No PSB alone means the CPU can have a second life, and if you don't want it, you still get 2x the resale value... Saving $6000 on top? Easiest choice I've ever seen.
@@Hogdriva I simply like to buy cheap second hand server hardware, without finding out that I cannot use X component because X vendor doesnt allow it, imagine your car wouldnt start because you put refurbished tires on it...
Ah PSB, it sounds like something that would come up in a meeting the Monday after a report on the negative impact of used components on this quarter's company growth.
Hi Patrick, awsome video. One comment about the size, the Supermicro is not neccesarily bigger than the Lenovo. The Supermicro can do a weird hat trick that passed unnoticed in your review, wich is that the the top part is fully removable / disposable !. Supermicro have different cooling options for this case, with some of them using air cooling and not requiring the top part. They even have an optional rack kit with rails that you can install after removing the top.
When I found out Lenovo enables PSB several months back, I knew then and there that I would NEVER buy any of their hardware ever again. It's such a dumb thing to enable.
Thank you for pointing out the PSB thing. I watched a couple of P620 reviews before placing an order with Lenovo and nobody had mentioned it. Fortunately saw your review just in time to still be able to click the „cancel order“ button. 😅
Super micro doesn't vendor lock the CPU either so you can carry over the CPU if you upgrade it later. I love supermicro's products for this, getting used dell and HP server systems is pretty cheap but not being able to repurpose half the parts in them once I decommission them is such a deal breaker. I have this old Sandy Bridge Poweredge T110 II system and the motherboard is so jank, its some weird inverted form factor where it is bolted to the left hand side of the chassis when viewing it from the front while literally every other chassis in existance the motherboard mounts on the right hand side. so any expansion card I put in it was also upside down in order to fit in it. not to mention it was some weird dimension being like 11" tall and 14" wide
@@Gorilla_Jones it is literally in the video, from 16:23 - Platforn Secure Boot - They basically tie the CPUs installed to that machine and you cannot use it in a different PC. For anyone using this system completely, there is no problem. For anyone trying to tinker with it, upgrade it or use the processor in a different machine, the PC won't boot with these processors. Basically vendor-locking it to THIS particular PC...
Man, both of those systems are absolute tanks. If I had ANY need for a pre-build rig of that caliber I would hands-down buy the SMC over Lenovo. Such a great piece of investigation/comparison work, thanks for all the time put into these.
Supermicro might not be saints, but at least they are very good at using industry standard connectors and the like. Lenovo has a 3 year warranty, but if anything breaks after that, youre completely screwed, whereas with the supermicro could be fixed with off the shelf parts. Im a broke student, so my server has a xeon e5 v1, but having the ability to run whatever cpu (my hp didnt support v2, thanks guys...), cooler and case i want makes a massive difference.
I actually have last year's Lenovo P620. You have the option of extending the warranty to 5 years. They even provide on-site service and they will replace anything that breaks within those 5 years.
Who buy this kind of WS Payback the machine in 18max max then he double the investment in other 18months and they don't give a s...t what append after 36month because they will buy a new WS. You have very naïf (amateurish) vision of the world
Started out with a Microserver G8, the presentable front cover did help in making my decision family-friendly. I've also seen some SilverStone cases using that design as well.
The motherboard in the Lenovo system is sorta pathetic in my mind. 128 PCI-E lanes and it has THAT PCI-E slot layout. The Lenovo has proprietary parts too, so it's destine for a landfill.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Now I question if AMD staff were a little high that day. That or they intentionally made it that way to maximize profit margins. Who knows. Mind boggling either way.
currently phasing out lenovo for desktop - for this "feature" alone (PSB that is). - as soon as we find an replacement for their Laptops, they're gone too.
I have the P620 at work and I am really surprised it costs that much more in the US? We paid 12.000€ for it (with 5995WX. 512GiB RAM, the small AMD GPU)
I've actually been looking around at high end workstation for my own needs and I keep ending up at the idea for my needs where it's going to be running in a home work environment that SuperMicro keeps ending up the better buy overall. In my case the machine will be being used for scientific compute needs for astronomy and astrophysics research and that price difference can't be ignored as I'll probably be paying out of pocket for the machine or via grant money. There's reasons to go this route too as a researcher as once I'm out of school chances are I'll end up having to move around for a while ever year or two and I'd rather be in the situation where taking my own research data with me is just simply packing up a tower and a NAS or two than trying to deal with moving larger amounts of data ever few years when I end up inevitably moving because I can't get a contract extension or tenure. So for me if I get around 4-5 years out running the machine hard it's payed for itself and I'd be probably looking to upgrade by then anyways.
