Lenovo ThinkStation P920 Workstation Tower

Description

The chassis on the Lenovo ThinkStation P920 Workstation Tower is very well designed and actually quite large but then you need all that space for the tremendous memory, storage, and GPU support this system offers. You can install up to three high-performance, double-wide GPUs, gobs of storage depending on how you want to outfit the system, and up to 2TB of memory! The other two platforms in Lenovo’s performance workstation family include:

Performance

You can install one or two Intel Xeon Scalable processors from the Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum families up to 205W. Each processor supports six memory channels. For full memory support of 2TB, you will need to install two Intel Xeon Scalable processors with an “M” suffix, as only those will support 1.5TB each. Most of the other Scalable processors only support 768GB, for a total of 1.5TB in a two-processor configuration. Power is provided by an easy to remove and install, hot-swap 1400W PLUS Platinum power supply unit.

Storage

Storage on this system is excessive with the potential for up to 12 storage devices. Storage types supported on this system include SAS and SATA HDDs and SSDs, plus support for dual M.2 NVMe and up to four U.2 SSDs. The M.2 storage devices mount on a proprietary card with integrated heat sink that mounts directly on the motherboard in two dedicated x4 PCIe slots. If you plan on installing more than six drives using two drives per flex tray, then you will need to install an optional MegaRAID controller like the 9440-8i or 9460-16i, both of which offer SATA and SAS support at 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s, respectively

To arrive at 12 internal drives all four internal drive trays are populated with either a single 3.5-inch drive paired with a 2.5-inch drive or dual 2.5-inch drives. Two more drives can be installed in the 5.25-inch media bays with a drive cage for one supporting a single 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drive, and the other in a combo configuration that supports a slimline optical device and a single drive. The last two drives are the M.2 drives that mount directly on the motherboard as described above. However, there are still options for mounting additional storage using M.2 PCIe cards, although that will take up some of those expansion slots. Full RAID is supported for NVMe drives for even better performance and resiliency.

Memory

Registered (RDIMM) and Load-Reduced (LRDIMM) memory modules are supported. Each processor supports eight memory module slots for 16 slots total. LRDIMMs provide the highest capacity at up to 2TB with all 12 memory module slots loaded with 128GB memory modules. With eight slots per processor, four modules will each have their very own memory channel and the other four memory modules will share two channels with two modules per channel.

Expansion

With a single processor there are five PCIe slots available. With both processors installed there are eight active PCIe 3.0 slots available, and that includes five x16 slots. The Lenovo P920 Workstation Tower will support a maximum of three high-performance GPUs including the P6000, up to four Quadro P4000 GPUs, or up to five lower end graphics cards if they do not require more than 75W each. SLI and or NVLInk is supported on certain GPUs for enhanced graphic support. The expansion slots can also be used to support HD/RAID controllers, Teradici PCoIP remote workstation host PCIe cards, and network interface cards (NICs) offering faster connection speeds than the integrated RJ-45 port offering 1GbE. Two optional Thunderbolt ports (USB Type-C) can also be installed in the flex module with one supporting video out.

Management

Intel Active Management Technology 11 (AMT) helps you manage the system remotely through a standard browser on another platform. Remote management can be done whether the system is on or off, and is not dependent on a functioning OS. Lenovo Vantage is a new management program designed to help you get the most out of your workstation and helps you personalize the settings and find serial numbers and BIOS versions. Lenovo Vantage is created for workstations running Windows 10 and helps run device diagnostics. Lastly, the Lenovo Performance Tuner 2.0 (LPT 2.0) offers settings based on your specific configuration to make the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certified applications on your system run as efficiently as possible and is free to download.

Summary

The Lenove ThinkStation P920 Workstation Tower is Lenovo’s most powerful workstation tower and is designed to compete against the top of the line offerings from Dell and HP. All of these top-of-the-line workstations offer four to six times the memory supported on the next most powerful workstation in their class. In other words, the Lenovo P920 workstation, like the Dell 7920 and HP Z8 G4 are not for your run of the mill applications and are meant for applications demanding a very high level of performance like simulation, film editing, oil and gas exploration, virtual reality, engineering, and financial analysis.