Lenovo Thinkstation S20

The market for high-end workstations to run Cad/Cam and other demanding applications has long been dominated by the likes of Sun, HP and Dell.

Lenovo, however, is hoping to get a look in with its new Thinkstation S20 which can be fitted with Intel quad-core processors, based on the company’s latest 45nm Nehalem technology.

First impressions are good; the S20 shows its IBM pedigree in the form of an exceptionally sturdy tower casing, tool-free access and a really neat internal layout and plenty of cooling.

The S20 is also very quiet in use, becoming almost eerily silent when idle. Added to which it’s got a lot of green credentials, the S20 conforming to the latest Energy Star specifications as well as being made from over 50 per cent recycled plastic.

A number of different Intel Xeon processors can be specified, mostly quad-core but with the odd dual-core also available if preferred. The review system came with a mid-range E5506, a quad-core chip clocked at 2.13GHz, with an 800MHz DDR3 memory controller and 4MB of cache. For really demanding applications, however, you can specify the 2.53GHz E5540 with a 1066MHz memory controller and 8MB of cache, or the even quicker 3.2GHz W5580 (1333MHz and 8MB).

Fitted with DDR3 memory with 4GB installed on our review system, it occupied two of the available six DIMM sockets. Up to 12GB can be supported altogether and there’s a choice of dual-display video cards led by Nvidia Quadro cards with ATI Firepro if preferred. Moreover it’s possible to fit two adapters in the PCI Express x16 expansion slots provided for this purpose and support for up to four monitors in total.

The storage options are reasonable if a little disappointing, with a choice of 250GB or 500GB Sata hard disks on the base models. Ours had just one 500GB drive (a 7,200rpm Seagate Barracuda) leaving two 3.5in bays for expansion. Raid is more or less a must-have on this type of workstation and there’s support for Level 0,1, and 5 setups on the motherboard, but with a maximum of three internal disks you’re a bit limited and might need to add a plug-in host bus adapter and external drives to beef up this part of the S20 equation.

On the plus side you do get an eSata port for external storage expansion, together with the usual DVD burner plus room and an interface for one other, if needed. A Gigabit Ethernet port is also built-in and there is a set of eight USB 2.0 connectors, a 20-in-1 card reader and comprehensive analogue and digital audio capabilities.

On the software front it’s either Vista or XP, 64-bit implementations of which can be factory installed with minimal “bloatware” beyond backup and security utilities and a trial version of Office 2007.

The keyboard and mouse are nothing special and there’s no monitor unless otherwise ordered. In terms of price it compares well with what the other workstation vendors have to offer and if you’ve deep pockets there’s even a dual-socket version, the Thinkstation D20, which also supports Sas storage. The price includes a 3 year next business day warranty but it’s still quite an expensive buy for a small company with a similar specification available by opting for a more general PC not aimed at this specialist market.