a pun I missed, this should be “to” not “two”.
the case/CPU fans look like full size ones. And while the memory fans are only 40mm, the amount of airflow needed to cool the ram should be low enough that a quiet fan should be sufficient; no need for the eleventeen zillion RPM ones to push >100W each in 1U chassis. The 46db Ian measured at load fits with quiet fans not screamers; if the ram fans were driving the noise profile I would have expected him to say something because they'd have a very different sound than bigger fans do when speeding up.
"you know they are screwing you over if you ever pay retail" That's just it - nobody ever pays the quoted prices on these things. The question is whether you get the "discount" that's for everybody or the one that's for special customers.
Noticed that just behind the bars of Memory is a photo of Rick Astley from his early "Never Gonna Give You Up" days. Could there be a 'hidden' review meaning about this Lenovo Thinkstation P620? As in being "Rick Rolled" if you buy into the whole kahuna?
Nice review, Ian...;) All I can say looking at those options is a person could do much better just starting with the motherboard and putting the system together himself with his own component choices! Reducing an 8-channel capability to dual channel ROOB is a big blooper--should at least be supplying 4 channels with 4x8GB, imo. The motherboard is PCIe4, isn't it? Odd to see the NVMe's restricted to PCIe3. Leaving a boatload of performance on the table, looks like.
I am a bit wary of the 'power supply can easily be replaced' line - it is a very custom power supply, if Lenovo stop making them you're screwed, and it's much more likely that Lenovo would stop making this specific thing than that ATX power supplies become unavailable.
In my experience power supplies are very much the first thing to fail, which is why I'm concerned about this - I've taken to buying second-hand dual-PSU servers and keeping one PSU aside so that I have one spare per system.
Since Lenovo offers extended warranties out to five years for surprisingly low prices, it's reasonable to assume they'll be able to provide compatible replacement PSUs for at least five years past when they stop selling this machine. That's long enough to make this a non-issue in a corporate environment, even if it may hurt the secondhand market for these machines.
People that pay $20,000 for such a workstation will replace it in a couple of years with something better. However good this Threadripper Pro workstation is, five years from now it will be a dog (well, at least compared to another $20,000 workstation). I don't really see this level of performance being enough for more than about 3-4 years, and a well designed power supply will certainly last more than that.
I think I've only had 1 PSU fail in waranty over a dozenish self built PSUs over 20 years. The failure wasn't with the AC-DC hardware but the pins on the modular interface to attach one of one of the PCIe cables getting pushed into the PSU and no longer making contact.
Other than that every PSU I've owned has lasted at least 7 (or more recently 10) years before failing. Most of them were in environments of 24/7 full CPU/GPU loads from distributed computing. Granted I don't buy cheap PSUs (at high continious load gold/platinum models increased efficiency actually does pay for itself over the life of the PSU). OTOH I doubt Lenovo is using low quality units in systems this expensive either.
I asked for the base ThinkStation P620 Tower Workstation (xxxx FH00) and pulled the trigger ... my CC only has a $1,800 limit so Martin at Lenovo RTP hooked me up to the interest-free payment plan. LOL Suckers. HA! (j/k)
Configuration Details ● Processor: AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3945WX Processor (4.0 GHz, up to 4.30 GHz Max Boost, 12 Cores, 24 Threads, 64 MB Cache)
● Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64 ● Memory: 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz RDIMM ECC (2 x 16 GB) ● Hard Drive: 512 GB M.2 Gen 3 PCIe SSD, OPAL
● Form Factor: Tower ● 1000W Fixed 92% Autosensing, 80 PLUS Platinum qualified ● Network Card: Integrated Ethernet ● Key lock: Key Lock Kit w/ Common Key ● Keyboard: USB Traditional - US English ● Pointing Device: USB Optical Mouse ● Memory Card Reader: 15 in 1 Card Reader
● 4Y Premier Support Upgrade from 3Y Onsite
The 4-year support upgrade was a condition of the financing. The onboard 10 GbE is the Marvell AQtion AQN-107. The Quadro® P2200 5GB was a nice bump but no NV link.
