The original text is in Chinese, and it was translated by Google.Please understand that there are some unsatisfactory words!

Article introduction

This is the second of the ThinkPad P15v Gen 2 evaluation series. The full text is nearly 5,000 words and nearly 40 pictures, divided into the following chapters:

• Back front back

• Thorny back

• Heart to back

Back front back

Back, front and back means to face or back.

As a laptop, having a beautiful appearance is of course a "face-to-face" face.

But after booting up and running, its screen is the first to face the user, and this is the real "face to face" of the notebook.

ThinkPad P15v Gen 2 (hereinafter referred to as "P15v") has four official optional screens. The P15v I tested is the most high-end UHD screen. The official parameters show that it has a brightness of 600nits, a contrast ratio of 1400:1, and 100 % Adobe RGB color gamut, 170-degree wide viewing angle IPS, support Dolby Vision HDR400.

And only this UHD screen has been color-corrected by X-Rite before leaving the factory.

The author uses AIDA64 and HWiNFO64 to view the screen information, the name is LEN418A, the model ID is NE156QUM-N6C, and the Windows HD Coloe settings are used to verify that it supports HDR.

Upon inquiry, NE156QUM-N6C is produced by China BOE. The manufacturer is also known as BOE0919. It is an Oxide TFT-LCD liquid crystal module product. It uses WLED backlight and is an edge light source. The light source life is 15000 hours. The backlight brightness is adjusted by DC mode ( That is DC dimming);

The response time is 25 (Typ.)(Tr+Td) ms, the typical vertical refresh rate Fv is 60Hz, and FreeSync is supported.

Each pixel adopts 8-bit + Hi-FRC grayscale signal, which can display 1.07B color, that is, 10-bit grayscale, and the display color saturation can reach 100% (NTSC).

Using 40 pins eDP (4 Lanes) signal interface, the screen drive voltage is 3.3 volts.

It was measured using Spyder X Elite, and the results are as follows.

Color gamut (Gamut):

• 100% sRGB;

• 100% AdobeRGB;

• 95% P3;

• 97% NTSC;

The result of 100% Adobe RGB is in line with the official claim, while the other three values are close to or already 100%, which is very satisfactory.

Tone Response:

Tone response curve and display gamma (display luminosity) 2.2 are almost completely repeated, close to perfect; 

The gray scale has a small gap of 20~80%, between 7150 and 7250 Kelvin.

Brightness and Contrast:

The maximum brightness is 565.4 nits, which is slightly lower than the official value, but the absolute value is high brightness.

The measured contrast ratio is 1650:1 at the highest brightness, which is very good!

With such measured brightness and contrast, it is undoubtedly a very good screen at the moment. 

Screen Uniformitu:

Color Uniformitu, the highest Delta E value that appears when the brightness is highest is 6.9;

There is a difference between the upper left corner and the lower right corner. In general, the color uniformity of this screen is not much different.

Luminance Uniformitu for Brightness

At 50% brightness, the maximum brightness difference is 23%;

There is also a significant difference between the upper left corner and the lower right corner. Generally speaking, the brightness difference of this screen is large, and the brightness uniformity is not good.

Color Accuracy:

The Delta E value has a maximum value of 4.72 at 4E, and an average value of 2.14, which is excellent overall;

After calibrating with Spyder X Elite and measuring again, the Delta E value at 1D showed a maximum value of 3.77, and the average value dropped to 1.26, which was further excellent;

Comprehensive Evaluation (Monitor Rating):

Finally, in accordance with the evaluation criteria of Spyder X Elite, give this screen the following comprehensive evaluation (Monitor Rating):

The color gamut and contrast were given a full score of 5 stars;

Color uniformity and color accuracy are given 4 stars;

The white point and brightness uniformity are 3 stars and 1.5 stars respectively;

The overall score is 4 stars, which is a high evaluation.

After calibration, there is a slight change:

The white point rose to 4 stars, and the color accuracy rose to 4.5 stars.

But the overall score is still 4 stars.

From the above measured data, the overall display effect of the screen used in this P15v is among the best, especially its color gamut, contrast and color accuracy, which is commendable.

Its maximum brightness is close to 600 nits, and its contrast ratio is as high as 1,640:1. It is also certified by HDR400 and supports Dolby Vision high dynamic display. Therefore, in bright outdoor places, the author has measured and maintained very good viewing effects, even if It is under sunlight, and its screen display effect can also ensure the normal use of users.

And its resolution is UHD resolution, which brings a very good picture fineness and more display content. The factory X-Rite calibration and DC dimming are even more icing on the cake.

