Lenovo thinkstation/nice server/workstation

[aloe]

Lenovo ThinkStation P520 Workstation 1X 3.70GHz W-2135 16GB RAM No GPU/ HDD/ OS | eBay

Lenovo ThinkStation P520 Workstation 1X 3.70GHz W-2135 16GB RAM No GPU/ HDD/ OS.

www.ebay.com

Wishing I hadn't dropped money on an lga1150 platform. Could had this for $50 more. Wonder what they'll accept for BO?

 

[Samir]

5 available as of this post.

 

[mjdillon]

it was 3 when I looked six hours ago. So this vendor is just dripping these onto the listing as they sell.

 

[Samir]

1 to go!

 

[foureight84]

1 to go!

it's 5 now

 

[aij]

5 available / 177 sold

Not sure if a P520 is a step up or down from a Dell T7810, which I already have as a spare... I'd be much more interested in a P620.

 

[richard.dzavoronok]

How can I get this to EU for "not $400 shipping"?

 

[OstJoker]

How can I get this do EU for "not $400 shipping"?

Use mail forwarding company. Recently I shipped tower PC via "Meest shopping" by see from USA to Ukraine. 20$ and 28 days of waiting.

 

[spicysnow]

Use mail forwarding company. Recently I shipped tower PC via "Meest shopping" by see from USA to Ukraine. 20$ and 28 days of waiting.

How come it is so cheap shipping such heavy items to ukraine ? Forwarders from lithuania would charge half of 400$ if not more...

 

[Cruzader]

How come it is so cheap shipping such heavy items to ukraine ? Forwarders from lithuania would charge half of 400$ if not more...

You are probably comparing expensive air freight to cheap sea/road freight.

When im forwarding US->Norway for a heavy/bulky server it tends to be 150-200$ Air and 40-50$ by sea.
While standard UPS type stuff is 400-600$.

 

[spicysnow]

You are probably comparing expensive air freight to cheap sea/road freight.

When im forwarding US->Norway for a heavy/bulky server it tends to be 150-200$ Air and 40-50$ by sea.
While standard UPS type stuff is 400-600$.

Eh, perhaps you know any forwarder that would ship internationally with cheaper options :? as every forwarder in my country supports only air and charges arm and a leg.

 

[Auggie]

I bought 2 of these barebones with xeon w-2135 for use as AI servers. These seemed to be a good choice as I needed pcie lanes and memory capacity as opposed to gen4 speeds or multi-thread cpu speed. One arrived a bit damaged, the other in excellent shape.

A few key points:

• These systems require ECC r-dimms, will not boot with desktop ddr4 u-dimms, at least none of the ones I had one hand.
• Memory system is 4 channel, 8 slots. Speeds go to 2666.
• Power supply and connectors are proprietary, with 2 6+2 cpu leads coming off of the motherboard. To run higher power gpus, adapter cables are needed. Lenovo specs these systems for running up to dual a6000s with a special power lead setup.
• Power supplies are 690w, 900w, 1000w. Mine came with 900w.
• There are 2 x16 pcie slots, 1 x8, 2 x4. All pcie 3.0. Spacing is not terrible.
• Networking is the weakest spot, there is one 1 gbit port, that's it. Anything faster requires an aic.
• Single thread performance is faster than epyc 7002/7003, on par with the threadripper pro 3945 or slightly slower than epyc 7f43. Both far more expensive. Total memory bandwidth is lower, however.

If you need pcie lanes and memory capacity and a bit of single thread performance, these are an awesome deal. And there's tons of them on ebay atm. If I were to buy any more, I would probably jump up to the w-2245 for a bit improved single thread performance. I believe everything else about the system stays the same.

 

[rtech]

Its all fine until something breaks then you will have to search for their proprietary spare parts which are expensive as fcuk
And im typing this from Z420 so i know.

