The Lenovo ThinkStation P900 Workstation Review: Design 101
by Ian Cutress on May 6, 2015 7:00 AM ESTSystem Benchmarks
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system at the wall. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor).
Idle power consumption, compared to some of the other big systems, is actually rather good due to the 1300 W Platinum power supply. Load consumption for a 2P system was also lower than expected, giving 231W for both CPUs between load and idle power results.
Windows 7 POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 7 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.)
As with most 2P systems, POST time is rather long. There is no management IC on this system, but DDR4 training for each socket easily accounts for 20-30 seconds of the POST time.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5
Rightmark:AA indicates how well the sound system is built and isolated from electrical interference (either internally or externally). For this test we connect the Line Out to the Line In using a short six inch 3.5mm to 3.5mm high-quality jack, turn the OS speaker volume to 100%, and run the Rightmark default test suite at 192 kHz, 24-bit. The OS is tuned to 192 kHz/24-bit input and output, and the Line-In volume is adjusted until we have the best RMAA value in the mini-pretest. We look specifically at the Dynamic Range of the audio codec used on board, as well as the Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise.
The ALC662 is a laptop audio codec at best, and as a result the P900 joins the P300 down at the bottom of our charts. The THD+N result is actually not that bad in retrospect.
USB Backup
For this benchmark, we transfer a set size of files from the SSD to the USB drive using DiskBench, which monitors the time taken to transfer. The files transferred are a 1.52 GB set of 2867 files across 320 folders – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second HD videos. In an update to pre-Z87 testing, we also run MaxCPU to load up one of the threads during the test which improves general performance up to 15% by causing all the internal pathways to run at full speed.
USB 2.0 perfromance follows that of our other 9-series testing, while USB 3.0 perfomance for the P900 is similar to the P300.
DPC Latency
Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.
If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.
Normally 2P systems have horrendous DPC Latency numbers, but the P900 does rather well and matches some of our Z87 counterparts. Normally we prefer under 100 microseconds, but ultimately under 200 is a good result also.
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zavrtak - Friday, May 29, 2015 - link
Pro users should have their own backup solution already in place and in most cases those solutions will be network driven anyway. Adding a secondary physical backup drive is literally pointless for professional use. Some self employed hobbyist that runs his business without any it-consulting nor it expertise does not really qualify for "pro user" imho, though I hear since 30 years funny stories about those, and even today they are usually better off with just using apple. ;-)Besides, naturally IBM has nothing to do with a Lenovo system ;-)
LeahLambert - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
thats greatFreakie - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
I'm not hip to this workstation myself. They are betting on IT departments wanting some sort of fancy interior which, at least in my experience, is just not the case. While it may be fun to poke around and see what everything does, it's only neat once and after that it gets old. From looking at these pictures, there are definitely quite a few parts that would need removing (and the need to figure out how to remove) to replace other things. To be honest it's looks like an annoying design for and IT department.In contrast I got to poke around a couple of Dell's latest Precision workstation designs last year (they've had this design for nearly two years now actually) and it looks much easier to service than this Lenovo. This Lenovo simply has too many movable parts to service. We don't care about baffles or fans sliding in and out. We care about opening it up and being able to remove the power supply and only the power supply. Being able to reach all the DIMM slots without having to remove anything else. We really want to be able to take out just the part we want and that's it. Putting things in the way of that just frustrates and complicates. Having everything be obvious and right in front of you for removal is usually what you want.
It's a really cool looking design, and for a personal workstation it does look genuinely interesting but when I can configure a Dell for my AutoCAD guys who need new computers, with the same specs and warranty, for $5,000 less (ordering online too of course) then I'm going to instantly chose the Dell and forget about marketing terms like "baffles" because their department doesn't need $5,000 in marketing and I don't actually NEED fancy internals to do any work that the computer needs in the future. And given that many companies/government agencies bill computers to the account of the department it is going to, not the IT department, then it is sort of the last nail in the coffin for deciding on this purchase and I would imagine that where they will see most of their volume will be small business, not the large entities that bring in large orders.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
I hear you about internals being a pain sometimes. I recently refurbed an old Dell 1-CPU S775 system, it was a nightmare to take apart, whereas a T7500 is much easier to deal with. Good to hear newer Dells are built nicely too, and you're spot on about the cost difference being a deciding factor for most potential buyers; $5K is kinda huge at this level.Ian.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
Btw, their excuse for the online pricing setup reminds me of what SGI used to say about such things, whereas in reality (certainly for SGI back then) it would have been so much better if one could have ordered direct, without going through a reseller who often just ripped people off with huge markups.Ian.
Freakie - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
Oh man I hear you too, those older Dells are such a pain. But the newer ones are definitely better even than the T7500's; the cable routing in the T7500 is a nightmare. If the unit wasn't under warranty anymore I'd just cut the cables when replacing the PSU because I couldn't be bothered cutting my hands up getting them out and then again going in all the crannies.Direct ordering is definitely way better than through partners. Not just the price but the support alone is worth it, especially with Dell. I might not like their consumer stuff too much but managing 500+ computers and their service status/history is actually not too bad with them. It's not easy providing so much support which is why some companies prefer to sell most of their volume through resellers because then it's the reseller's job to provide support, not the manufacturer. And I don't exactly have fond feelings for reseller support.
mfred - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
Their comment about web prices is kind of BS. At least for laptops, they constantly undercut us and we're a partner. I find it somewhat difficult to sell Lenovo because they do sell cheaper on their website than they do in distribution. The cost will be maybe $5 less in disty than what's listed on their website.We do mostly Supermicro/Dell for workstations though, so I can't comment on those prices.
Samus - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
IT departments want support. Lenovo does not equal support.GTVic - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
It doesn't really pay to spend this much time on criticizing based on a picture. Having used Lenovo Thinkstations in the past I can be confident that this is largely a tool free design, everything snaps in and is designed to be fairly easy to service.Samus - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
That's great for Lenovo technicians because real IT departments don't actually service the equipment, it's all done under warranty and once its out of warranty, the equipment is EoL'd and cycled out. No IT department buys equipment based on how easy it is to service. They buy based on support, reliability, and price.