The 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz RDIMM ECC (2 x 16 GB) would appear to be the minimum. Didn't leap at the PCIe 4.0 NVMe 'upgrade.' I've used Lenovo keyboards before -- they're solid but maybe a little 'mushy' (not a great typist, anyway)
Grand total: $2,423.18 with NC sales tax, shipped to my door -- gave me an additional $1,000 credit with $100-off on my next purchase.
Very nice. You can customize and add 8 channels of RAM. I've been planning a Threadripper build and their configuration with the recent coupon is pretty reasonably priced compared to a custom build.
I'm hoping a standard modular GPU cable(s) will work!
I'm thinking Rendering/Encoding with GPU compute in Vegas may not need the umphh of that 8-channels of RAM but we shall see. Maybe 4-channel 4x16GB could be a nice compromise.
It may be of benefit using scratch drives in Adobe, but I try to avoid the big "A" for the most part. I'm heading toward a down-clocked RX Vega 56, or even a Fury on AMD Radeon Pro software, depending upon that Quadro P2200.
It’s an excellent machine. Thanks to the 128 PCIe lanes, 4 PCIe root complexes and 8 memory channels, I got over 11M IOPS and 66 GiB/s scanning rate out of it (I used 10x Samsung 980 PRO SSDs with quad PCIe-M.2 adapters) for it.
For anyone interested, here’s an article about it:
My guess on why Lenovo US shipped this review unit with such limited (and limiting) memory (two channels out of eight?!) is this: If the results are (still) good, no harm done, if the results are disappointing, well then, it's because the workstation was hampered by too little memory in too few channels, and nobody who buys a 64 core setup would skimp that badly on memory. It's either this, or the people in charge of marketing these high-end workstations are otherwise selling $ 350 entry-level laptops. And that thought would give me pause when thinking of buying such pricey equipment as the P620. I'd like the people who sell them have at least some idea of what they are selling and to whom.
I wonder why AMD epyc and TR--WS have 120-128 PCIe, when nobody implements it, ever -- perhaps an intel design where there are only 50 lanes with switches would be better from a silicon area perspective. Though I really think that AMD could have made a reference board -- like Intel used to do.
ATX/EATX boards aren't big enough to use all 128 lanes. You could fit 8x cards in a rackmount config. I suspect the max lane count is for high capacity flash storage boxes though. Even after subtracting off a few lanes for multi-gig networking you can cram about 30 x4 SSDs into an Epyc box without any lane contention.
HP's Z workstations have long had many of the design points praised in this review, such as easy PCIe card retention, easy to remove fans, etc. Might be worth a look at them sometime.
I've always been impressed by the engineering of workstations like these, and this is no exception. 33 liters is significantly smaller than my old Fractal Define R4, and this houses a lot more (and more powerful) components while running cooler. It also shows just how great you can make your cooling if you design around it - some 92mm fans and some baffles, and you're able to effectively shunt nearly 600W of power (640W at 92% PSU efficiency = 589W internal power draw, the rest goes out the PSU) out with no issues, and quietly to boot.
Consumer case designers definitely have something to learn here, though of course designing baffled and sectioned-off airflow is difficult when you don't know the socket positioning, CPU cooler used, etc. It's still a great demonstration of the efficiency of targeted design.
I think you are stating that kitting out 8 RDIMM sockets on a Lenovo order is cheaper than buying 3rd party RAM, but Lenovo's Feb-2021 price in the P620 configurator for 16 GB RDIMMs is US$300 per RDIMM which is about 3x higher than the open market. "The list price difference between a 2x16 GB arrangement and an 8x16 GB arrangement if you buy modules from the open market is $600-$1000 depending on where it is sourced. At the rates that Lenovo buys the memory, this is more likely to be nearer $200-$300. So why did Lenovo skimp on the memory for a system that is sold for nearer $20000? I have no idea. But the performance difference is so much more than the 1% price increase of filling it full of memory. This is something I want to report on, because it matters."
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HyperText - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Nice to see AMD in more and more systems!(and we have subtly been rickrolled.)