Wow, you get about a bit! I never realised that you needed a machine this powerful, the Supermicro is the clear choice for sure for your needs, and the resale value in 5+ Years time make it a no brainer VS Lenovo Systems with PSB Enabled!
I just ordered the WX3945 model for $1500 from Lenovo on sale. They have all the models on sale. This is still head or heels better than any AMD 7000 series machine for about the same money. And still has 128 lanes.
You just helped me avoid a HUGE blunder. I want to go with the 32 core, upgrade to the 64 down the line, and do a new build on the 32 core. If I had gone with Lenovo I would have been MFing like no tomorrow. The nails in the coffin were the added features for use as a server and the price, I could care less about the onsite service, at this price gap you can get a barebones 32 core Supermicro for $5,300.00.
I bought Lenovo's last year's model. It has 5, no 4 PCIE expansion slots (1 is in the front) so it can be configured to have 5 HDDs. I imagine it is possible to do the same in this unit.
One of the great features of the Thinkstation is Lenovo Performance Tuner, which I have found really powerful on my Intel-based Thinkstation, as it allows extracting untapped performance from my older system when running specific apps, and allows me to save templates so I don't have to retune if I want to run something different. Did you try tuning the system this way for your 24 hour test?
Hi Patrick, love these kinda videos!!! You just made one tiny mistake, in the lenovo configurator you added the Nvidia A6000 (price 8k usd) while in the supermicro you didn't add it. As a result you did get a difference, but on 15k price range, a grand more or less doesn't really matter. For me searching, I see the Supermicro coming up about 1k more expensive. Since I am a 'fan' of both, I couldn't say really which is better since both seem to be superb. Personally I would build these myself if I got the chance to shop them. (or at least buy ram/drives/gpu at third party) Because yes the vendor lock of the big 4 is the one thing that really turned me off most pre-builds. (3x markup on ram and drives comes to mind) Anyway another great video, thank you, keep up the good work!
SuperMicro should partner with GeekSquad or someone similar for certified on site service. Same day or next day service is a killer feature for those using these machines in their business to generate revenue.
very good thank you !!! make the same review with a HP workstation vs supermicro if possible.... on threadripper and include a epyc machine together....!!! thanks
Lenovo makes great machines... But PBS and that price goes to show what happens when you give exclusivity to a company that is solely focused on major profits. AMD, please don't allow this to happen again. Some people have been waiting over 2 years for these CPUs to open up to consumers and we are barely getting a shot at them at street price for self-built options.
With Genoa 280 W will be "just the beginning" ;) Though I did hear that Workstations (Threadripper) aren't scheduled for release for another year, which is a bit sad. And in this case: 6000$ less for something that doesn't vendor lock your CPU, has much more room to upgrade and better cooling (that depends on preferences) is sort of no-brainer. Though I'm amazed at how good P620 actually is. I was worried we would get something much, much worse, more akin to what you can buy in Walmart for Desktop PC's. But both are well made and Lenovo system has some things going for it. But not worth additional 6000$.
As someone working in ITSec I don't see the value in locking the CPU to the OEM vendor. I am really not seeing the security advantage there and see the eWaste problem being actually substantial.
Look here now. In real world production facilities Lenovo provides a great product. The ThinkStation P620 sells for a discounted price to research organizations, and then Lenovo Certifies Red Hat Linux on the platform. In a production environment, on site support and 24 hour response is critical. In research every hour counts and the majority of workloads run on Linux! Our reality is that we will run these systems until the end of the warranty, we normally purchase a 5 year plan. At that point technology has moved forward and resale value is not really a consideration.
Really appreciate the video and the insights, im always baffled how Lenovo manages to cool this workstation with seemingly only 1? air intake, could you make a video on the air cooling aspect of the Lenovo and maybe explain how they manage to cool all their components? Would be really appreciated !