In summary, after actual measurement, the author believes that the screen of this P15v, except for its poor performance in brightness uniformity, is very good in other aspects, and can fully meet the needs of creative design users.

Therefore, the real "face to face" of this P15v is the excellent performance of the "back front" and "back front"!

So, what does "front and back" mean?

Of course, it refers to other main PC hardware that can have a good and smooth picture under UHD resolution.

Thorny back

"Being like thorns" means "if there are thorns on the back", and it is generally used to describe the feeling of fidgeting because of some kind of worry.

In the face of this P15v, the excellent performance of the above screen makes the author very comfortable, but when I think of its single-fan cooling system, I can't help but worry about the performance of its intel i-11950H.

Drive delay

Before starting the performance benchmark test of the P15v, I checked its device manager. It can be seen that this P15v did not enable the intel VMD when it left the factory, so the intel RST was not turned on. At the same time, it supports intel AMT, and the trusted platform module is 2.0, which meets the requirements of enterprise commercial use.

The wireless network card of this P15v is intel AX201, the Ethernet card is intel 1219-LM, and the lightning control chip is 9A1F, namely Tiger Lake-H Thunderbolt 4.

After booting up, using the pre-installed Lenovo Computer Manager’s original factory drivers, it was found that there were 18 drivers that needed to be updated, and Window Update also found that there were a large number of drivers that needed to be updated.

After the update is complete and restart, start the original factory driver of Lenovo Computer Manager and check again, the result is that no update is required;

But after a while, the Lenovo Computer Manager in the system tray area automatically appeared a dialog box, saying that there is a critical system update (intel UHD graphics driver), which is simply slapped in the face.

Before and after the driver update, LatencyMon was used to perform a simple detection of the driver delay. The results were similar, showing a full green font. This shows that the P15v driver delay performance is good overall. This is also the "front and back" of the P15v. The foundation reflects the official comprehensive strength and intentions in hardware, software and firmware.

CPU

The tested P15v, the CPU is the highest optional Intel Core i9-11950H. Use AIDA64, CPU-Z and HWiNFO64 to view information. The third-level cache is 24MB, 8 cores and 16 threads, the basic frequency is 2.6GHz, and the acceleration frequency can reach 5.0GHz.

Cinebench R15/R20/R23

In the Cinebench R15, R20 and R23 benchmark performance tests, the scores of the i9-11950H above the P15v are as follows:

• R15 multi-core score and single-core score are 1531 and 224 respectively;

• R20 multi-core score and single-core score are 3703 and 573 respectively;

• R23 multi-core score and single-core score are 9458 and 1472 respectively;

Compared with the author's historical test model, the i9-11950H on this P15v is actually not as good as the previous generation Intel Xeon W-10885M, the score is the last one, and the performance is regrettable.

Cinebench R15 Multi Loop

In the 50-cycle test of Cinebench R15 multi-core performance that tests the stability of the CPU during long-term and high-load operation, the multi-core scores of the i9-11950H on this P15v are as follows:

• The peak value is 1655.22;

• The mean is 1505.16

• The valley value is 1478.20;

In the scoring curve comparison chart, the scoring curve is white; it starts with a peak value and then gradually decreases. After about 20 times, it basically stabilizes at a value of about 1500, and the overall fluctuation of the curve is not severe;

This shows that the performance of the i9-11950H above the P15v is suppressed. Compared with the HP Zbook Power G8 (called HP and 99 Gi in China) with the same positioning and the same CPU, the performance of the CPU is completely at a disadvantage. , The average value of Cinebench R15 Multi Loop is nearly 14% less.

Of course, the P15v curve has little fluctuations, while the orange score curve of the HP Zbook Power G8 has frequent and violent fluctuations.

This point will be explained in detail in the Stree Tests section of the in-depth article of the evaluation article. 

3DMark CPU Profile

The results of the 3DMark CPU Profile test are:

• The maximum thread score is 5219;

• The score of 16 threads is 5254;

• The single thread score is 851.

Its performance is also regrettable.

In this way, the performance of the P15v CPU is obviously not as good as the HP ZBook Power G8 with the same hardware and the same positioning. Will its power consumption setting and heat dissipation mechanism be very poor?

Regarding this point, the author will explain in detail in the in-depth article.

GPU

What I feel regretful is that P15v Gen 2 uses NVIDIA RTX A2000 Laptop GPU like HP Zbook Power G8. It also cannot support setting to discrete graphics mode, that is, it does not support independent display direct connection.