Jorgp2 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Was going to mention that.YB1064 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I wish there were a 20Gbps USB-C or Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of the 10 Gbps USB-C. Apart from this minor quibble, this is a solid buy.atlr - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
The motherboard drawing in the P620 Hardware Maintenance Manual shows a Thunderbolt controller header. I wonder if a Gigabyte Titan Ridge is compatible. Or if Lenovo will offer a Thunderbolt 4 add-in card.Frontinus - Tuesday, March 2, 2021 - link
I managed to get the Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge 2.0 Thunderbolt 3 controller working in my P620 Thinkstation for a high-speed Samsung X5 drive. The Thunderbolt header doesn't work yet because there's not yet a BIOS Thunderbolt option (Lenovo are apparently working on that and will bring out a refresh), but you can get round it by shorting a couple of pins on the card's header cable.See:
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/thunderbolt-3-with...
DanNeely - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I'm bemused that having decided to include an optical drive, they're only offering DVD and not Blueray.notb - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
Why would you need a Blu-ray reader on a workstation? You have a collection of software on BR disks or what?Aspernari - Saturday, February 27, 2021 - link
Yes, why on a $20,000+ workstation, would you splurge the extra $20 to get a Blu-Ray reader?riccardik - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
single channel in the base model, with threadripper pro... ridiculous, its bad for lenovo to even allow it without any kind of warningDanNeely - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Yeah. The 12 core model might not benefit much from having all 8 channels filled; but even it would benefit from filling at least 2.Looking on Newegg the specific type of ram they're using (DDR4-3200 ECC RDIMM) doesn't come in anything smaller than 8gb; although if you're willing to accept slowing down to 2400 4gb modules exist. The 8gb dimms should be the default for 64GB or below configurations. (Not sure about the slower 4gb modules for the bottom of the config chart.) These systems mostly aren't going to be sold to people ordering the minimum ram config because they want to save a few percent off the sticker price by swapping their own in, or are gimping the initial ram load with the intent of adding more in a few months when their cashflow improves.
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
"If all PCs were like this, the world would be a brighter place."Indeed, feel the same way too. Sheer excellence for once.
pattiobear - Tuesday, March 2, 2021 - link
More engineering and thoughtful design? Sure.Proprietary/nonstandardized parts and connections? Not as much.
willis936 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
That’s a nice looking machine and is fairly priced. My only concern is the use of small, high power fans for cooling. It makes sense in rack mounted situations, but this is a large workstation with lots of free space. They should stretch their legs with larger heatsinks or water cooling.Also, in the conclusion:
“ On to that, the system also has a PCIe bracket area that is both tool-less and easy two use”
Unless this is a pun I missed, this should be “to” not “two”.
DanNeely - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
the case/CPU fans look like full size ones. And while the memory fans are only 40mm, the amount of airflow needed to cool the ram should be low enough that a quiet fan should be sufficient; no need for the eleventeen zillion RPM ones to push >100W each in 1U chassis. The 46db Ian measured at load fits with quiet fans not screamers; if the ram fans were driving the noise profile I would have expected him to say something because they'd have a very different sound than bigger fans do when speeding up.andychow - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
If they are offering a 42% discount on a new system, you know they are screwing you over if you ever pay retail.This is an 8 channel memory system, comes base with 1 stick? They shipped it with 2 sticks? Rather strange marketing descision.
Spunjji - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
"you know they are screwing you over if you ever pay retail"That's just it - nobody ever pays the quoted prices on these things. The question is whether you get the "discount" that's for everybody or the one that's for special customers.
stevielee - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Noticed that just behind the bars of Memory is a photo of Rick Astley from his early "Never Gonna Give You Up" days. Could there be a 'hidden' review meaning about this Lenovo Thinkstation P620? As in being "Rick Rolled" if you buy into the whole kahuna?WaltC - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Nice review, Ian...;) All I can say looking at those options is a person could do much better just starting with the motherboard and putting the system together himself with his own component choices! Reducing an 8-channel capability to dual channel ROOB is a big blooper--should at least be supplying 4 channels with 4x8GB, imo. The motherboard is PCIe4, isn't it? Odd to see the NVMe's restricted to PCIe3. Leaving a boatload of performance on the table, looks like.WaltC - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Meant to say 4x16GB...8GB, even 4-channeled, really isn't even a minimum...;)TomWomack - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I am a bit wary of the 'power supply can easily be replaced' line - it is a very custom power supply, if Lenovo stop making them you're screwed, and it's much more likely that Lenovo would stop making this specific thing than that ATX power supplies become unavailable.In my experience power supplies are very much the first thing to fail, which is why I'm concerned about this - I've taken to buying second-hand dual-PSU servers and keeping one PSU aside so that I have one spare per system.