Proprietary PSU all spares from ebay will be quite old refurbs not newly made units which in my experience have 2-3 years life remaining in them
Contrast this with newly made PSUs that can last 7 / 10 years
Does the adaptor cable for this exist? If it doesnt no way i would even consider this Workstation

Fans are another pain these workstations typcially use smaller than 120mm fans which can have good airflow but are loud.
I will take 140mm quietness/performance anytime over these smallish fans.

HDD brackets can be missing too depends on seller though.

 

[Samir]

Its all fine until something breaks then you will have to search for their proprietary spare parts which are expensive as fcuk
And im typing this from Z420 so i know.

I have a z420--ime the parts are dirt cheap as I was able to buy an entire case with power supply for $75 shipped to put my motherboard and rest of the stuff in. Also ime, business class workstations are built better than consumer stuff no matter what the warranty is. There are also power supply adapter cables if you want to get them from moddiy.

'Noise' is a subjective thing, and one that does not bother me. You can always rewire fans easily if that's all it is--people do that all the time here for switches so nothing new.

HDD brackets are also very cheap used if you even need them. Drives can just sit in bays ime.

 

[ghost792]

Its all fine until something breaks then you will have to search for their proprietary spare parts which are expensive as fcuk
And im typing this from Z420 so i know.

Proprietary PSU all spares from ebay will be quite old refurbs not newly made units which in my experience have 2-3 years life remaining in them
Contrast this with newly made PSUs that can last 7 / 10 years
Does the adaptor cable for this exist? If it doesnt no way i would even consider this Workstation

Fans are another pain these workstations typcially use smaller than 120mm fans which can have good airflow but are loud.
I will take 140mm quietness/performance anytime over these smallish fans.

HDD brackets can be missing too depends on seller though.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

The P520 is still a current offering from Lenovo, so you can get things like brand new PSUs straight from them if needed. The 900W unit is about $270 from Lenovo. That's not terrible for a 92% workstation unit. The PSU is a modular unit that slots into the case and connects via a special connector. You couldn't replace it with a standard ATX unit.

The HDD sleds are special, also. They are the same on the P520 and P620, not sure about compatibility with other Lenovo workstations. They are handy, though, because they convert to support both 3.5" and 2.5" form factor drives with no adapters needed. Note, most of these workstations come with only 2 HDD bays. There is an add-on part to add two more bays, but it' was hard to find. I ordered one from Lenovo and it took weeks to ship. That may have changed and the price is cheap (~$32).

The P520 has great airflow because the front of the case is mostly a plastic mesh. My P520 is no louder than the 2012 Mac Pro it replaced and its probably quieter.

 

[rtech]

I have a z420--ime the parts are dirt cheap as I was able to buy an entire case with power supply for $75 shipped to put my motherboard and rest of the stuff in. Also ime, business class workstations are built better than consumer stuff no matter what the warranty is. There are also power supply adapter cables if you want to get them from moddiy.

'Noise' is a subjective thing, and one that does not bother me. You can always rewire fans easily if that's all it is--people do that all the time here for switches so nothing new.

HDD brackets are also very cheap used if you even need them. Drives can just sit in bays ime.

Prices do depend on location in EU you might not get the same deal as in USA
You are comparing apples to oranges barebones is of course cheaper then sum of spare parts purchased seprately
For 75 you still got old PSU IMO it is really unwise to skimp on PSU

Shame that P520 doesnt have separate intake fan for CPU so greedy LENOVO skimping of everything tsk tsk tsk.
Mesh doesnt matter as much as components really need that flow of air which only can be provided by fans especially if they are bunched up.
Exhaust is still limited to that 80mm? fan...

270 for 900W PSU really cute LENOVO there is reason why these proprietary workstations are this cheap.

