Is the P52 worth it

Hi all. I have a 2014 W540 on which I mainly use cad software (TurboCad 2018) and I was thinking of replacing it with a P52. The W540 runs an i7 4800MQ processor, has an SSD, 16Gb ram and runs Windows 10 Pro. It hasn't been the most reliable machine - early bios issues, stuttering issues, audio problems and a failed keyboard (the latter fixed under warranty), failed SSD, failed battery to name a few. It should have plenty of horsepower but it does seem to struggle with some of my large cad files (my plans are 2d, minimal rendering but the actual drawings cover very large areas, hundreds of layers and upward of 60 different views / paper spaces). On the big files it often hangs and there are long delays especially when snapping to points on a drawing. It may well be that it's just the nature of the drawings I'm doing. I tried the same drawings on my partners old E520 and it was much slower so perhaps it's just down to the processor and ram. I often have multiple applications open while drawing - Google Earth, Chrome, Adobe Acrobat, TurboCad, Dropbox.

Apparently the basic functionality of Turbocad is single threaded and 16gb ram is recommended, along with an SSD. So my question is, do you think I would notice any significant increase in performance if I went to a P52 (currently thinking either the i7 - 8750H or i7 - 8850H versions, both with 16gb ram).


Recently it has also started displaying it's unreliable characteristics again - not starting properly, having to reinstall several programs, blank screens etc. Might just be a Win 10 problem but perhaps more - however I draw plans for a living so need a fast laptop with minimal down time sorting out problems.

Advice gratefully received!

Tim

 

Forgot to add, the fan in the W540 does seem to be working overtime on plenty of occasions.

 

I think it would be worth it, 5 years is a pretty big gap for computing power. Some companies do have allowance to purchase computer so if you got that then that'd be a no brainer.

 

I'm a freelancer so it'll be my money! Was interested in comparing the clock speed of the W540 processor compared to the ones available in the P52 and in theory there isn't a huge difference. In reality I'm hoping that the difference would be more noticeable.

 

Maybe this chart on processor will help ya.

 

Now I'm not a tech expert but that is interesting, especially the single thread and CPU mark. So although the clock speed of the 4800 is higher it seems like it is outperformed by quite a bit.

 

Based on my horrible experience with the P51 my humble advice would be to forgo Lenovo entirely and buy an HP ZBook 15 G5 or 17 G5 at the give away prices on eBay right now. Based on reliability, upgradability, ease of access to internal components, and performance HP may have the best workstations on the market.

 

I must say I didn't have the best of luck with my W540 at first but surely they would have sorted out any potential glitches on the P series by now? I know some people won't have any issues, others unfortunately will - irrespective of the make. Can any P series owners comment on this? I've had an HP before but that was ages ago and the ZBook was on my list but to get the same spec as the P52 with a 3 year warranty I'm looking at paying quite a bit more - but perhaps there's a good reason for that! I'm wary of eBay - the majority of similar specced G5's seem to be either used, refurbished with short shop rather than manufacturers warranties or much more money than a new Lenovo. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

The consensus on the Lenovo workstation forum is that most of the issues seem to have been worked out for the P52 (a year after release). If the P52 starts having random blue screens, though, then that is an issue. Lenovo will try to leave you with a dud machine, as they tried to do to me and other P51 users. I might add that the P52 has poor cooling so expect some throttling. There is a YouTube video on this where even repasting doesn't work because the single heatpipe is saturated already.

I would be remiss if I didn't add that I loved the P51 until I started having problems: HP wasn't my first choice.

Oh quite so: never buy any of these computers without the manufacturer's warranty. If the laptop has an original warranty then it is safe to buy it from anywhere. You can ask sellers for the serial number which you can verify on the manufacturer website. It will tell you how many years are left and whether the machine was serviced. It is kind of weird that an HP G5 model wouldn't have the manufacturer's warranty though: all of them should have 3 years standard.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'll continue my research.

 

I think Lenovo generally has good post sale coverage in North America and seems to be better than industry average when it comes to warranty and stuff, at least much better than say Asus or Gigabyte.

I picked up a Lenovo Y540 and one of the deciding factor is the cost of extended warranty was a fraction of the cost if i were to buy from a local repair. I got the 3 years with on-site for probably 80 dollars versus retailer wanted some 300 dollars for 1 extra year of warranty and up to 500 dollars for 3 years. Yes the coverage is not exactly the same but that's a huge difference on a sub-2k laptop.

 

That’s will be one of my deciding factors as well. 3 years warranty is included over on this side of the pond. It got used quite a bit with my initial W540 ownership. Hopefully I won’t need it with a P52 - it’s been out a while now so hopefully the issues would have been sorted.

 

every model would have its issues, since manufacturers always try to pump out new models and new designs and what not and the hardware changes every year too so it isn't quite like a car where a platform stays for several years and the manufacturer has time to iron out the bugs. P52 would be a good buy as P53 is about to be released or already released in certain region. I have seen a lot of promotions lately, and P52 in certain configuration was a good 50% off.

If they include 3 years on-site service then that's pretty good, though still a hassle since that's still down time, unless you get another unit in between the repairs?

 

Having a second unit would be pushing my finances too far. I’ve narrowed it down to two P52 options:
P52, i7-8750, 16gb, 512 ssd, Quadro P1000 for approx £1,200
Or
P52, i7-8850, 16gb, 512 ssd, Quadro P2000 for approx £1,550.

Is it worth paying the extra for the slightly quicker processor and better GPU I wonder. Have also seen comments re cooling on the P1000 but not sure if it’s any better with the P2000.

 

The cooling issues mostly showed up with the P3200 config so both of your choices would work out fine. Wouldn't your CAD software benefit from the better graphics card? I say go for the P2000. I don't know if Lenovo improved its 1080p screen quality over the P51 series, but the 1080p touch screen I got with the P51 was, um, not too great. I guess someone else can chime in here.

 

A dedicated graphics card isn’t such a big issue unless you are doing lots of 3D that requires rendering - programs such as TurboCad (which is what I use) relies on a fast processor and RAM. I thinkAutoCad is the same.

 

I’m also not too worried about the screen as I use 2 external monitors for my drawing and use the laptop screen for things like Outlook and Chrome.

I thought it was a big odd that cad didn’t really need a big thumping graphics card and this was backed up when I had the task manager on and saw that the gpu was hardly being used at all. Ive been told that TurboCad is a single threaded program so it’s best to choose a platform with the maximum frequent processor, fast motherboard and RAM.

 

Lol, okay then. P1000!

 

I think so! Much cheaper as well so that’s a bonus. With the money saved I might look at a docking station as well so hooking up the 2 external monitors, back up drive etc is easier but have read that some people aren’t that impressed by the latest Lenovo thunderbolt one. Any recommendations?