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Since Lenovo offers extended warranties out to five years for surprisingly low prices, it's reasonable to assume they'll be able to provide compatible replacement PSUs for at least five years past when they stop selling this machine. That's long enough to make this a non-issue in a corporate environment, even if it may hurt the secondhand market for these machines.Calin - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
People that pay $20,000 for such a workstation will replace it in a couple of years with something better. However good this Threadripper Pro workstation is, five years from now it will be a dog (well, at least compared to another $20,000 workstation).I don't really see this level of performance being enough for more than about 3-4 years, and a well designed power supply will certainly last more than that.
DanNeely - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I think I've only had 1 PSU fail in waranty over a dozenish self built PSUs over 20 years. The failure wasn't with the AC-DC hardware but the pins on the modular interface to attach one of one of the PCIe cables getting pushed into the PSU and no longer making contact.Other than that every PSU I've owned has lasted at least 7 (or more recently 10) years before failing. Most of them were in environments of 24/7 full CPU/GPU loads from distributed computing. Granted I don't buy cheap PSUs (at high continious load gold/platinum models increased efficiency actually does pay for itself over the life of the PSU). OTOH I doubt Lenovo is using low quality units in systems this expensive either.
Calin - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
While you might buy very good quality PSUs, in such flagship workstations Lenovo will put only the best power supplies money can buyHul8 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Really appreciate the rickrolling in these recent TR Pro articles. Always brings a smile.Smell This - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I asked for the base ThinkStation P620 Tower Workstation (xxxx FH00) and pulled the trigger ... my CC only has a $1,800 limit so Martin at Lenovo RTP hooked me up to the interest-free payment plan. LOL Suckers. HA! (j/k)
Configuration Details
● Processor: AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3945WX Processor (4.0 GHz, up to 4.30 GHz Max Boost, 12 Cores, 24 Threads, 64 MB Cache)
● Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64
● Memory: 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz RDIMM ECC (2 x 16 GB)
● Hard Drive: 512 GB M.2 Gen 3 PCIe SSD, OPAL
● Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® P2200 5GB
● Optical Drive: DVD-RW
● Form Factor: Tower
● 1000W Fixed 92% Autosensing, 80 PLUS Platinum qualified
● Network Card: Integrated Ethernet
● Key lock: Key Lock Kit w/ Common Key
● Keyboard: USB Traditional - US English
● Pointing Device: USB Optical Mouse
● Memory Card Reader: 15 in 1 Card Reader
● 4Y Premier Support Upgrade from 3Y Onsite
The 4-year support upgrade was a condition of the financing. The onboard 10 GbE is the Marvell AQtion AQN-107. The Quadro® P2200 5GB was a nice bump but no NV link.
The 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz RDIMM ECC (2 x 16 GB) would appear to be the minimum. Didn't leap at the PCIe 4.0 NVMe 'upgrade.' I've used Lenovo keyboards before -- they're solid but maybe a little 'mushy' (not a great typist, anyway)
Grand total: $2,423.18 with NC sales tax, shipped to my door -- gave me an additional $1,000 credit with $100-off on my next purchase.
Smell This - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Link
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/think-workstations/th...
bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
Very nice. You can customize and add 8 channels of RAM. I've been planning a Threadripper build and their configuration with the recent coupon is pretty reasonably priced compared to a custom build.Smell This - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I'm hoping a standard modular GPU cable(s) will work!
I'm thinking Rendering/Encoding with GPU compute in Vegas may not need the umphh of that 8-channels of RAM but we shall see. Maybe 4-channel 4x16GB could be a nice compromise.
It may be of benefit using scratch drives in Adobe, but I try to avoid the big "A" for the most part. I'm heading toward a down-clocked RX Vega 56, or even a Fury on AMD Radeon Pro software, depending upon that Quadro P2200.