Moreover, the P15v Gen 2 cannot be the same as the HP Zbook Power G8, it can only use the hybrid graphics card mode, and cannot be set to use only the integrated graphics mode.

Therefore, in the Display setting option of P15v BIOS, you can only modify the total video memory of the intel integrated graphics card and set it to 256MB or 512MB.

NVIDIA RTX A2000 Laptop GPU can be understood as the professional version of GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU, based on the GA107 Ampere chip, 2560 CUDA, 20 ray tracing, 80 Tensor cores and 128-bit video memory.

The TGP of the A2000 Laptop can be selected from 35 to 95 watts. The theoretical performance can be significantly better than the previous generation Quadro T2000. However, the final performance depends on the specific value of the manufacturer's TGP.

Use the GPU-Z, CPU-Z and NIVIDA control panels to view the relevant information of this P15v graphics card as follows: Among them, the most critical information is that the maximum power of the graphics card is 40 watts.

3DMark

Using the 3DMark benchmark software, the P15v was tested in the hybrid graphics mode and compared with the author’s historical test model scores. The results are:

• The score of P15v is:

• Time Spy Extreme Graphics: 2061;

• Time Spy Graphics :4496;

• Fire Strike Ultra Graphics: 2709;

• Fire Strike Graphics: 12043;

This result looks good:

It is much higher than the HP ZBook Power G8 with the same configuration and the same positioning, with a total score of about 19% higher;

It is also much higher than the ThinkPad P1 G3 with T2000 graphics card, with a total score of about 34% higher;

Then, of course, it is much higher than the ThinkPad P14s/P15s Gen 2 with T500 graphics card;

However, with the ThinkPad P15 Gen 1 and DELL Precision 7560 of the same screen size, due to the large difference in the level of the graphics card, of course, it is far behind, which is completely understandable. 

Port Royal

What I cannot understand is that since RTX A2000 uses the same name as RTX A3000/4000/5000, it does not support Port Royal;

So the name A2000 is really unreasonable. I think RTX A2000 should be called "T3000" to be worthy of its name.

VRMark

The comparison of P15v's VRMark benchmark scores is as follows:

• VRMark Orange Room: 6451

• VRMark Cyan Room: 2752

• VRMark Blue Room: 1339

The P15v score is also higher than the HP ZBook Power G8 with the same configuration and the same positioning, and the total score is about 20% higher;

Compared with other comparison models, it is similar to the 3DMark link above.

SPECgpcViewperf 13

As a mobile workstation that uses professional graphics cards, it is naturally necessary to perform professional graphics performance tests. SPECgpcViewperf 13 is used for benchmark tests. The P15v scores are compared with other models as follows:

The P15v score is also better than the HP ZBook Power G8 with the same configuration and the same positioning, with a total score of about 15.6% higher;

It is also better than the ThinkPad P1 G3, which uses T2000 graphics card and is directly connected to the display, with a total score of about 11.4% higher;

And professional graphics and entertainment

Compared with Le graphics card, the power of professional graphics performance is also effectively reflected: the total score of P15v is almost the same as that of DELLPrecision 7560 using RTX 3080 Laptop GPU and in the state of hybrid graphics card.

SPECgpcViewperf 2020

Using SPECgpcViewperf 2020 v2.0 for benchmarking software, the P15v score is compared with other models as shown in the figure below. The situation is similar to the comparison of SPECgpcViewperf 13 above.

The above graphics performance test results and comparison show that the overall graphics performance of the RTX A2000 on the P15v is significantly better than the HP ZBook Power G8 with the same configuration and the same positioning, and much higher than the previous generation T2000.

However, it is undeniable that the graphics performance is limited because it does not support the independent display direct connection mode;

At the same time, the GPU performance is significantly better than that of the HP ZBook Power G8, which also makes the author reverse the preliminary conclusion in the above CPU test link, and look forward to the performance of the P15v's overall cooling performance.

Storage

RAM

The P15v has only two memory slots, two Samsung 16GB DDR4 3200MHz memory is installed, and finally officially supported by the intel 11th CPU and WM590 chipset, it runs at 3200MHz.

Using AIDA64's cache and memory benchmark test modules, the memory under the longest endurance mode and the best performance mode were tested twice, and the results obtained are as follows: the difference is small and can be ignored.

Hard disk

This P15v is installed with a 512GB NVMe SSD, the model is Micron MTFDHBA512TDV;

Since the intel VMD hard disk mode is not enabled at the factory, the CrystalDiskInfo test can correctly show that the installed SSD is running in PCIe 3.0x4 transmission mode.

