Jon Peddie Research - a technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm in the graphics industry.

Lenovo’s Thinkpad”-P” Mobile Workstration testing Labs

Posted by Alex Herrera on October 25th 2007 | Comments Closed
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags:

When you think work-stations, the name Lenovo probably isn't the first to jump to mind. But thanks to Lenovo's purchase of IBM's PC line back in '05, Lenovo has by intention or not become the number three provider of workstations worldwide, with sales today dwarfing industry pioneers such as Sun, SGI and IBM.

Lenovo didn't make its entry with a conventional desk-side workstation that has been the foundation of the industry since the early days. IBM excluded its long-time Intellistation (Pro and POWER) workstation lines from the sale to Lenovo, retaining those deskside models, which the company still de-velops within its server division. Rather, Lenovo leapfrogged stalwarts like Sun without a deskside model at all, but with a set of mobile workstations, namely IBM's former ThinkPad -p models.

Mobile workstations the hottest segment in a hot market

The overall workstation market has been a major success story over the past several years, but no segment has been hotter than mobiles. The mobile workstation made its first big splash in 2003, accounting for roughly 101.3 thousand units. IBM delivered a big chunk of that market with the Thinkpad-p series ("p" for professional).

FIGURE 1: Lenovo number two in mobile workstations. (Jon Peddie Research Workstation Report)

Since then, mobiles have experienced tremendous growth, up to 152.7 thousand in Q2'07, representing about 21% of units and 22% of revenue. Once in Lenovo's hands, the ThinkPad -p series shipments mushroomed as the segment Q2CY07 Mobile Workstation Units Share by Vendor took off. Second only to Dell in Q2'07, Lenovo shipped near-ly a third of the branded mobile workstations worldwide, in the process vaulting the company to number three in overall workstation sales. Introduced in July, the T61p is Lenovo's most recent model, with key specs as follows:

• Intel Core 2 Duo, up to model T7700 (2.4GHz with 4 MB L2 and 800 MHz front-side bus).
• Nvidia Quadro FX 570M (G80 based) graphics with up to 256 MB video memory.
• Intel's Santa Rosa platform, with Crestline chipset providing 802.11 a/b/g (n option) and Ultra wideband (UWB) support.
• 5+ hours battery life with optional ThinkPad Ultrabay Slim Li battery.
• Up to 160 GB (5400 rpm) or 100 GB (7200 rpm) storage.
• Up to 15.5" widescreen (1920 x 1200 max).
• CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive standard in the ThinkPad Ultrabay Slim. • Magnesium rollcage.
• 1.1" (thinnest) and 4.6 lb. (lightest).
• Starting at $1,814 (at introduction).

FIGURE 2: Lenovo's most recent mobile workstation: the ThinkPad T61p. (Source: JPR)

So you might be thinking, what makes this a mobile work-station? After all, it sports most of the same core components as a high-end corporate-brand notebook. But while it's true that today's mobile workstation borrows most of its hard-ware from the more mainstream notebook market, one key hardware differentiator exists.

Workstation users on the go demand high-performance graphics, optimized for their job-critical applications. Rather than relying on integrated graphics processors like most note-books (and desktops for that matter), the T61p taps Nvidia's recent Quadro FX 570M, paired to either 256 or 128 MB video memory.

While integrated graphics can serve the needs of most corporate users, those stressing their systems with complex 3D visualizations in Maya or PRO/Engineer will value the OpenGL optimized render performance of the 570M.

We ran SPEC's Viewperf 10.0 benchmark on the T61p, and it delivered solid results. But despite the solid numbers, it's worth remembering that they can't match a more ca-pable deskside model, say one outfitted with Nvidia's high-end G80-based Quadro FX 4600. The Quadro FX 570M is built from Nvidia's G86 GPU, which, to meet cost and power goals, offers only about 1/8th of the raw rendering resources of the G80. And that lower render output is reflected in the Quadro FX 4600's significantly higher numbers (but note they are nowhere near 8X the 570M's).

TABLE 1: Viewperf 10.0 benchmarks—the T61p vs. a workstation with high-end graphics. (Source: JPR and SPEC)

That's not a knock on the 570M (or any mobile work-station), as the mobile's power consumption and real estate constraints will always mean a step down in performance compared to what is possible at the desk. So, while the perfor-mance of today's notebooks tempts corporate users to drop their deskside units altogether, sticking with their mobile PC at the desk as well as on the road, the same can't be said for most workstation users. Performance headroom is critical, making the mobile workstation an additional weapon for the high-demand professional on the go, but not as an all-out re-placement at the office.

