Lenovo Launches New P50 And P70 Mobile Workstations With First Mobile Xeon Chips
by Brett Howse on August 10, 2015 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- Xeon
- Quadro
- Workstations
Today at the SIGGRAPH 2015 Conference and Exhibition, Lenovo unveiled some new mobile workstations. The new ThinkPad P series are aimed at high-end professionals who need a lot of compute on the go. There are two models, with the P50 being a 15.6-inch version, which is a follow-on to the W541. The larger P70 features a 17.3-inch display. Both can pack some serious specifications under the hood, starting with the processor.
Both models will feature a new processor from Intel, which is going to be the first official mobile version of their Xeon line. Intel has not released much information yet, but the Intel Xeon E3-1500M v5 is going to be powering these workstations from Lenovo. While we don’t have exact frequencies yet, the v5 version is going to be based on the just released Skylake architecture, which brings a lot of new technology to the plate. Lenovo will offer the new P series with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, arranged in 4 SODIMM slots. One of the reasons to use Xeon is that it supports ECC memory, and these workstations leverage that for the workloads they will be expected to run Also part of the new Xeon will be Thunderbolt 3, and both models have this connectivity. We're not sure yet if Thunderbolt is built into the Xeons, or if something like the Aipine Ridge as an IO controller for this.
On the GPU side, Lenovo has included a Quadro card, however the exact model is not known yet.
There is also up to 1 TB of PCIe SSD storage available, and up to a 2 TB hard drive. In addition to the Thunderbolt, there will also be HDMI 1.4, mini DisplayPort 1.2, ExpressCard, SDXC, and of course what workstation would not have Gigabit Ethernet, so the P Series has this as well.
Wireless is a new card from Intel as well, with the Intel 8260 card which is an 802.11ac model, and Lenovo will be offering it with Bluetooth 4.1 and vPro as well. For those that need connectivity on the go, Lenovo is offering a Sierra EM7445 LTE-A option as well.
| Lenovo P Series Mobile Workstations | ||||||
| P50 | P70 | |||||
| CPU | Intel Xeon E3 1500M v5 Quad-core Skylake ~47W TDP |
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| GPU | NVIDIA Quadro Model number unknown |
|||||
| Memory | Up to 64 GB DDR4-2133 ECC | |||||
| Storage | Up to 1TB PCIe SSD Up to 2TB HDD |
|||||
| Display | 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS w/optional touch Optional 3840x2160 IPS X-Rite Pantone Color Correction |
17.3" 1920x1080 IPS w/optional touch Optional 3840x2160 IPS X-Rite Pantone Color Correction |
||||
| Ports | USB 3.0 x 4 Mini DP 1.2 HDMI 1.4 Thunderbolt 3 Docking Connector Smart Card Reader ExpressCard SDXC Headset |
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| Networking | Intel 8260 Wireless-AC 802.11ac WiFi Bluetooth 4.11 Optional vPro Gigabit Ethernet Sierra EM7445 4G LTE-A |
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| Dimensions | H: 0.96-1.02" (24.5-25.9 mm) W: 14.86" (377.4 mm) D: 9.93" (252.3 mm) |
H: 1.17-1.2" (29.9-31.5 mm) W: 16.4" (416 mm) D: 10.8" (275.5 mm) |
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| Weight | Starting at 5.6 lbs (2.5kg) | Starting at 7.6 lbs (3.4 kg) | ||||
| Battery Life | 4 Cell 66 Whr Optional 6 Cell 90 Whr |
8 Cell 96 WHr | ||||
| Price | $1599+ | $1999+ | ||||
Other than the larger display, the P70 can also be had with a DVD-RW drive, but hopefully but the time it launches they will at least offer Blu-ray as an option.
Speaking of the displays, Lenovo has packed some pretty impressive sounding displays into both models. The P series will offer a 1920x1080p as the base, with optional touch, and there is also a UHD 3840x2160 IPS offering as well. All of the panels are IPS models, and Lenovo has turned to X-Rite to offer Pantone color calibration out of the box, and over the lifetime of the device.
The P series can be had with a good choice of operating systems too, from Windows 10 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro, or downgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional. If you need Linux for your workstation, they will also be offering Ubuntu and RHEL.
These MIL-SPEC tested and ISV Certified professional workstations will be available in Q4 2015 with the P50 starting at $1599, and the P70 starting at $1999.
Source: Lenovo
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Gc - Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - link
What is the significance of the battery cell count?Different batteries have different cell capacity.
66 W h / 4 cells = 16.5 W h / cell
90 W h / 6 cells = 15 W h / cell
96 W h / 8 cells = 12 W h / cell
Including the cell count seems irrelevant and potentially confusing.
The only relevance I can think of is maybe lower cell count for similar W h means less packaging weight, but battery mass could be a clearer indicator of energy / mass efficiency.
merikafyeah - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I'm assuming that 1 TB PCIe SSD is NVMe enabled?AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Look at all that extra screen bezel. What a waste! When will laptop companies start asking LG for non-16:9 panels??? The year 2025?Zan Lynx - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Forget asking for the taller screen. It's 4K! Hold your head closer and imagine the edges aren't there. You can get a ridiculous amount of text on a 4K display and still read it. I have a Dell m3800 with 4K and I know.What I do sometimes is lean back in my recliner, rest the laptop on my chest about 8" from my eyes and type with chicken wing arms. Works great.
boeush - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Works great until your eyes give out, and you're stuck for life wearing beer bottle glasses. Healthy distance between screen and eye is about 40 cm minimum (that's ~16" for the metrically impaired.) Anything closer and you are setting yourself up for chronic near-sightedness. Your optometrist will love you.So yeah, either that, or strap a pair of binoculars to your face, or actually use screens large enough that you don't need to scrape them with your nose in order to read non-jumbo sized text.
nerd1 - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
I am still sure my clevo with 4790K desktop CPU will be much faster than this. EEC rams are way overrated IMO, and for serious number crunching mobile quadro is a joke anyway (you need BEEFY desktop GPUs with proper cooling for GPGPU)Only thing that's interesting is the 17" 4K panel - we have never seen such a thing so far. I wonder where I can source such a panel?
milkod2001 - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
Your Cleve with 4790K might be 50-70% faster while weights 2-3 times more. This is not to replace proper desktop workstations, this is for light workstation works on the go.ghost2015 - Sunday, November 1, 2015 - link
I will be ordering a P50, the specs look great! I still have a T60, it is working flawlesly. I had to replace a battery and display. I will have to retire my W530 which is running great, but I need more horse power and I intend to keep the machine as long as the legendary T60.ghost2015 - Sunday, November 1, 2015 - link
I've noticed that a DVD/optical drive is not mentioned... I guess I will have to play movies out of my 128GB flash drive. hmmmmfred-tech - Tuesday, November 17, 2015 - link
I've been looking and found a site that's selling both P50 & P70.....it shows the DVD is only available for the P70 - https://www.thinklogic.co.uk/p_series