TanelPoder - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
It’s an excellent machine. Thanks to the 128 PCIe lanes, 4 PCIe root complexes and 8 memory channels, I got over 11M IOPS and 66 GiB/s scanning rate out of it (I used 10x Samsung 980 PRO SSDs with quad PCIe-M.2 adapters) for it.For anyone interested, here’s an article about it:
https://tanelpoder.com/posts/11m-iops-with-10-ssds...
eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
My guess on why Lenovo US shipped this review unit with such limited (and limiting) memory (two channels out of eight?!) is this: If the results are (still) good, no harm done, if the results are disappointing, well then, it's because the workstation was hampered by too little memory in too few channels, and nobody who buys a 64 core setup would skimp that badly on memory. It's either this, or the people in charge of marketing these high-end workstations are otherwise selling $ 350 entry-level laptops. And that thought would give me pause when thinking of buying such pricey equipment as the P620. I'd like the people who sell them have at least some idea of what they are selling and to whom.tyger11 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I'm waiting for the Zen 3 version of TR Pro for my video workstation.Snowleopard3000 - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
Now only if they can fit all this in a 17 inch Clevo Laptop...drajitshnew - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
I wonder why AMD epyc and TR--WS have 120-128 PCIe, when nobody implements it, ever -- perhaps an intel design where there are only 50 lanes with switches would be better from a silicon area perspective.Though I really think that AMD could have made a reference board -- like Intel used to do.
DanNeely - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
ATX/EATX boards aren't big enough to use all 128 lanes. You could fit 8x cards in a rackmount config. I suspect the max lane count is for high capacity flash storage boxes though. Even after subtracting off a few lanes for multi-gig networking you can cram about 30 x4 SSDs into an Epyc box without any lane contention.drajitshnew - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
I believe there are alternative form factors that would allow that many lanesdrajitshnew - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
that is why I suggest that AMD might make a reference designvegemeister - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
Aren't half the lanes used for talking to the other package in dual-socket systems?phoenix_rizzen - Sunday, February 21, 2021 - link
CPU 1 has 128 lanes.CPU 2 has 128 lanes.
64 from each CPU are used to communicate between them. So 128 lanes for interconnect.
64 from each CPU are available for connecting to peripherals. So 128 lanes.
Whether a single socket or a dual socket, there's 128 lanes available for peripherals.
jabber - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
I'll pick one up in 5 years time for £400...CranPars - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
HP's Z workstations have long had many of the design points praised in this review, such as easy PCIe card retention, easy to remove fans, etc. Might be worth a look at them sometime.Spunjji - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
They're still stuck on 14nm Intel CPUs, though.Spunjji - Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - link
Have to say, I *do* feel let-down by that final image on Page 1.Valantar - Friday, February 19, 2021 - link
I've always been impressed by the engineering of workstations like these, and this is no exception. 33 liters is significantly smaller than my old Fractal Define R4, and this houses a lot more (and more powerful) components while running cooler. It also shows just how great you can make your cooling if you design around it - some 92mm fans and some baffles, and you're able to effectively shunt nearly 600W of power (640W at 92% PSU efficiency = 589W internal power draw, the rest goes out the PSU) out with no issues, and quietly to boot.Consumer case designers definitely have something to learn here, though of course designing baffled and sectioned-off airflow is difficult when you don't know the socket positioning, CPU cooler used, etc. It's still a great demonstration of the efficiency of targeted design.
atlr - Saturday, February 20, 2021 - link
I think you are stating that kitting out 8 RDIMM sockets on a Lenovo order is cheaper than buying 3rd party RAM, but Lenovo's Feb-2021 price in the P620 configurator for 16 GB RDIMMs is US$300 per RDIMM which is about 3x higher than the open market. "The list price difference between a 2x16 GB arrangement and an 8x16 GB arrangement if you buy modules from the open market is $600-$1000 depending on where it is sourced. At the rates that Lenovo buys the memory, this is more likely to be nearer $200-$300. So why did Lenovo skimp on the memory for a system that is sold for nearer $20000? I have no idea. But the performance difference is so much more than the 1% price increase of filling it full of memory. This is something I want to report on, because it matters."atlr - Saturday, February 20, 2021 - link
correction:Lenovo 16GB RDIMM $266
Kingston 16GB RDIMM $107
Lenovo price ~2.5x
Snowleopard3000 - Sunday, February 28, 2021 - link
Let me know when you can fit all this in a Clevo so I can take it from one office to another office in a backpac....