Lenovo Expands ThinkStation Portfolio With New P Series

Lenovo has refreshed its work station range with three new Intel Xeon-powered entries in the ThinkStation P series.

The Chinese PC manufacturer says the ThinkStation P900, P700 and P500 workstations have been “rebuilt from the ground up” and complement its entry-level ThinkStation P300, which was released in May. The company is touting the “clean and modular” design of these new workstations, so that components can be easily swopped in and out for upgrade purposes, without the need for a single tool.

New Workstations

“After a period of intensive research, development and testing, we’re excited to introduce our next generation workstations to the market, as we truly believe this is the best designed workstation ever,” says Victor Rios, vice president and general manager, Workstation, Lenovo. “We built on the advancements delivered in our 30 Series workstations and engineered the P Series with new levels of innovation based on extensive customer feedback.”

But it’s perhaps the fact that the new workstations features Intel’s next generation Haswell-E Xeon processor, that is likely to grab the headlines. The P500 for example supports a single Intel Xeon processor, but the P700 and P900 will both boast a dual processor.

And Lenovo has not ignored the graphics side, as the workstations comes with the latest NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards to allow users to test the limits of advanced rendering and simulation. The ThinkStation P900 for example supports up to three NVIDIA Quadro K6000 graphic cards and up to 14 storage devices.

“We want our customers to know that we listened to their demands for a higher-performing, more reliable and more usable workstation, and our ThinkStation P Series represents our response to those demands,” adds Rob Herman, director, Worldwide Workstation Product and Vertical Marketing, Lenovo. “We’ve partnered with the best technology makers in the world and engineered these new workstations to be more intuitive, flexible and powerful than any workstation technology available, regardless of the level of user.”

Branching Out

Lenovo has also focused on heat with the new workstations, and has incorporated advanced thermal management into the machines. The ThinkStation P Series utilises a patented tri-channel architecture, which results in “superior cooling of key components.” There is also an air baffle that works to draw cool air through the machine.

“Through a one-of-a-kind, fan-less, multi-channel air baffle, the redesigned system draws in maximum airflow, directing cool air straight to critical system components. Warm air is forced out the back without ever touching other components along the way,” explains the company.

The company plans to make the new Lenovo ThinkStation P Series workstations available from the Autumn.

Lenovo has been branching out from its PC heritage recently. The company famously acquired IBM’s x86 server business, despite US concern about allowing Chinese access to American government servers if Lenovo buys IBM’s server business. Last month it was reported that Lenovo is exploring the wearable market, with it developing a rival to Google Glass. It has shown a prototype of its own smart glasses product, and also launched a product with a partner, Vuzix.

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