Desktop workstations from mainstream vendors have been predominantly Intel-based—until now. Lenovo’s ThinkStation P620 (starts at $2,099; $3,314 as tested) is the first to use AMD’s new Ryzen Threadripper Pro line of processors. With a single CPU providing up to 64 processor cores, this full-size tower can outmuscle even dual-CPU workstations for formidable dataset analysis or rendering jobs. Though it is not necessarily less expensive than Lenovo’s Intel-powered ThinkStation P520 or even the dual-CPU ThinkStation P720 and P920 for a comparable number of cores, the P620’s expandability, serviceability, and independent software vendor (ISV) certifications crown it a worthy alternative, especially for applications that work best on a single CPU.
The Latest Core Wars
The ThinkStation P620 is a maverick in the workstation market since it competes with both single- and dual-CPU towers. Its standard processor is the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3945WX, whose 12 cores and 24 threads match those of the Intel Xeon W-2265 offered in the ThinkStation P520, the Dell Precision 5820, and the HP Z4 Tower G4. My review unit carries a 16-core/32-thread Threadripper Pro 3955WX, whose closest Intel rival is the 18-core/36-thread Xeon W-2295, which is also available in those systems.
However, moving up to the 32-core/64-thread Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX changes this Lenovo’s competition to the dual-CPU ThinkStation P720/P920, Dell Precision 7820/7920, and HP Z6/Z8 Tower, as no single Xeon chip offers an equivalent core count. And when configured with the monstrous 64-core/128-thread Threadripper Pro 3995WX, the P620 enters a class of its own since those towers peak at 56 cores and 112 threads (dual 28-core Xeons).
That said, not every workstation buying consideration comes down to core count. The ThinkStation P620’s memory ceiling is 512GB, while the aforementioned dual-CPU workstations can accept 1TB or more. The P620 is also smaller than most dual-CPU towers, so it doesn’t have as much expansion room for storage drives.
I’ll cover more technical considerations in the benchmarks section. Be sure to see our First Tests: AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper Pro article for an overview of the new processor.
Now That’s Some Serious Hardware
The ThinkStation P620 is physically similar to the ThinkStation P520. All steel, it measures a stately 17.3 by 6.5 by 18.1 inches (HWD) and weighs 32 pounds in my review configuration. Carry handles at the front and back make it relatively simple to lug around.
Air intake is provided by a honeycomb grate on the front panel. The workstation’s excellent front-panel connectivity includes four USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (two Type-A and two Type-C) and an audio combo jack. I like that the port labels are backlit when the system is powered on. This review model also has Lenovo’s optional Flex Module, which includes LED diagnostic lights (useful for troubleshooting situations). Other optional extras seen here include a 15-in-1 card reader and a slim tray-loading DVD burner.
Around back, the port selection includes audio jacks (headphone, line-in, line-out), two legacy PS/2 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, four more USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and 10Gbps Ethernet.
Further below, the 5GB Nvidia Quadro P2200 graphics card offers four DisplayPort video output connectors. Lenovo offers numerous add-in cards and networking options, such as an Aquantia 10G Ethernet adapter, a serial port, and onboard Wi-Fi.
Let’s go inside. A pop-out handle allows the left panel to come off. My unit has the optional lock kit for security.
The interior is dominated by the ATX (12-by-9.6-inch) motherboard based on the Ryzen Threadripper Pro-exclusive WRX80 chipset. All major components, including the graphics cards, memory, and storage, can be replaced without tools. Take the motherboard’s two M.2 slots as an example; their heatsink next to the graphics card can be removed and the drives replaced with minimal hassle.
My review unit has a single 512GB solid-state drive. It uses the older PCI Express 3.0 bus, not the newer PCIe 4.0, though Lenovo says it plans to offer the ThinkStation P620 with such drives later in 2020. (The platform does support 4.0.) It is also noteworthy that the ThinkStation P620 runs on Windows 10 Pro instead of the more expensive Windows 10 Pro for Workstations thanks to a license agreement between AMD and Microsoft.
