Lenovo P53 - Xeon vs i9 - RTX4000 vs RTX5000

Hi everyone

I'm very excited on the new P53. I've been away 3 years from Lenovo, 3 years to long. It should now result in a 6 times faster GPU and about twice the CPU performance - wow!

I was first looking into the new Lenovo P1 Gen 2, as it compares the best to my current Dell Precision 5510. However, I need power over weight/size today, but still a laptop. And it is only offers i7 and T2000 to my knowledge.

I'm moving away from 4K displays, I have to many scaling issues as I dock/undock a lot. Also to much remote desktop and different IT administration needed applications keeps giving me an head egg. I must say though, that the new 1000000:1 contrast ratio on the 4K OLED is sick!!

The models still cant be customized or ordered in Denmark, so I hoped to use the time to figure out the perfect configuration.



http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad P53/ThinkPad_P53_Platform_Specifications.pdf

The RTX5000 has 16GB - and not 6GB GDDR6 as shown above.

They now offer different models in the US.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/P53/p/22WS2WPWP53

The "easy choice" is ALL-IN (Xeon, RTX5000). But it might not be the wisest.

I need a power horse for Photoshop and Premiere. My initial thought was RTX4000 and i9, but maybe the RTX 5000 16 GB memory will raise performance much more? I haven't considered the RTX 3000.
I kinda like the lower CPU speed on the i9 at 2,3GHz "in idle" rather than the Xeon 2,8 GHz. Maybe this give a better battery span. Also, it might just be faster - but does it throttle?





So to sum it up - best setup for Adobe Photoshop and Premiere

• i9-9880H vs Xeon E-2276M
• Does the i9 Throttle?
  
• RTX4000 vs RTX5000 (battery, heat vs actual performance)
  
• Does anyone know the exact model of the 1TB Solid State Drive PCIe-NVME OPAL2.0 M.2

Hope for some input and a good chat about the new P53

 

I would choose i9 with Quadro 4000

 

Please resist being swayed by the Thinkpad allure. I was swayed with the P51 and it turned out to be the worst computer I have ever owned (I've owned computers going back to the Commodore 64). My advice would be to stick with Dell or HP workstations. Go and read through the Lenovo Thinkpad P forum. If you are still set on a Lenovo workstation buy it 6 months to a year after release when most of the BSOD bugs are worked out, hopefully.

There is a review of the pre-production P53 online and, typical of all past P5x series, it throttles heavily. The RTX5000 (max Q) that they tested did not have the performance they expected. They hoped that Lenovo would tweak it before release. Good luck with that.

 

Really? I am hesitant I would like to buy a Thinkpad P53 this BlackFriday. It would be 2000 dollars for intel i9 quadro 4000 4k 500nits screen (If Lenovo discounts like last BlackFriday). I am quite sure p53 is the cheapest in the three mobile workstations.

 

Yeah, that's a sweet deal. If Lenovo support is good in your area just go for it. Let us know how everything works out so others can get an idea about the new series: the more opinions the merrier!

Here is the review on the pre-production P53:

https://www.aecmag.com/hardware-mainmenu-34/1827-exclusive-review-lenovo-thinkpad-p53-pre-production

 

And as always it's worth mentioning that you can run a 4K screen at 1080 resolution instead and have the best of both worlds (4K panels are often better quality). Have done it for many years now.

 

Thank you for the link. I'll dive right into it - I wonder how I missed this review. Thanks!

Before I've had HP W-series and Lenovo T- series like T420s. We have had many different laptops at work, and we have back and forth between HP and Lenovo - mainly based on a price/spec point of view.

Today we're leaning heavily toward Lenovo, and if possible using mechanical Docks over Thunderbolt docks. Guess we have +25 employees on laptops out of +200 employees.

I had a TON of issues with my Dell Precision 5510 for more than 1½ years. I bought it the second it came out, and that was a big mistake .
USB ports, netcard, bluetooth, bsod, touchpad and other issues - and the Dell TB15 dock was swapped after months of use to an updated version. And I've always had to keep an eye on firmware updates for the dock, as this TB dock has been a nightmare. BIOS updated have been released to fix one issues but case something that they previously had been fixed. So my personal experience with this model is very poor. And trust me, I've used day in and day out to try and make it performance somewhat to what the specs should be able to.

As for any monitor it should be run at it's optimal resolution, what it was build for, I would therefore never run a 4k at 1080 but rather use scaling. I know it's a Microsoft scaling issue that ruins the compatibility with so many software's, or well, bad software that don't support proper scaling.

 

I sincerely empathize with what you have gone through. Having a workstation be a source of headaches and frustration after spending thousands of dollars is not cool at all. After the M6xxx/M4xxx series I don't know what on earth is going on with Dell's Precision line. I used the M6xxx series for years and they were rock solid, then the 5xxx/7xxx series came along.... Just reading through the Dell Precision thread on this forum made me switch from Dell. That being said, the problems I read about on the Dell forums paled in comparison to what I experienced and what I read about on the Lenovo P forums. Granted, the Lenovo P workstation forum has calmed down quite a bit now from the screams of irate customers - surely a good sign.

 

Am I the only one who would have loved 10G NIC cards in these machines. With the speed of these machines, the bottleneck is for sure the gigabit network speed. I know it has TB3, but then you would need a TB3 to NIC adapter.

