VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Lenovo was letting the press peek under the covers off their top of the line P900 workstation at SIGGRAPH. Recently introduced as part of the new ThinkStation P Series (see press release), it won't be ready to ship until October.
But I already want one.
Engineers, those lucky enough to get a P900, will appreciate the engineering that has gone into the internals workings. While Lenovo offers multiple drive bays, up to 3 high-end NVIDIA graphics cards, support for 3 monitors, Intel Xeon processors and DDR4 memory, even 8 USB 3.0 ports...and a host of other advantages over ordinary PCs, what really sets the P900 apart from other workstations is its innovative air flow management. Whereas ordinary computers may rely on one fan to suck air from the front, with the heat dissipation off the hot zones a hit of miss affair, the P9000 has a "big ass" fan on one side and 2 smaller fans on the other, an effective push-pull arrangement. In between, there is a carefully designed plenum with channels airflow from and over hot spots.
Robert Herman, whose business card declares him a "distinguished designer," is so proud of the plenum that he chose to commemorate the opening launch party with an ice sculpture of its shape and a "P900" punch that cooled itself as it flowed through it. I expect the working model will have no such feature.
Rob Herman of Lenovo demonstrates the cooling effect of the ThinkStation P900 baffle
"Won't that fan be noisy?" I say pointing to what has just been referred to as a "big ass" fan. A large fan will actually run quieter, says Rob without so much as a I-thought-you-were-an-engineer look lets me know that a larger fan can draw the same amount of air at a lower speed. That means less noise.
Also proudly shown was the extent Lenovo has gone tool-less. Red markings and indents over components show where to press and and obliging drives, fans, boards, power supplies -- even the motherboard -- pop right out.
For more information, see Lenovo's product page: https://www.thinkworkstations.com/
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