Even the power supply comes out with the push of a lever, allowing it to be swapped in less than a minute. The standard model is rated for a generous 1,000 watts and carries a notable 80 Plus Platinum certification (92% efficiency).
Next to the power supply are the ThinkStation P620’s 3.5-inch drive bays. The system accepts up to four drives, although when ordered with two or fewer (my unit has none), the second two-bay rack isn’t included, limiting expansion to just two drives. Additional storage can be added via PCIe add-in cards or the abovementioned M.2 slots.
Keeping It Cool
This tower’s cooling needs are far from insignificant. The Ryzen Threadripper Pro chips have a whopping 280-watt thermal design power (TDP) rating, over twice that of even high-end consumer desktop processors like the Ryzen 9 5900X. A large dual-fan, twin-tower air cooler keeps things under control, though it’s not necessarily quiet about doing so. The fans in my unit tended to spool up under extended load and become noticeably loud, more so than I expected from a relatively closed tower like this.
The CPU is flanked by eight DDR4-3200 error correcting code (ECC) memory slots, all of which are covered under dedicated coolers as shown above. Also notice the passive heatsinks to the right that provide cooling to essential components on the motherboard.
Unlike the CPU, the Quadro P2200 card in my ThinkStation P620 does not require a lot of cooling. Based on Nvidia’s older GeForce GTX 1060, this single-slot card is powered by just the PCI Express slot since it has a board power rating of only 75 watts. Though capable for basic 3D work, it is ultimately a low-performance GPU choice.
Lenovo lets you configure the ThinkStation P620 with up to four graphics cards, as you’d expect of a workstation in this class. The top choices include the 32GB Quadro GV100 and the 48GB Quadro RTX 8000, both of which are ideally suited for advanced rendering and deep learning. AMD Radeon Pro cards are also available.
Benchmarking With AMD’s Threadripper Pro
Besides the 16-core/32-thread Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3955WX CPU, my $3,314 ThinkStation P620 review unit included 32GB of DDR4-3200 ECC dual-channel memory and a 512GB PCIe 3.0 solid-state drive, as well as the 5GB Quadro P2200 graphics card. It carried a standard three-year on-site warranty.
Its competition as configured comes from single-CPU workstations equipped with the 18-core/36-thread Xeon W-2295. I priced the Dell Precision 5820 at $3,247, the HP Z4 Tower G4 at $4,010, and the ThinkStation P520 at $3,807 on their respective manufacturer websites. Frequent sales and corporate discounts can even out those pricing differences, but it’s safe to say that the ThinkStation P620 offers comparable core-count value.
That holds true even in its higher-end configurations. With other specs unchanged from my review configuration, it commands $5,449 with a 32-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX, compared to $5,207 for a ThinkStation P720 with dual 16-core Xeon Gold 5218 chips. And at $8,981 with the 64-core Threadripper Pro 3995WX, it compares favorably with a Dell Precision 7920 touting dual 28-core Xeon Gold 6238R chips (eight fewer cores) for $8,903.
All told, the ThinkStation P620 isn’t exactly a bargain, but that was never its purpose. Its Ryzen Threadripper Pro chips offer comparable or better performance next to Intel’s best, so there’s no reason that it needs to cost less.
For our performance benchmarks, I compared the ThinkStation P620 to the towers whose basic specifications are listed below.
Minus the dual-CPU Precision 7920, the ThinkStation P620 has the advantage in CPU cores among this lot—the closest is the 14-core Corsair One Pro i200. Though the others greatly outclass my test unit in GPU power, I am not listing a lack of 3D performance as a con among the Lenovo’s pros and cons since it can be configured with almost any professional GPU. Let’s get testing.
