You know what you do on a rainy day in the Central UK countryside? You sit inside and have a pint. If you’re a massive computer manufacturer, you have a pint and unveil a new workstation. That’s what Lenovo did today at Develop3D Live in Wolverhampton.

The ThinkStation P320 is the first PX20 in the P-series family and the entry-level kiddo to the ThinkStation P4XX, P5XX, P7XX, and P9XX. The focus on this refresh is making “Professional Virtual Reality More Accessible” plus providing the power for entry-level 2D and 3D work. How’s all that? Here’s the breakdown.

For the ThinkStation P320, you have the option of running a Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, or a shiny Xeon E3-1200 v6 processor. Graphics can be pushed with up to a single 8GB NVIDIA Quadro P4000. Four memory slots hold up to 64GB of RAM and you have storage options from a 1TB SSD up to a 4TB SATA. Front ports include 3x USB 3.0, Firewire, eSATA, mic, headphone and optional 29-in-1 or 9-in-1 medial card reader. Back ports inlcude 4x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, serial, VGA, 2x DisplayPort, Enternet, Audio in/ou and Mic.

There are two sizes, the regular tower (7″x17″ footprint) and the small form factor (SFF – 4″x15.5″ footprint). The SFF has a limit of two Quadro P1000s (max) and less storage, with RAID support at 0, 1, 5, 10 for the Tower model only.

The new NVIDIA Quadro P4000 GPU (8GB) is based on the new Pascal architecture and will have significant improvement over the Kepler-based K1200 card (4GB) in the ThinkStation P310.

The VR-Ready cert is achieved by having the latest NVIDIA Quadro GPU and the CAD certs come from their independent software vendor (ISV) certifications. The P320 is ISV certified for applications including those from Adobe, Autodesk, Dassault, PTC, Avid, and Siemens.

The systems will be available in April, but pricing hasn’t been revealed yet. However, with the ThinkStation P310 Tower starting just at $779, it’s likely this new rig could have you CAD and VR-ready for under $1000.

Right now, the Lenovo P710 and P910 are the prime players for ultimate CAD’ing about. You can see the full line of ThinkStation P-series here and find more info on the ThinkStation P320 here.


Author

Josh is founder and editor at SolidSmack.com, founder at Aimsift Inc., and co-founder of EvD Media. He is involved in engineering, design, visualization, the technology making it happen, and the content developed around it. He is a SolidWorks Certified Professional and excels at falling awkwardly.