There's more separating a mobile workstation from a corporate notebook than the list of hardware components. Yes, a high-end corporate-branded notebook can match the T61p's list of components, but what no corporate-issue machine can match is the mobile workstation's ISV certification.

There's more separating a mobile workstation from a corporate notebook than the list of hardware components. Yes, a high-end corporate-branded notebook can match the T61p's list of components, but what no corporate-issue ma-chine can match is the mobile workstation's ISV certifica-tion. Professionals whose productivity relies in large part on the throughput and uptime running applications will feel more secure know-ing Lenovo—in conjunction with partner ISVs—tests and optimizes performance with the most popular workstation-class applications, including Solidworks, Pro/ Engineer, Maya, 3ds max and Catia.

Thinkpad mobile workstations bring new meaning to workstation reliability and security

Beyond the reliability and performance promised through ISV certification, the mobile workstation presents additional challenges that its deskbound counter-parts don't face. For example, deskbound systems are not particularly vulnerable to being knocked out of commission taking a tumble to the floor, but mobile work-stations are. So the Thinkpad T—p series add an Active Protection System to protect the mechanical parts of its disk drives. This system includes integrated accel-erometers which sense sudden changes in the notebook's mo-tion, in anticipation of a fall. Detection signals the controller to temporarily park the head, reducing the chances of drive damage on impact.

And, with respect to security, mobile systems are brought into the public domain, not permanently tied to desks behind the walls and locked doors of the corporate offices. To miti-gate the potential damage due to mobiles being lost, stolen or compromised, the —p series provides the option of enabling an Integrated Fingerprint Reader and Embedded Security Subsystem, replacing username and password with a finger swipe. And optional Computrace Complete software (imple-mented in the BIOS) promises to help monitor, protect and recover lost or stolen machines.

FIGURE 3: Just takes a swipe—the T61p's fingerprint reader. (Source: JPR)

We turned on the ThinkPad's Enhanced Security, which ef-fectively exposes a set of tools the user can turn on, including the fingerprint access. Registering a minimum of two finger-prints allows the user to log on without the password. Get-ting a solid fingerprint registered takes a few iterations, as the system wants to make sure the finger swipe results in capture of a solid image, one to match subsequent swipes. All in all, not a big deal, and once registered, the finger swipe worked without a problem, albeit with an occasional second swipe neces-sary when swiping a bit too hastily the first time.

What do we think?

From a performance standpoint, this machine does way more than this author is going to ever need. But, then again, most of my time is spent with Microsoft Office, email and the web. And for that, the T61p is overkill, at least with respect to performance. Don't get me wrong, I'd never complain about having that per-formance headroom or the visual qual-ity of 1920x1200 resolution displayed on the T61p's 15.5" widescreen. But if the dollars are coming out of my pocket, I'd likely opt for a less expensive notebook.

But the T61p wasn't built for me. It was built to meet the same compute and graphics-intensive demands that select pro-fessionals place on their high-performance deskside worksta-tions. From that perspective, the T61p certainly shouldn't dis-appoint its target customers.

Perhaps the only area that might raise a quibble among a few prospective buyers is in Lenovo's choice of Nvidia's graph-ics options. Nvidia derived the Quadro FX 570M from the G86 GPU, itself a stripped down version of the company's flagship G80, which drives the highest-end gamer and work-station cards. The full-fledged G80 has 8X the resources of the 570M. Realistically speaking though, the G80 is no choice for a notebook, workstation or otherwise given with size and power consumption.

Yet Lenovo could have chosen the 570M's big brother, the 1600M. The 1600M is based on the also-cost-reduced G84 and offers twice the stream processing resources as the G86 for higher render throughput (dependent on application and render load). Nevertheless, the 570M's price/performance is excellent and should satisfy all but the most discriminating high-demand user. Dell offers the 1600M as an option for its top-of-the-line Precision M6300 mobile workstation. Without its own 1600M option, Lenovo may miss out on a few sales.

Though the T61p is billed as a mobile workstation, we don't doubt there will be plenty of lower-demand corporate users buying the T61p anyway. Even if they don't need the ad-ditional performance, many users will appreciate features such as security and uptime.

Plus, there's the bling factor. Like iPhones, notebooks can be as much about image and status as they are about comput-ing. And a mobile workstation like the T61p brings a bit more glitz to the conference table than the standard corporate-issue notebook would.—AH

Though the T61p is billed as a mobile workstation, we don't doubt there will be plenty of lower-demand corporate users buying it anyway. Even if they don't need the additional performance, many users will appreciate features such as security and uptime.