 

A Question

Is this the RTX 5000 (Mobile) or the Max-Q in the Workstation Notebooks.

 

It's my impression that it's the Max-Q. Personally I though it was the same - as the mobile (if such exists).

"Based on the released documentation, those include Nvidia Quadro T1000 and Quadro T2000 GPUs as well as Nvidia RTX 3000, RTX 4000 and RTX 5000 Max-Q options if you choose to upgrade from the integrated UHD Graphics 630."

Curious to see if the RTX 5000 and i9 would become available . Else for me the i9 and RTX 4000 might just be the one for me.

 

The processor will definitely be throttled to the ground by the TDP limit. That was already the case with i7 8850HQ on P52.
If price difference is not huge, go for the RTX 5000

 

In next month they will open up for various configurations. I'm aiming for i9 with RTX5000, as I believe the Xeon to be more expensive - but also the CPU is the one, I want the least (lower single core speed and higher minimum speed).
I saw a configuration chart with prices, cant find it now I believe the price difference was 900$ (maybe 1200$) but that includes the Xeon - which was about 180$ more expensive than i9. If i find it, I'll post it.
I also fear throttle, so I hope the RTX5000 could do better - when the laptop gets to hot, as it "might drop to a RTX4000 performance" - figure speaking.

When my current Dell gets hot - the throttle kills it. So need to raise it from the table - so keep it running smooth (or at least less affected).

 

I found a guy on Reddit, thanks fersknen, who was so kind to run a PassMark Benchmark with his i9/RTX4000 P53, and I must say I’m surprised with the result: https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V9/display.php?id=127918035794

Funny it says Mobile, as I’m pretty sure it’s a Max-Q model.

I really thought the GPU would be 30% slower than RTX 5000, but this one run shows only 3,5%. Wow?!

RTX 4000 in a P53: 14.195 (1 sample)
RTX 5000 Max-Q: 14.700 (1 sample)
RTX 5000 Mobile: 12.878 (14 samples)
RTX 5000: 12.838 (33 samples)

I'm having a hard time believing these numbers, could someone elaborate?

 

No offence but Dell and HP make more shoddy stuff than Lenovo ever did, its hard to trust a company that charges 2000 euros for a laptop with cheap plastic construction and downgrades keyboards and chooses to solder the ram ontop of it whereas Lenovo at least builds their laptops fairly well and then there is HP, we have a nickname for it, Hot PC and its not changed for 20 years, they are still Hot PC.

According to the forums people who bought P53 and P73 are happy with theirs, there are issues of course but to be fair it was not as bad as I expected, some GPU power issues quickly solved by Lenovo through updating their power saving program or simply just removing it, most of the issues seem to stem from their software which arguably all laptop manufacturers these days suffer from, software and bloat.

 

I have used both Dell and HP mobile workstations going on 15 years now: I have no idea what you are talking about.

I described my experience regarding the Lenovo P51.There are a number of unhappy users on the Lenovo Thinkpad P forum regarding the P53. Namely, bent chassis and the GPU getting locked to a low frequency after load. I am happy that your sample works well for you. Spare a thought for others who were not so lucky before attacking someone else's valid experience.

 

Just because some, does not mean all. Likewise with Dell and HP, however Dell and HP are not exactly making the best they can these days, its right to criticise that because I know they can make some amazing laptops if they just want to.

 

Hey guys any additional feedback on the debate of RTX 5000 + Xeon versus RTX 4000 + i9. I am an engineer and my workflow consists of mainly simulations and CAD.

I just bought the Xeon + RTX 5000 and I am wondering if I made the mistake of not going with the i9 and RTX 4000.

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks!

 

I just recently had to repair 100 Precision 7730 laptops and to be perfectly honest they are designed to only be serviced maybe 1-2 times before the plastic breaks. The entire palmrest is held on by plastic clips after removing the screws. Inverted board is also a con in my book for a workstation regardless of make and Dell has been doing this for some time now. The W5530 literally cook themselves to death. Loved the m4600/m6600 even though they have terrible sBIOS, but today they couldnt pay me to use their laptops.

 

Unless you needed the extra VRAM then anything better than RTX 4000 is waste of money and the Xeon for ECC memory only otherwise go with i7 as the i9 throttles like crazy.
In fact even the RTX 4000 throttles under heavy loads to the point its just barely better than RTX 3000, the ThinkPads cooling systems are atrocious, 3 pipes on shared CPU and GPU heatsink, absolute nonsense thinking, the CPU gets two heatpipes shares one with the GPU and the GPU gets just ONE which is shared with the CPU so as the CPU heats up so does the GPU and wise verse.
Ridicules design

 

Guys I'm confused here: I have a 2.5 SSD that I want to use with a P53. So, if I understand correct, in case I select either Intel I9-9880H or XEON 2276M configuration, it comes with RTX4000 or 5000 and I won't be able to insert the drive in a 2.5" bay. So I have to choose a processor less powerful (e.g. Intel I9-9750H) that doesn't need RTX. Am I correct?

 

The P53 with the RTX 3k/4k/5k only have m2 ssd slots. There isn't a connection or space for a 2.5" drive.

 

I would choose i9 with Quadro 4000, also minimum 64 Gb fast memory (4600 MHz)