Lenovo ThinkStation P510 Workstation

Description

The Lenovo ThinkStation P510 workstation is very similar to the previous generation Lenovo P500, however, the big change is support for the Intel Xeon E5 v4 processors. This workstation also supports a few more graphics cards than the previous version and offers excellent expandability—in fact, it's a surprisingly powerful system! It's ISV (Independent Software Vendor) certified to work with industry standard software in a variety of fields, and features tool-less replacement and upgrade with red touch points throughout the chassis to indicate removable components.

ISV Certification

ISV is an acronym for Independent Software Vendor. Certification ensures independent software vendor applications are tested. It ensures reliable and consistent performance with the software, hardware, approved accessories, and operating systems. The independent software vendors create software applications designed for specific industries. Industries like engineering, finance, geology, and media to name a few. Some of the software manufacturers included in the certification are Adobe, Autodesk, Geomagic, and Mathworks.

Performance

Intel's C612 chipset supports a single Xeon E5-1600 v4 or Xeon E5-2600 v4 processor. This system will also support a single Xeon E5-1600 v3 or Xeon E5-2600 v3 processor. With the v4 processors you get up to 22 cores, four more than the top of the line v3 version. You also get transfer speeds of up to 2400MHz. Either a 490W or 650W power supply powers the systemand can be easily replaced in seconds without any tools.

Memory

The system features two banks of four memory slots for a total of eight slots. It supports unbuffered (UDIMM) and registered (RDIMM) DDR4 memory modules. Using RDIMM modules, the workstation will support up to 256GB of memory at transfer speeds of up to 2400MHz.

Storage

Storage on this system is really quite impressive. Flex Trays in each internal storage bay can support a 3.5-inch (LFF) drive, a 2.5-inch (SFF) drive or one of each. Two front mounted Flex Bays can be converted to support a single LFF or SFF drive. This brings the total conventional drive support number to ten. Of course you also have the option of installing an M.2 storage devices in one of the six PCie 3.0 slots or in the Flex Adapter slot.

Expansion

The "Flex" features on the Lenovo P510 ThinkStation enable more functionality while preserving the PCIe slots for other uses. The supported Nvidia graphics cards cover a wide spectrum from low-end GPUs to the new Pascal-based Nvidia P6000. There are six PCIe 3.0 slots total with two x16 slots dedicated to graphics. A maximum of two graphics cards can be installed and can support up to eight monitors. The other PCie slots can be used for a number of things. These include HD/RAID controllers, NICs, Thunderbolt, Firewire, WiFi, and the above mentioned M.2 PCIe storage cards.

Management

Lenovo has applications to monitor and optimize your system performance. In addition to management features offered by the OS, the Lenovo Solution Center comes pre-loaded on the P-series workstations and provides alerts of system errors or hardware failures. Lenovo's Performance Tuner helps you get the most out of your ISV certified software. It helps to fine tune hardware and software to maximize power and resources for both single and multi-threaded applications.

Summary

Flexibility is the name of the game with the Lenovo ThinkStation P510 workstation. This system is loaded with components and the potential for a great deal of expansion, and there's plenty of external device capacity thanks to the 12 USB ports.