Lenovo ThinkStation E20: A Quiet Entry-level Workstation
TEST RESULTS
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System Measurements
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Activity
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Idle (GPU fan @30%)
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Idle
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x264 Playback
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CPU Load
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CPU + GPU Load
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Avg. CPU Core Temp
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21°C
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22°C
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25°C
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61°C
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63°C
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HDD Temp
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27°C
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GPU Temp
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41°C
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39°C
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46°C
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41°C
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68°C
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GPU Fan Speed
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2210 RPM
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2810 RPM
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System Power (AC)
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40W
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56W
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95W
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115W
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SPL@1m
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19~20 dBA
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20~21 dBA (23~25 dBA with HDD seeking)
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Ambient temperature: 21°C.
Ambient noise level: 11 dBA.
Idle/Sleep power consumption: 1W.
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With a Clarksdale chip and an 80 PLUS Bronze power supply, the E20's power
consumption was excellent as expected. The system pulled only 40W measured from
the wall when idle, and 95W on a full CPU load. This is particularly impressive
as the system also has a discrete graphics card. Stressing the GPU with FurMark
drew an additional 20W. The CPU and GPU temperatures were at safe levels throughout
testing, and the hard drive was very well cooled. The internal temperatures
were so good that at no point did any of the fans speed up (as far as we could
tell).
The noise level measured only 20~21 dBA@1m and was fairly benign in nature,
though slight vibrations passed by the hard drive to the case producing a faint
electrical buzzing type of sound at close proximity. Using MSI's Afterburner
utility, we were able to reduce the GPU fan speed by 600 RPM resulting in a
small acoustic improvement. Without performing any tweaks, hard drive seeking
was the only thing that made the system louder than 21 dBA. The Seagate drive
inside the E20 produced loud thumps when seeking, pumping up the noise level
to between 23 and 25 dBA@1m.
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The system noise level was 20~21 dBA both idle and on load.
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The system noise level peaked at 25 dBA@1m when the hard drive was seeking.
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Performance
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Performance Benchmarks
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Model
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ThinkStation E20
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ThinkCentre A70Z
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CPU
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Core i5-650 3.2GHz
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C2D E7500 2.93GHz
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GPU
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Quadro FX 580
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GMA X4500
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|
RAM
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2x2GB
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1x2GB
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|
NOD32
|
4:43
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68W
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5:24
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49W†
|
|
WinRAR
|
3:36
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64W
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3:56
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48W†
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|
iTunes
|
3:07
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69W
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3:37
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50W†
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TMPGEnc
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3:24
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84W
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5:11
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57W†
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|
Boot-up*
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1:01
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0:38
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PCMark05
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9352
|
5557
|
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3DMark05
|
10635
|
1597
|
|
3DMark06
|
5189
|
851
|
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*start button to when the desktop loads fully
†after adjusting for screen power consumption
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The ThinkStation E20 is one of the speedier complete systems we've reviewed,
but in our timed benchmarks, the Core i5-650 wasn't much faster than the Core
2 Duo E7500 found in the ThinkCentre A70Z all-in-one PC. It really only shone
in our TMPGEnc encoding test, where the i5's Hyper-threading ability gave it
a substantial edge. Most workstation applications should benefit from this as
well and CAD programs should run much faster with the Quadro FX 580 than integrated
graphics. The FX 580 isn't a gaming card though, despite its $160 price-tag,
as it is based on the same chip as the GeForce 9500 GT. It doesn't perform nearly
as well in 3DMark as comparably priced gaming-class cards. For comparison, the
$70 HD 4670 scored 6341 in 3DMark06 on our VGA test system.
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