Lenovo ThinkStation E20: A Quiet Entry-level Workstation

The Lenovo ThinkStation E20 is micro-ATX entry-level workstation with relatively modest processing power and expandability. On the bright side, it’s affordable, energy efficient, well-built, EPEAT Gold certified, cool and surprisingly quiet.

April 18, 2010 by Lawrence Lee

Workstations have historically been big, high-end machines with heavy duty
processing power, professional grade graphics cards, plenty of memory and hard
drive options. While there will always be a place for such juggernaughts, for
simpler tasks and smaller workloads, an entry-level workstation like Lenovo’s
ThinkStation E20 may be better suited. To make a more affordable workstation,
Lenovo decided against the more expensive LGA1366 socket, settling for LGA1156
instead. It’s not a bad compromise considering the bevy of affordable, high
performance Core i3 and i5 CPUs available. These processors are also very energy
efficient, so cooling them is easy, opening up a real possibility for silence.
The E20 is surprisingly affordable with the base model starting at only $599,
$449 if you don’t need a copy of Windows.

The E20 uses the microATX form factor, making it more compact, but less expandable
than most workstations which use ATX or larger form factor. It has just a pair
of internal hard drive bays, no SAS option, lacks RAID 5/10 support and has
only 4 memory slots for a maximum 8GB of RAM. These constraints can be overcome
by upgrading to the larger ThinkStation S20 or D20 LGA1366 workstations which
can also be configured with much more powerful processors and video cards.

Lenovo touts that the E20 is “ISV certified” like its larger brethren:
“rigorously tested and certified by leading independent software vendors
(ISVs)”, which ensures the workstation can power through professional applications,
with assistance available from ISVs for a supported application, if necessary.
Like many Lenovo products, the E20 is EPEAT Gold certified, the highest rank
given by the widely accepted US Electronic Product Environmental Assessment
Tool program.

The E20 isn’t much to look at. Like many of Lenovo’s “Think” branded
products, its design is mostly functional, unless you consider the enormous
ugly handle at the front a subjective stlye choice. Lenovo touts the E20’s small
size, environmentally friendliness, ease of service thanks to a tool-less chassis
design, and near-silent operation. All configurations ship with decent keyboard
with soft but responsive keys and a large optical wheel mouse with a generic
but comfortable shape.

The sample we received has notable upgrades over the base model, including
a faster dual core i5-650 processor with TurboBoost, Hyper-threading, and better
virtualization support compared to the stock configuration’s Pentium G6950.
It also sports a Quadro FX 580 graphics card, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner,
card reader, and 4GB of unbuffered non-ECC RAM. This last point is interesting
because on paper, aside from ECC memory support provided by the Intel 3450 chipset,
there is little to distinguish the E20 from a desktop you could easily have
built to spec. If you order the E20 with this configuration on their website,
the total comes to US$1224. This is pricier than simply assembling all the components
yourself, but there are benefits in the form of support, which could be much
more important than the couple hundred dollars a business might save.

EXTERIOR

The ThinkStation E20 comes in fairly sturdy black case with a large handle
at the front. It’s a microATX tower measuring about 17″ tall (2″ for
the handle) and 7″ wide.

INTERIOR

Accessing the internals is a simple matter of removing two thumbscrews and
pressing down on the release mechanism on the side panel. The layout inside
is typical for a microATX tower with a standard ATX power supply at the top,
2 x 5.25″ and 1 x 3.5″ external drive bays, 2 hard drive caddies,
and 2 x 92 mm case fans.

TEST METHODOLOGY

Lenovo ThinkStation E20:

• Intel
  Core i5-650 processor – 3.2GHz (up to 3.46GHz with TurboBoost),
  4MB L3 cache, 32nm, 73W
• DDR3 memory – 2x2GB DDR3-1333
• Intel
  3450 workstation chipset
• Nvidia
  Quadro FX 580 graphics card – 512MB
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
  desktop hard drive – 500GB, 7200rpm
• Microsoft
  Windows 7 Professional 64-bit operating system

Measurement and Analysis Tools

• CPU-Z
  to monitor CPU frequency and voltage.
• Real Temp
  to monitor CPU temperatures.
• GPU-Z to
  monitor GPU temperatures and fan speeds.
• SpeedFan
  to monitor system temperatures and fan speeds.
• Prime95
  CPU stress software.
• FurMark
  GPU stress software.
• Media Player
  Classic Home Cinema to play x264/MKV video
• Eset NOD32 as
  an anti-virus benchmark.
• WinRAR as an
  archiving benchmark.
• iTunes
  an audio encoding benchmark.
• TMPGEnc
  Xpress as a video encoding benchmark.
• PCMark05
  as a general system benchmark.
• 3DMark05
  as a general benchmark
• 3DMark06
  as a general benchmark
• Seasonic
  Power Angel AC power meter, used to measure the power consumption
  of the system

First we determine the overall system power consumption at various states (measured
using a Seasonic Power Angel). To stress CPUs we use Prime95 (large FFTs setting)
and to stress the GPU, we use FurMark, an OpenGL benchmarking and stability
testing utility. Then we run a short series of performance benchmarks —
a few real-world applications as well as synthetic tests.

TEST RESULTS

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.

Performance

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.

MP3 SOUND RECORDINGS

These recordings were made with a high
resolution, lab quality, digital recording system inside SPCR’s
own 11 dBA ambient anechoic chamber, then converted to LAME 128kbps
encoded MP3s. We’ve listened long and hard to ensure there is no audible degradation
from the original WAV files to these MP3s. They represent a quick snapshot of
what we heard during the review.

These recordings are intended to give you an idea of how the product sounds
in actual use — one meter is a reasonable typical distance between a computer
or computer component and your ear. The recording contains stretches of ambient
noise that you can use to judge the relative loudness of the subject. Be aware
that very quiet subjects may not be audible — if we couldn’t hear it from
one meter, chances are we couldn’t record it either!

The recording starts with 5~10 second segments of room ambiance, then the system
at various activity states. For the most realistic results, set the volume
so that the starting ambient level is just barely audible, then don’t change
the volume setting again.

Audio Recordings

• Lenovo
  ThinkStation E20 at 1m
  — idle/load, GPU fan tweaked to minimum speed (19~20 dBA)
  — idle/load (20~21 dBA)
  — idle/load, hard drive seeking (23~25 dBA)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall we enjoyed our experience with the ThinkStation E20. It is plenty
fast, thrifty in power consumption, and runs cool. It’s also surprisingly quiet,
though this might not hold as true if a hotter processor and/or video card is
specified. We’re not sure exactly how important noise is for a workstation —
unless it’s placed in a fairly quiet room on a desktop rather than on the floor,
the ambient noise in a typical office will probably drown it out even if it
was a few decibels louder.

The case aesthetics won’t win any awards, but the interior has an admirable
design. It is well-cooled thanks to a pair of quiet 92 mm fans, and the large
portion of the front bezel dedicated to providing the system with fresh air.
Removing drives and expansion cards is a trivial matter thanks to the tool-less
release mechanisms, so it can be quickly and easily serviced should the need
arise. If Lenovo packaged a similar system in a more attractive case and a desktop
graphics card, it would serve well as a home PC.

Past experience with Lenovo products, and the general business-oriented approach
inherited from IBM’s PC division suggests that backup on the E20 will be excellent.
The price might be a bit steep compared to assembling a similar system of components
yourself, but for many businesses, an assembled PC is considered the only viable
choice, and the E20 fits the bill for low noise, energy efficiency, serviceability
and relative eco-friendliness.

Our thanks to Lenovo
for ThinkStation E20 sample.

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