Workstations are the backbone of most businesses because they are powerful, reliable, and they usually get extra support after the sale. Workstations are also well known for being large and heavy because of all the hardware that is packed inside. However, the Lenovo ThinkStation C20 has all the good stuff, and it is much smaller and lighter than other Workstations.

Features

• Computing muscle. The latest Intel processors, including Intel Xeon CPUs with Turbo Boost Technology, aren’t just fast, they’re designed for intelligent performance and energy efficiency, automatically adjusting based on your usage needs. To amp up responsiveness, we’ve made room for as many as 12 DIMM slots on select workstations.
• Cutting-edge graphics solutions. Select ThinkStation workstations integrate NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics with SLI technology and the Tesla high-performance computing solution. The result? A powerful, versatile solution engineered to meet your high-performance graphics and computing demands.Learn more about professional graphics solutions
• ISV-certified. Lenovo works closely with leading software partners, and ThinkStation workstations have hundreds of independent software vendor (ISV) certifications, ensuring that you have the performance you need to run the world’s most demanding applications.
• More to see. With support for up to a whopping eight monitors at once, ThinkStation C20 and C20x* help you analyze more, create more and earn more—faster.
• Less waiting. Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7 PCs boast significantly faster boot-up and shutdown times as well as hardware and software innovations to help you work more productively.

Design

One thing workstations are not known for is fancy designs, and the Lenovo ThinkStation C20 does not deviate much from the standard box shape with a door on one side. However, this is good because a workstation does not get points for fancy design, it gets points for being able to fit under a desk or in a rack.

The front houses a single DVD drive, power button, 2 USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and an optional IEEE 1394 FireWire port. The rest of the front is taken up by a grill so it looks like this case will not hold anything else. Judging by the orientation of the drive, and ports, this workstation is suppose to be stored on its side, most likely in a rack.

Front

Front Panel

The back has all the normal ports including eSata, SPDIF in and out, 8 USB, 1 Ethernet, and 6 audio ports. In addition, the machine I received also has 2 DisplayPorts, and 1 DVI, these are part of the graphics card.

Back	Back Panel

The left side has the door and it opens to reveal the inside. Inside I immediately noticed the dual CPUs and the memory slots. I found it interesting that the fan for one CPU was facing up and the other was facing sideways. This is probably necessary because of the small case, but I worry that the fan from one CPU will blow heat on the other.

Inside

CPU Fan 2

Below the CPUs are the PCI cards, but they are covered with a small metal panel. The panel is used to keep any PCI cards from slipping loose during shipping, it also hides the cards from view when you open the side panel. The panel is easy enough to remove, and once it’s removed we see the graphics card.

Panel Removed

Below the graphics card is the power supply and hard drives. At first it looks like the hard drives are going to be difficult to replace since they face the power supply. However, after playing around a bit more, I discovered that the front of the case comes off and the hard drives slide out. This is not quite as hard as I thought, but I still had to squeeze my fingers into a tight spot to get the cables connected.

PCI Cards

Hard Drives

Performance

Before I get into the tests, here is a breakdown of the hardware that is included in the ThinkStation C20.

Performance with a Workstation is difficult to determine. It cannot be compared to desktops because they use a different class of hardware. Workstation hardware is more about quality and not quantity, it is tuned to give the best quality even if it has to sacrifice frame rate. Desktop hardware is tuned to put out as much as possible even if it must skip a few frames or even throw out a bad pixel or two. So I cannot rely solely on the normal desktop benchmarks, they favor desktop hardware. Instead I must also use more professional tools. For this I turn to programs like ViewPerf and Cinebench.

Viewperf is a very unique benchmark because it is designed to test the video of a computer without relying at all on the CPU. They did this so that the graphics test would not be slowed down by any CPU processes. This guarantees that the numbers we get from this test will truly represent the full capacity of the video system. Since I don’t have another Workstation to run Viewperf 11 on I can only compare my results to what is on the spec website. As you can see below the scores that were achieved with the ThinkStation C20 are fairly low. I will let you come to your own conclusions, but to me the numbers seem a bit lower then I expected.

Viewperf

Next I move on to Cinebench. This benchmark also tests the graphics card, and it also tests the CPU as well. It does so by rendering a short video, and a large graphic. The graphic is rendered twice, once with just a single thread, and a second time where it is broken up into multiple threads. This is done to get a base measurement, and then to test the full capacity of the CPU. As you can see from the scores below it did reasonably well. It scored slightly less than the HP Z800 I reviewed a couple months ago, but the Z800 also had a slightly faster CPU.

Cinebench

Next I decided to run 3DMark Vantage. I know that this is a consumer desktop benchmark and not designed for Workstations, but since I ran this test on the Z800 and the Z800 also had a Quadro FX 4800 graphics card, it might be an interesting comparison. As you can see below the C20 scored slightly less than the Z800. This is consistent with the Viewperf results and adds validity to the thought that the C20 is just a little slow in the graphics area.

3DMark

Another point of interest in the performance of a machine is the noise level. I am happy to say that the Lenovo ThinkStation C20 was very quiet during all my tests. There were a couple places that the noise level rose slightly, but it was never more than a whisper. However, this is not the case when you first turn it on. When the C20 is first turned on all fans go to 100% for about 10 seconds. During this time they are extremely noisy and may catch you off guard if you are not ready for it.

Warranty and Support

The warranty that comes with the ThinkStation C20 is a 3 Year On-Site Topseller Warranty. This is included with all machines and I could not see a way to upgrade it. As I mentioned above the support you get with a workstation is one of the selling points. Having three years of on-site service is certainly a big help in case any problems are ever encountered.

Just like all the other large computer makers, support comes through phone, email, and website resources, or an on-site technician if the issue cannot be solved any other way.

Conclusion

I appreciate the fact that Lenovo is trying to make the case smaller, but I think the sacrifices in ease of use out weigh the benefits of a smaller case. I think Lenovo could take a few design tips (both inside and out) from the HP Z800 and make a better machine. Despite the shortfalls of the C20 it is still a solid performer, and I am confident it could perform any task it is given. Priced at about $7,800 (as configured) it may seem like a lot to a desktop owners, but this is actually very reasonable for a workstation. As a comparison, the Z800 I reviewed a few months ago would run for over $11,000.

If you’re looking for a good, but inexpensive workstation I suggest you take a look at the Lenovo ThinkStation C20.