Lenovo ThinkSystem ST45 V3 Internal Hardware Overview
Looking inside the system, we see a fairly standard Lenovo layout. Something that we do not have in this system is all of the metal brackets for 3.5″ drives since we did not add those to the configuration.
Looking at the top, we see the motherboard power inputs, but also the CPU and memory.
Under the heatsink, we had the AMD EPYC 4124P a 4 core, 8 thread processor. On the ST50 V3 in this price range we got the Intel Xeon E-2414 a 4 core, 4 thread processor. Those extra threads have a big impact on performance as we discussed in The Key Feature for Server CPUs is Still Two Threads Per Core.
Lenovo only supports up to 65W TDP CPUs, so the highest-end processor we can get is the 12-core/ 24 thread EPYC 4464P. In our recent Mapping Licensing for Virtualization is Cool Now piece, we showed why that is a much better processor than the Xeon E-2488 that comes in the ST50 V3 for Microsoft Windows Server. Thanks to AMD, we were able to upgrade the system to test both ends of the spectrum.
One area we wish Lenovo would change is to give the system four DDR5 DIMM slots. The EPYC 4004 series uses higher-speed DDR5 memory than the Xeon E-2400 series so we get mroe memory bandwidth. With only two slots, we are a bit more limited on the capacity side. Lenovo says the maximum capacity is 2x 32GB DDR5 ECC UDIMMs, for 64GB total. We upgraded the system both with Generic 48GB DDR5-5600 ECC UDIMMs and the V-Color 96GB DDR5-5600 48GB x2 ECC UDIMM Kit and we were able to get 96GB working. You do that at your own risk, but it worked for us with two different kits.
There is also a fan at the top of the chassis moving air.
On the bottom of the motherboard, we have our PCIe slots, and even SATA connections.
There is a M.2 slot between the CPU and the PCIe x16 slot. That may not seem like a big deal, but our ST50 V3 does not have an onboard M.2 slot. We had to use the Sabrent M.2 NVMe SSD to PCIe Gen5 x16 AIC just to get a M.2 SSD installed on the ST50 V3 making this M.2 slot on the ST45 V3 great.
Below that we have two more slots, an x16 and a x1. We ended up putting a Syba Dual 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (Amazon Affiliate link) in the x1 slot, and a Sonnet McFiver (Amazon Affiliate link) in the x16 slot. That added two 2.5GbE ports, a 10Gbase-T port, two USB Type-C ports, and two M.2 SSDs to the configuration. Of course, that was just our option, but there are plenty of other configuration options out there.
Onboard, we have the Realtek RTL8111FP NIC for our rear 1GbE networking.
This system only has two SATA ports. 3.5″ disks are still used sometimes at the edge, but we are seeing an overall reduction in SATA ports as M.2 SSDs have taken over due to decreasing costs and having an order of magnitude better reliability.
On the bottom edge of the motherboard, we get another M.2 slot and a WiFi card slot. The WiFi card slot is not on the spec sheet, but it is there and clearly labeled. The M.2 slot is on the spec sheet and extends past the motherboard to mounting points on the chassis. If you do not order a second M.2 SSD, your system will look like ours without the standoffs, but it does not take much creativity to figure this out. Again, our ST50 V3 did not have any onboard M.2 slots.
The M.2 down in this area is also next to a front fan so it gets plenty of cooling.
The power supply is fixed. Since I knew we would be customizing the system, we ordered the 500W 80Plus Platinum power supply. We would have been fine with the base 300W PSU though.
Next, let us get to the topology.
Does it really utilize only PCIe 3.0 as indicated on the block diagram? EPYC 4000 can drive 5.0, and even bargain bin AM5 boards do 4.0.
Compared to ASRock Rack AM5 boards this one is almost unnecessarily bad with no BMC or even a basic implementation of DASH like ASUS Pro A620M-DASH-CSM (which does PCIe 4.0 too).
I do not agree with final words at all. This system is far too limited, almost artificially so, especially compared to what’s already been available on the market for years.
Jesus Christ….. This board is horrible. More sabotage than functionality.
One has to look no further as to the Asrock Rack X470/X570 Series Mainboards or the even better Supermicro H13SAE-MF for how this is to be done. And for a full size ATX board, i expect the constraints due to limited space on the mentioned µATX boards overcome.
And, Patrick, as much as i love your energy…… the over the top enthusiasm for such a product with nothing new but senseless pitfalls is a little bewildering.
I think he’s being polite. What he didn’t say, but it’s glaring, is that Dell and HPE have refused to do EPYC 4004 towers. I read that enthusiasm as more of a “I can’t say WTF’s wrong with Dell and HPE so I’ll just say good to Lenovo.” I’ve been reading STH for a decade and that’s the way they prod other OEMs to get competitive.
I’d second or third this. What’s up Lenovo? XClarity BMC or it isn’t a server.
STH fam it isn’t that they hate you. They’re trying to sell these in Europe where they’ve got stupid electricity prices. Without the BMC it’s saving 10W. In small biz servers they’re idle at night and most of the day. If you’ve also managed to use it to power a display for a menu, then you’ve gotten rid of another 800 euro box that is using 20W. So you’re saving big money. They’re not trying to sell ’em in the USA
The specs https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1994-lenovo-thinksystem-st45-v3-server#physical-and-electrical-specifications
talk about Xclarity being upgradable. Also PCIe Gen5 x16 slot.
With audio / HDMI connections and only a single power source this looks more like a workstation than a server
@Joeri:
That’s only the externally connected USB-based XClarity Provisioning Manager Lite which doesn’t provide network remote control or monitoring.
That site also compares this ST45 to the Intel Xeon E ST50 which has full BMC XClarity and PCIe 5.0. In fact that table seems to confirm that this ST45 is only PCIe 3.0 since the Intel table contains “PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 adapters” for RAID support but the AMD one does not.
@Patrick, did the CPUs get vendor-locked to Lenovo motherboards? Can this be disabled? It’s worth a mention in your review to remind potential consumers.
Thanks
this is a workstation in a trenchcoat