Lenovo ThinkStation PX, P7 and P5 workstations co-designed with Aston Martin

enovo has introduced the ThinkStation P5, P7 and PX (pronounced P10), a trio of desktop workstations powered by Intel’s long-awaited ‘Sapphire Rapids’ CPUs and Nvidia RTX GPUs, including the Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada generation.

The flagship ThinkStation PX is the most expandable of the new machines, featuring dual 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (up to 2 x 60-cores), up to 2 TB of DDR5 memory, and up to four dual-slot GPUs, including the Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada. It is designed to handle the most demanding multi-threaded or multi-GPU workflows such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), ray trace rendering and video editing.

The ThinkStation P7 comes with a choice of workstation-specific Intel Xeon W-3400 Series processors (up to 56-cores). The single socket machine will likely hit the price/performance sweet spot for many visualisation and simulation workflows, especially those that can’t take advantage of more than 56 cores. It can also support up to three dual-slot GPUs

The ThinkStation P5 features Intel Xeon W-2400 Series CPUs (up to 24 cores) and up to two dual-slot GPUs. Lenovo calls the P5 an ‘industry workhorse’ and it looks well suited to a wide range of workflows from CAD and visualisation to simulation and reality modelling.

Aston Martin inspired design

All three workstations feature a new toolless chassis, designed with the help of automaker Aston Martin, who will use the workstations to design and develop its own highperformance vehicles. The chassis features an advanced thermal design, and highlights Lenovo’s trademark red throughout, as Cathal Loughnane, director of partnerships at Aston Martin explains in reference to the ThinkStation PX, “The red is not only the icon or the signature of the Lenovo brand, but it’s also the guide to the machine. For instance, if you need to know how to swap the drives, look for the red. If you need to power on the machine, look for the red. Need to change the fan inside the tower? Look for the red. The ultimate in ergonomics is there is no user manual, and you don’t need one with this new design.”

The ThinkStation PX offers ‘unobstructed airflow’ from front to back, across CPUs, GPUs and memory. This has been made possible by shifting the Power Supply Unit(s) and Hard disk Drives (HDDs) to one side of the chassis. Cool air is drawn in through the ‘3D Hexperf’ front grill by six hot swappable and removable cooling fans.

Rack optimised

The ThinkStation PX and P7 were built from the ground up to be ‘rack optimised’ and offer several features to transform these desktop machines into what Lenovo describes as a ‘hybrid cloud workstation’, with remote management capabilities similar to those found in rack servers.

This includes an optional Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) card that will give IT managers ‘full remote management’. It will enable them to monitor the workstation, cycle on and off, perform BIOS or firmware updates and re-image the machine if necessary. In addition to data centre deployments, this could be of interest to IT managers supporting those working from home.

The machines also feature enhanced on-board diagnostics with a small LCD display on the front that shows a QR code in the event of a system error – even out of band failure states when a machine won’t turn on. The user simply snaps the code with their smart phone, and they will be taken directly to the relevant page on the Lenovo service website.

The ThinkStation PX earns its datacentre credentials from the rack optimised ‘5U’ design. There are built in handles and standard bolt holes hidden under a removable top cover, making it easy to deploy in a standard 19-inch rack with the optional sliding rack rail kit.

For resiliency and redundancy, the machine comes with two rear hotswappable 1,850W power supply units (PSUs), so should one PSU fail, the machine will carry on working. Other features include a rear accessible power button and lockable front access hot swap storage, which includes options for both 3.5-inch Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and SSDs.

■ www.lenovo.com