Lenovo ThinkStation D30 Workstation Review: 16 Cores and 32 Threads Under Your Desk
by Dustin Sklavos on November 15, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Lenovo
- Quadro
- Workstation
- Sandy Bridge E
- Enterprise
- Octalcore
Conclusion: When is a Win Not Really a Win
The Lenovo ThinkStation D30 is definitely, full stop, the fastest desktop workstation I've tested. That's a mantra that's been repeated over and over again in this review but it's essentially correct, on paper and in practice. Whether or not the potentially massive increase in performance is appropriate for you and your business is really going to depend on the workloads you're going to be throwing at it and just how valuable your time is. I know that for independent video houses, every minute is precious, so it often makes sense to just buy the most CPU horsepower you can get your hands on. A configuration like the D30 would be a good fit for those.
For CAD, Maya, and other workstation tasks, the SPECviewperf results come in very handy for figuring out exactly which workloads need what, and how much you can gain from the move to a Quadro 5000, dual octalcore Xeons, or both. Of course, if you're doing mixed workloads that are just going to soak up every last ounce of performance they can get, it's probably a good idea to go big.
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So where does the Lenovo ThinkStation D30 fall in the competitive enterprise landscape? Unfortunately, Lenovo's in the same unenviable boat that HP is in right now, having to compete with an unusually aggressive Dell. Enterprise workstations mean big, big money with high, high margins, but a hungry Dell is making life difficult for organizations that aren't going to be as forward-thinking or agile.
Case in point? Dell's Precision T7600 workstation offers many of the same independent certifications Lenovo's D30 does, but does so with a superior internal layout in terms of serviceability and convenience, can be rackmounted, and comes in at $7,653 for almost the exact same system configuration. That's $3,200 less than Lenovo is charging per unit for a system that's designed to be more serviceable. If you need a bunch of these, Dell will basically give you four better built systems for the cost of three of Lenovo's.
Right now, the fact is that unless you're pretty strictly in bed with Lenovo, there's just no reason to buy the D30 over Dell's Precision T7600. The ThinkStation D30 needs a smarter, cleaner, more serviceable chassis design and it needs to at least hit price parity with Dell. Until then, Lenovo runs the same risk HP is running right now on the desktop workstation side: being an also-ran and losing out to a vastly more hungry competitor.
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theduckofdeath - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
That is really not a clever thing to do, then you can just as well build the whole system yourself, because whenever you silk call the manufacturer for support they definitely will start the conversation with " start by removing all of those parts you bought from someone else, reinstall the whole thing, and then you call us back. Okay?" :-)theduckofdeath - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
*would, not silkHaribol - Monday, November 26, 2012 - link
Honestly that is a rip off. If you shop around on sites like e@GAy etc..you will find a good deal. Why pay retail? I have seen systems for half the price Lenovo.com is selling them for. If you search for D30 you will see numerous systems, check it out if you are interested. And sometimes you can call the sellers and bargain. As long as they make some money they will sell it and it will be 30-50% off lenovo's website. I recently got a D30 and price was 50% cheaper then Lenovo's website. Same warranty and hardware on lenovo's website. The key is using your intelligence and shopping around. Generally regarding the warranty they will tell you to take off everything that didn't come with the system from the factory.Haribol - Monday, November 26, 2012 - link
Honestly that is a rip off. If you shop around on sites like e@GAy etc..you will find a good deal. Why pay retail? I have seen systems for half the price Lenovo.com is selling them for. If you search for D30 you will see numerous systems, check it out if you are interested. And sometimes you can call the sellers and bargain. As long as they make some money they will sell it and it will be 30-50% off lenovo's website. I recently got a D30 and price was 50% cheaper then Lenovo's website. Same warranty and hardware on lenovo's website. The key is using your intelligence and shopping around.Zink - Thursday, November 15, 2012 - link
quiterwei - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
16 cores? 32 threads? Dang.But then I read Johan's article.
Man you just got one-UPPED.
sna2 - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
actually you can make a 80 cores workstation today using 8x10 cores xeons thats 160 threadscheck supermicro X8OBN-F motherboard
and X9QR7-TF
Ozymankos - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
The system tested today is a standalone workstation and not a server to be used in a cluster or a supercomputerTherefore,it is less important to have user-serviceable power supply,as it is likely that this PSU will last for a long time for a single unit
It has 2 octocore processors,with double the processing power of the similar Dell workstation/server
Adn the price is only 50% higher ,so it is a good workstation for most people
mapesdhs - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
Note that absolute CPU clock can have a major impact on Viewperf results, as I found out
when testing a 5GHz 2700K with a Quadro 4000. See:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/viewperf.txt
In many cases it leaves the results given here in the dust (eg. 83.31 for LW, 16.63 for ProE).
The reason is some of the tests are single threaded on the CPU side or so lightly threaded
that a higher clock makes a huge difference. If you want to run ProE, then yes have a good
GPU, but shove it in a consumer machine with a single good oc'd 4-core or 6-core i7 and
it'll run much quicker than one of these OEM workstations. YMMV for other apps/tasks, but
for Viewperf it's interesting how oodles of cores at a lower clock so often loses to just one
4-core i7 at a high clock.
Ian.
sna2 - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
I really cant understand the pricing of workstations ...here is the same exact system self made ...
1- SUPERMICRO X9DA7 (C602 with SAS and dual Lan and usb3 ) : 524$
2-2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W : 2x1800$ : 3600$
3- 8x2G exx Registered : 160$
4- NVIDIA Quadro 5000 2.5GB GDDR5 : 1750$
5- Seagate Savvio 15K.3 300GB : 350$
6- DVD : 50$
7- SeaSonic X-1250 1250W GOLD : 250$
8- Windows 64 pro : 130 $
9- best case 500$ worth
total 7314$
there is no justification whatsoever for 3000$ more !!!