 

[Samir]

Prices do depend on location in EU you might not get the same deal as in USA
You are comparing apples to oranges barebones is of course cheaper then sum of spare parts purchased seprately
For 75 you still got old PSU IMO it is really unwise to skimp on PSU

Shame that P520 doesnt have separate intake fan for CPU so greedy LENOVO skimping of everything tsk tsk tsk.
Mesh doesnt matter as much as components really need that flow of air which only can be provided by fans especially if they are bunched up.
Exhaust is still limited to that 80mm? fan...

270 for 900W PSU really cute LENOVO there is reason why these proprietary workstations are this cheap.

True that regions outside of the USA may be different, but ime it's just the currency difference as most machines have a 'worldwide' design.

No, it's almost never cheaper with branded systems for separate parts to be cheaper separately. I just knew someone getting rid of a z420 so I got everything but the case for the cost of shipping and then got the case.

Like I said, branded power supplies are far better than anything in the consumer realm. That system has been on 24x7 since I bought it years ago and is in a room that's currently 86F. No issues. And this is after I loaded it up with 256GB of ram too.

You think the 'gaming' crowd does any real temperature or flow testing on their cases? The designs you are referring to are just consumer junk. Idiot designs like sticking a fan out every end without understanding what they're even doing. This is STH where we build by design, not for 'street cred', gamer lights, or other such nonsense. For some reason you're stuck on mm of a fan--size envy? These used workstations have already done a 'tour of duty' of at least 3 years since they are used, and are still running and ready for more. Most consumer, gamer, whatever crap systems don't even live this long without failing.

That's for a new power supply. I expect the used price to be less than 1/2 that. The point was that new parts are still available.

 

[klui]

I have a Z600 and Z620 and while I really like the design I don't like the custom PSUs. I never had a problem with them but in case they fail I'm left with getting the custom unit from HP on the used market. The trays are custom as well but that's the price one pays for higher-tier workstation-class PCs. One day the trays will fail since they're plastic.

I received a barebones P920 several weeks ago and am allocating the time to complete setting it up.

 

[rtech]

True that regions outside of the USA may be different, but ime it's just the currency difference as most machines have a 'worldwide' design.

No, it's almost never cheaper with branded systems for separate parts to be cheaper separately. I just knew someone getting rid of a z420 so I got everything but the case for the cost of shipping and then got the case.

Like I said, branded power supplies are far better than anything in the consumer realm. That system has been on 24x7 since I bought it years ago and is in a room that's currently 86F. No issues. And this is after I loaded it up with 256GB of ram too.

You think the 'gaming' crowd does any real temperature or flow testing on their cases? The designs you are referring to are just consumer junk. Idiot designs like sticking a fan out every end without understanding what they're even doing. This is STH where we build by design, not for 'street cred', gamer lights, or other such nonsense. For some reason you're stuck on mm of a fan--size envy? These used workstations have already done a 'tour of duty' of at least 3 years since they are used, and are still running and ready for more. Most consumer, gamer, whatever crap systems don't even live this long without failing.

That's for a new power supply. I expect the used price to be less than 1/2 that. The point was that new parts are still available.

Dude i own Z420 so i know its thermal design is terrible(didnt held up to TDP increases of GPU) and no amount faith in big brand proprietary workstations is going to convince me othervise.

Best design is rack-like cooling:
Push fan-wall and exhaust-pull is best design everything else is just compromise or cost saving so you decide go with proprietary skimped design or get modern "gaming" case or put your rack case with fan wall.
Modern gaming cases have similar fan cooling arragement as servers why would that be?

But this is about P520 for 180USD with just 2 fans should be ok....
If would choose i would go for better cooling/silence anytime.. let viewers decide...

 

[ghost792]

This is STH where we build by design, not for 'street cred', gamer lights, or other such nonsense. For some reason you're stuck on mm of a fan--size envy?

Oh, no. I put an RTX 3060 with RGB in my P520. I have the RGB set to white to match the look of the stock lighting on the front panel labels. I think it adds a nice bit of ambiance. Do I have to delete my STH account now? ;-)