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The Lenovo D10 is the big brother to the ThinkStation S10, and as such sports quad core Intel 2.66GHz XEON CPUs, 12MB L2 cache and a1333MHz front side bus. Housed in a full tower configuration, the D10 system is wider than the S10, and can accommodate more internal drive space, with support for five 3.5-inch hard drives (as opposed to three for the S10), two PCIe x4 slots, two PCI X slots, and a single PCI slot.
This particular unit came outfitted with a single Hitachi 250GB, 7200rpm SATA hard disk drive, 2GB RAM (two slots occupied, eight total slots for a maximum 32GB), and the 768MB NVIDIA QuadroFX 4600 that offers a maximum 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. The D10 uses the Intel 5400A chipset and Intel 82563EB Ethernet chipset. The D10 sports a 1000 watt power supply, dual gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports (two front, two rear), a six pin 1394 port in the front, six analog audio ports, a pair of SPDIF ports at the rear, and your standard headphone and mic in ports. This unit shipped with Windows XP which was updated to Service Pack 3.
The D10's front panel features a DVD-rewritable drive, a 8-in-1 memory card reader (Smart media/xD card, Compact Flash/MicroDrive, SD/MMC, and Memory Stick/Memory Stick Pro), the two USB ports, headphone and mic port, and the standard Lenovo green light to keep the icons lit so you know where to plug things in when its dark (and dark is always a good environment for those creative types). The system case is typical Lenovo quality, with the locking door being one of the easiest to open. The case also sports built in handles, a plastic one up front and a metal handle in the rear for easy portability. The ThinkStation still essentially shares the similar look of the IntelliStation of the past.
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| ThinkStation D10 |
The D10's internal layout is more spacious than that of the S10 because of the width of the system box. The motherboard's eight memory banks are easily accessible by removing a plastic shroud for quick access. There aren't any cables hindering access. Access to the unit's other internal components are also easily accessed via the system's tool-less design. The hard drives and the PCI cards are held in place via plastic arms that slide or are dropped down over the components to keep them from moving around. The rear of the unit features two USB 2.0 ports, six in all, the dual DVI connection for the NVIDIA Quadro FX4600, dual Ethernet, the six audio and two SPDIF ports, and the speaker and microphone ports.
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| Motherboard |
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| Memory slots |
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| Hard drive slots |
The D10 features no less than five fans inside, including two on the CPUs, the power supply fan, hard disk drive fan, and an exhaust fan. A unique feature is the plastic fan shroud that partially covers the memory bans. This shroud channels air out of the system via the exhaust fan at the rear of the unit, cooling the memory banks at the same time. A notable feature retained from the IntelliStation days is the fan noise at startup. When you first turn the D10 on, a loud fan spins up, and then settles down into quiet mode. It is unsettling for those who've never used IBM's IntelliStations, which now have the ThinkStation moniker under Lenovo.
Performance
You would expect the D10 to outperform the S10, but in most tests, the systems ran similar results, with the Intel Core 2 Extreme based S10 outperforming the XEON powered D10 in virtually every After Effects test, and the D10 outperforming the S10 on the CineBench animation benchmarks. For testing, the systems were virtually identical with the exception of the processors.
| After Effects benchmark: Results in seconds Version of After Effects used: CS3 | Lenovo ThinkStation D10, 2.66Ghz Intel XEON CPU E5430, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 Windows XP SP 3 | Lenovo ThinkStation S10, 2.66Ghz Intel Core2 Quad 6700 CPU, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 Windows XP SP 3 |
| Test 1 Animation: | 6 seconds | 3 seconds |
| Test 2 Video Composite | 18 seconds | 16 seconds |
| Test 3 Data Project | 42 seconds | 38 seconds |
| Test 4 Gambler | 24 seconds | 21 seconds |
| Test 5 Source Shapes | 57 seconds | 51 seconds |
| Test 6 Virtual set | 47 seconds | 44 seconds |
| CineBench r10 | 2893 CB CPU | 2691 CB CPU |
| CPU Benchmark Rendering multiple CPU: | 10059 CB CPU | 9262 CB CPU |
| Multiprocessor speedup | 3.48x | 3.44 |
| OpenGL Benchmark | 5359 CG GFX | 5870 CB-GFX |
| OpenGL Standard test | CB 5359 | CB 5870 |
| Single CPU Render Test | CB 2893 | CB 2691 |
| Multiple CPU Render Test | CB 10059 | CB 9262 |
| Photoshop CS3 Gaussian Blur test (apply Gaussian blur with 6.3 radius on 9.51MB JPEG image) | 2.76 seconds | 2.48 seconds |
First Impressions
The ThinkStation D10 is an ideal workhorse workstation, a system ideal when you need to access large amounts of internal storage space and run programs that need to address larger than 8GB of system memory. If you are doing heavy animation work, the D10 will perform better than the S10. Likewise, if you are doing After Effects work, the S10 will perform better than the D10, but not by much. The D10 lends itself well to upgradeability, and offers fairly decent performance. Lenovo is working with ISVs to ensure software compatibility, but for those running applications such as Adobe's Creative Suite, some of the 3D animation tools, and other creative media applications, the D10 will offer plenty of horsepower backed by Lenovo's three year parts and labor warranty. ThinkStation D10 workstations start at $1739. For more information, visit www.lenovo.com
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John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
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