Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny Gen2 Review NVIDIA Powered Workstation

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at Lenovo’s largest ThinkStation workstation, the ThinkStation PX. For today, we are going in the opposite direction with a look at the company’s smallest ThinkStation, the P3 Tiny Gen 2.

Officially positioned as an entry-level workstation by Lenovo – one step up from the low-end P2 series – the P3 Tiny is a unique offering within Lenovo’s ThinkStation lineup. While the bulk of the ThinkStation family is comprised of towers in some fashion (including P3 towers), the P3 Tiny is the sole 1-liter workstation design offered by Lenovo, living up (or rather, down) to the name Tiny.

And inside the tiny P3 Tiny Gen 2, Lenovo packs a great deal of hardware into the system. Unlike a lot of other 1L designs, the P3 Tiny Gen 2 features a minimal number of soldered-down parts. Not only is the DDR5 RAM removable, but the company even uses a proper socketed desktop Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU, and to top that off there is room for a PCIe card as well. As a result, the P3 Tiny Gen 2 makes for an interesting fusion of a tiny desktop form factor with the component swapping and upgradability that normally defines workstations – and a noteworthy addition to our Project TinyMicroMicro series of mini-PC reviews.

If you wanted to find the Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny Gen 2 online, here is an affiliate link for the family over at Lenovo’s web store or another for B&H Photo. Here is an Amazon affiliate link to a model Lenovo has there as well.

Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny Gen 2 External Hardware Overview

With the significant space constraints on a 1L tiny PC, there is admittedly not a ton of room for innovation with regards to the shape and chassis of these mini PCs. But as we will see, Lenovo puts the form factor to good use, especially considering the relatively high amount of heat generated by all of these desktop components.

Perhaps the most immediate takeaway from looking at the PC is that most of the chassis is ventilation in some fashion. The front? That is vents. The top? That is also vents

And even the sides? That is yet more ventilation. Suffice it to say, this is a PC designed to channel a lot of airflow.

But amidst all of those vents, Lenovo has put together a pretty basic but effective collection of front I/O ports towards the bottom-right corner of the system. Besides the obligatory audio combo jack, the company has equipped the system with a pair of 10Gbps USB-A ports, as well as a 20Gbps USB-C port – and all four of them clearly and cleanly labeled. Surprisingly, this is the sole USB-C port on the entire system: as we will see on the flip, you will not find any USB-C ports at all in the rear. So USB-C aficionados will want to make note of the fact that there is only one native port to work with.

Otherwise when it comes to the P3 Tiny, the rest of the party is in the rear. And here Lenovo has wasted no space: virtually every inch is either a port, a thumbscrew, exhaust vents, or a PCIe bracket.

In terms of I/O, the rear side of the system offers 4 USB-A ports – three 10Gbps ports, and a single 5Gbps port. This is joined by a 1Gbps Ethernet jack that is driven by an Intel i219-LM controller, and finally an antenna connector for the installed Wi-Fi radio. As we have seen on some other Lenovo 1L designs, the chassis itself only features a single internal antenna running through it, requiring an external antenna for a second stream and better wireless reception overall.

Meanwhile, seeing as how our specific model of the P3 Tiny Gen 2 includes a discrete video card – an NVIDIA RTX A1000 – this version of the system also includes a plethora of display outputs. The NVIDIA card features 4 Mini DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, and meanwhile the integrated graphics on the Intel CPU is still available as well, allowing it to drive a full-sized DisplayPort 1.4, as well as an HDMI 2.1 port. So if need be, the P3 Tiny can drive up to 6 displays, which is not too shabby for such a small system.

As an aside, while the system itself is designed to house a standard half-height half-length video card, the I/O bracket being used here is custom to Lenovo. So if a user was ever to swap out the included video card for another card, they may need to hunt down or fabricate a bracket if they want it to match.

Powering the system, in turn, is a rather beefy 330-Watt external power supply. With the need to drive a full-power desktop CPU, a 50-Watt video card, as well as various internal components and USB peripherals, the P3 Tiny can consume quite a bit of power under full load. And at this level of power consumption, Lenovo is well over the limits for a standardized connector like USB-C, so we once again see Lenovo’s proprietary square DC power connector.

Having completed our tour of the outside of the P3 Tiny, let us dig into the internals.