The Supermicro has a BMC which is a great advantage if you want to use it as a "cheapo" server. I find it a bit odd that you say "has IPMI" instead of "has a BMC" since IPMI is just one of the common interfaces for a BMC. But IPMI is outdated and was replaced by Redfish, which is a more modern and simpler interface (using HTTP and JSON). Would have liked to see a bit more about the SuperMicro BMC. Otherwise great review, thanks. :)
You screwed up by not showing us the systems running and testing noise levels of the systems. Are they too noisy to place on a desk and be used as true workstations?
We are probably not going to get to the Gigabyte workstation since we already did the motherboard review for it on the STH main site: www.servethehome.com/gigabyte-mc62-g40-amd-ryzen-threadripper-pro-motherboard-review/
I don't think you are including the price of the RTX A6000 (~$4,000) in your Supermicro specifications, while it seems included in the Lenovo price. From what I can tell in the video there is no GPU added on the Supermicro price breakdown. Adding in the RTX A6000 would make the prices about the same, no?
I honestly had to check my settings to make sure I didn't have playback speed turned up, holy crap it's like listening to tech from the Micro Machine guy lol
Do you you think using the liquid cooling on the Supermicro is the better option vs the Fan? What are the drawbacks of the fan? Will it just a be louder? or is it considerably cooler than the FAN therefore offering higher consistent peak turbo performance?
@@ServeTheHomeVideo yeah I saw that I was hoping you would say which you would rather buy...but it looks like there is minimal gain only in extended peak usage. not going to worry about the liquid cooling option. the cooling extension on top seems like it might be good to use to cool some graphics cards if you get a few packed in there tight..
Mh... So my 5950x should be third, right? 😃 Awesome, great great video. I have on my PC a 1080 external radiator nexXxos xt45 with 9 120mm fans, and it's incredible how much potential is hidden in a good CPU if you only create the conditions to use it. You can work in a stable environment every day, every hour, in situations that others can reach only for some seconds, firsts of the benchmark end. A good well though liquid cooling system can make the difference in long heavy loads. Really thanks for all these opportunities of looking at the most powerfull workstations of hour times.
What, never seen "Mobile" Workstations and "Mobile" Servers before? Yeah, full size workstation/server CPU and chipsets on very thick, portable chassis'.
To be fair, a fast laptop is fast enough for what I need at my fingertips (I have more power availble should I need it) and I can take it wherever I like.
Lenovo said, TR 64C 1P "killed their Xeon 2P workstation sales" I'll keep that observation in mind I have the 1P v 2P supply data for many quarters back and looking forward to report on it. mb
Kinda feels outdated, I work at German engineering corporate, all new employees get basic laptop and only remote to a server. It's great for home office tho
nice to know , so in 5-6 years when thows will pop on ebay wee go get the supermicro rigs , still using my x99 from 2015 .got with i7 recenty upgrade to the 12c xeon . still got one upgrade to that machine the 22core .
The shorter Lenovo seems to be one of their rackable cases. Although I can not find a rack mount option for the P620 case many of their other pedestal systems have 4U options.
Confirmed: Patrick is a Supermicro fanboy. jk, I'd go with that option also. Aside from the whole PSB thing, by using standards, you can replace any of the parts with industry standard bits if they break and say you can't get your hands on an SM board but need that machine up and running. With a closed system, you're at the mercy of the vendor and have to hope they have some in stock. I'm with you on the whole PSB thing and can't imagine how they didn't come up with something that was reprogrammable, even if it required special hardware. A couple extra pins that aren't normally connected to allow write access would mean it can't be done in situ, only by removing the CPU and using a separate board to do so.
The RAM cooling fan confused me a bit. It seems based on the plastic cover, that the fan is supposed to blow air towards the front of the Case, whilst the CPU cooler is drawing its air towards the back. Why not push both in the same direction Or it's supposed to pull air through the dimms, but that still seems a bit weird
Yeah I saw this too. I'll pop the case on the one we've got and see if thats the airflow...makes no sense if it is that way - you'd think they'd eject all hot air out of the back asap
If you talked a bit slower it would give the audience a bit more time to digest what you're saying without having to pause the video every time you point to a feature.
SP5 for Genoa is different (you can see the latest video). On SP3 it was reasonably easy to get right, but it could happen if you did not follow specs.