Storage, Media, and CPU Tests
Our first test is normally UL’s PCMark 10, a holistic performance suite that simulates different real-world productivity and content creation workflows, but the ThinkStation P620 failed to complete it. That’s not uncommon for a workstation that uses seldom-seen hardware. The system did, however, complete our PCMark 8 storage subtest with a score of 5,068 points, putting its SSD in line with the others’.
Next up is a pair of CPU-crunching tests: Maxon’s Cinebench R15 stresses all available processor cores and threads while rendering a complex image, while in our Handbrake test, we transcode a 12-minute 4K video down to 1080p.
The Cinebench R15 test puts the ThinkStation P620 in its element. The massive disparity between it and the 14-core Corsair is why I used 18-core Intel workstations for pricing comparisons, as the Ryzen Threadripper Pro offers more per-core performance. The tower obviously doesn’t touch the monster Precision 7920, though it would have had no trouble doing so had it been equipped with the 64-core Threadripper Pro 3995WX.
The final test in this section is photo editing. We use an early 2018 release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud to apply 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG image, timing each operation and adding up the totals. This test is not as CPU-focused as Cinebench or Handbrake, bringing the performance of the storage subsystem, memory, and GPU into play.
This test tends to favor Intel chips due to their typically higher clock speeds, though the ThinkStation P620 held its own. It has plenty of performance to handle advanced Photoshop tasks.
Graphics Tests
Our first two benchmarks in this section measure the gaming performance potential of a PC. In UL’s 3DMark, we run the Sky Diver (lightweight, capable of running on integrated graphics) and Fire Strike (more demanding, for high-end gaming PCs) tests, both DirectX 11-based. Unigine Corp.’s Superposition is the other; it uses a different rendering engine to produce a complex 3D scene.
The ThinkStation P620 wasn’t destined to win any of these tests with its modest Quadro P2200 GPU, though again, that is not a fault I am holding against it. The 41fps it managed in Superposition at 1080p resolution indicates a level of 3D horsepower on par with a low-end gaming graphics card as of late 2020.
Workstation-Specific Tests
The first test in our workstation suite is the processor workout POV-Ray 3.7. This test uses ray tracing to render a three-dimensional image. (Note that it doesn’t use the ray tracing features of Nvidia’s RTX-class GPUs, for the systems that have them; this is purely CPU-focused.)
This test scales well on a single CPU, but not two, which is why the ThinkStation P620 beat the Precision 7920. Just because a software application is multithreaded does not mean that it supports multiple CPUs, a point in favor of the P620 since it can achieve such a high core count on a single CPU. Now we’ll move on to Cinebench R15’s OpenGL test, which taps the hardware rendering capabilities of the GPU.
The ThinkStation P620 won in a close race.
Our last, and most workstation-savvy, benchmark is SPECviewperf 13, which renders and rotates wireframe and solid models using real-world viewsets from popular ISV apps. The ThinkStation P620 carries ISV certifications from major vendors; Lenovo publishes a list.
The ThinkStation P620’s numbers are unremarkable, which was expected due to its relatively humble GPU (though the Quadro P2200’s software optimizations pushed it past the GeForce-equipped Corsair in the SolidWorks viewset). Most professional workstations offer only Nvidia Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards, though they can be an unnecessary expense if your software works just as well on a consumer card. (See our Best Desktop Workstations guide for advice on choosing components.)
Giving Workstation Shoppers a Worthy Choice
The Lenovo ThinkStation P620 has few weaknesses next to single-CPU Intel towers such as the company’s own P520. It offers similar expansion, ISV certification, and, at a minimum, the same amount of processing power. When equipped with a 32- or 64-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro, however, it becomes an especially attractive alternative to Intel workstations by offering the same or greater core count from a single CPU.
Though it’s not as expandable as most dual-CPU towers (it tops out at four 3.5-inch drives and eight memory slots), its available options still make it more than able to handle demanding workflows while being competitively priced. A welcome alternative to Intel workstation dominance, the ThinkStation P620 earns an Editors’ Choice award for being so versatile and for bringing much-needed competition to the workstation tower space.