But there are also regrets: P15v's Intel 11th generation CPU originally supports PCIe 4.0x4 SSD, but P15v officially stated that it only supports PCIe 3.0, so even if PCIe 4.0 SSD is installed, it will run in PCIe 3.0 transmission mode.

Using AS SSD Benchmark and CystalDiskMark to test the pre-installed SSD, the results obtained are as follows:

Based on Micron MTFDHBA512TDV SSD, the performance is normal and quite satisfactory.

Using PCMark 10 to perform a Full System Drive benchmark test on this hard drive performance, the result is 1322, the same conclusion as above.

P15v has two M.2 2280 hard disks. After installing two SSDs, turn on intel VMD and use intel RST to build RAID 0 and 1 hard disk arrays.

In addition, in the unpacking article, I said that I will test the installation of SSD on this P15v's vacant WWAN slot.

As the author had previously installed SSD in the WWAN slot of the P15s Gen 2i, the measured boot alarm failed to continue to start. All originally did not expect, but what I am happy about is:

After installing the WDC PC SN520 2242 SSD in the P15v WWAN slot, everything is normal. The PCIe 3.0x2 SN520 runs under PCIe 3.0x1, and the measured performance is normal.

In this way, when the P15v does not use the WWAN function, the machine can achieve three built-in hard disks.

As for whether the P15v built-in three hard disks can achieve RAID 5 when the intel VMD is turned on and the intel RST is used, I think there is a possibility, but due to the rush of time, there is no time for actual measurement. 

SD card reader

The P15v's full-size SD card reader is located on the right side of the fuselage and adopts a full storage design. There is no need to worry about the SD sticking out, and users can also have it built in for a long time if they like.

The slight difference is that its direction is different, it is placed in the reverse direction, that is, the side of the SD card with the gold finger should be placed upward. The reason for this difference is that the author speculates that it should be caused by cost control, which can be seen in the disassembly process of the unpacking chapter, so that it is more convenient to directly install the SD card reader on the motherboard, without additional solutions to keep it as Normal frontal orientation.

After carefully looking at the official information, the author of all the details "found another official error: in the red box, it was actually marked that the P15v has a non-existent micro SD card reader.

The SD card reader of P15v is produced by Realtek, and uses PCIe x1 to connect to PCH.

Use ATTO Disk Benchmark, install Lexar 32GB 2000x SD card to carry on the test, the result is as follows:

• The peak reading rate reaches 251MB/s;

• The peak write rate reaches 241MB/s;

• And the IO/s results, it seems to be passable.

In summary, the unilateral performance test of the P15v's CPU, GPU, and storage hardware has been completed, and the results obtained are mixed:

The CPU performance of P15v is not performing well;

P15v's GPU performance is very good;

The P15v storage solution is relatively complete, but it is a pity that it does not support PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Therefore, the "burr" in the back of the burr should be a plug: GPU performance is commendable, but the burr of poor CPU performance still exists. And storage does not support PCIe 4.0 SSD, I think it can only be regarded as a fly in the ointment, and it will not become a "thorn" in the back.

Heart to back

As a user of mobile workstations, although they know that due to the limitations of the body, mobile workstations cannot compare with the power consumption and heat dissipation of desktop models, they always yearn for the highest possible performance-this is what people want;

Due to the limitations of current technology, and in order to achieve higher power consumption and performance, the body of the notebook can not be expanded infinitely, because this is behind the hearts of the people.

Therefore, how to achieve a compromise between the body and performance of a two-way compromise, and ensure stability and comfort, and at the same time make its sales price can be recognized by the market, is the tireless work of any good manufacturer.

Because this is an upright way for products to cater to the hearts and minds of the people.

Judging from the above P15v test results, I think the screen, GPU, and storage are excellent, gratifying and good, but the performance of the CPU is still a "burr". To fully satisfy the hearts and minds of the people, it seems impossible?

So far, there are nearly 3,500 texts and nearly 40 pictures. In order to avoid too many pictures and texts and cause some readers with limited time to be overworked, the ThinkPad P15v Gen 2 evaluation experience article ends here.

Looking at the "strong power, calm forward" on the P15v official promotional image, the author must "calm down" his mind, and the evaluation work will continue to "forward" under the burden of "burst"!

In the third in-depth article of the next evaluation, there will be the comprehensive performance, stability (stress test), power distribution, operating temperature and battery life tests of the ThinkPad P15v Gen 2, as well as essential optimizations. Analysis of shortcomings and final evaluation.

Stay tuned!