More cores, more graphics cards and more power are among the reasons engineers should check out Lenovo’s new Ryzen-powered, rack-ready desktop.
When chipmaker AMD announced its next generation of processors last month, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 WX series, workstation makers were quick to follow with their latest AMD-based systems. Dell launched the Precision 7875 Tower. HP put forth the Z6 G5 A desktop workstation. Boxx dropped the Apexx T4 Pro. Of the major computer makers, there was one notable holdout: Lenovo.
But now Lenovo has entered the chat. Today at Autodesk University in Las Vegas, Lenovo announced the new ThinkStation P8 desktop workstation powered by the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 chips. A successor to Lenovo’s previous AMD workstation, the ThinkStation P620, the new desktop is a substantial upgrade in more ways than the next-gen CPUs.
To learn more about the new AMD workstation and what it can offer engineers, engineering.com spoke with Jenni Ramsay, senior product manager at Lenovo. Demoing the new system, she explained the many ways the ThinkStation P8 will appeal to AMD fans—and perhaps even win over some Intel converts.
Lenovo’s AMD evolution
Ramsay is proud to have overseen the launch of the ThinkStation P620 in 2020, which broke ground as the first professional workstation to use AMD’s then-new Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors.
“Because it was the first to market, we wanted to make sure that… we were continuously getting [customer] feedback,” Ramsay says. Those three years of feedback fed into the design of the new ThinkStation P8.
The biggest request? More power, and the P8 delivers. While the P860 had a 1000-watt power supply unit, the P8 provides 1400 watts. That extra juice can handle the more powerful processors of the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7000 WX series, the kingpin of which has 96 cores. The ThinkStation P8 can also pack up to three of the most powerful Nvidia graphics cards available, the Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada with 48GB of VRAM, or up to four of the slightly scrawnier Nvidia RTX A4000 graphics cards, with 16GB of VRAM apiece. It also supports AMD Radeon Pro W7000 series graphics cards.
To accommodate all that extra heat, the ThinkStation P8 has a slightly bigger 39-liter chassis (compared to the P620’s 33 liters) with what Ramsay describes as “a thermally optimized design.” It’s essentially the same chassis as the ThinkStation P7, one of three desktops Lenovo co-designed with luxury car maker Aston Martin. “The thermals on this are much better. We’re pulling in a lot more air,” Ramsay says.
Beyond the ThinkStation P8’s powerful new processors, it doesn’t skimp on the rest of the specs. The workstation has seven PCIe expansion slots (six of which are PCIe Gen 5) and up to nine total storage drives with a total capacity of 52TB. It can include up to 1TB of DDR5 memory at 4800MHz.
Another point of customer feedback that Ramsay says shaped the new workstation was a desire for flexibility in the hybrid working world. The ThinkStation P8 is a sleek tower workstation on its narrow base, but turn it on its side and it’s rack-ready server replete with a sliding rail kit. Ramsay says that Lenovo will even be introducing a baseboard management controller (BMC) add-in card in early 2024 that will allow users to manage rack-mounted P8s remotely.
“We have a lot of customers that will put them at a desk with an engineer or designer,” Ramsay says. “But we wanted to make sure that at least they were rack-optimized so if that’s going to be the solution for the customer, it’s going to be as easy as possible.”
Why should engineers use an AMD workstation?
AMD has only been in the pro workstation space for a few years, but Ramsay considers the experiment a success. Customers continue to be interested in AMD workstations and with their feedback, Lenovo is confident the systems will continue to enhance engineering workflows.
“I think AMD has done a really good job working with ISVs [independent software vendors] and getting their platforms certified and making tweaks to get the best performance possible from some of the software that the ISVs are offering,” Ramsay says. On its website, AMD highlights performance speedups in engineering applications including Dassault Systèmes’ Catia and Solidworks, PTC Creo and Luxion Keyshot.
“Architects, engineers, visual artists and AI model developers will relish the power, flexibility and reliability that ThinkStation P8 with AMD delivers,” said Jason Banta, corporate vice president and general manager of OEM PCs for AMD, in Lenovo’s press release announcing the P8.
Availability and pricing of the ThinkStation P8
Ramsay was unable to share pricing details for the ThinkStation P8 during our demo, but she says that an early order window will open in December for customers to configure and quote their systems. The workstations will begin shipping on January 26, 2023.
“We’re just really excited to be continuing this awesome partnership with AMD and bringing you a brand new platform, new and improved,” Ramsay says.
