The ThinkStation P340 SFF is Amazingly Extensible
This article is a transcript of a video that you can watch by clicking the thumbnail below. Hence, certain statements may not make sense in this text form, and watching the video instead is recommended.
Intro
Even with all the ThinkPads I’ve been playing around with in recent years, the most used workstation at my home is still a Dell Precision workstation. I always wanted to try a ThinkStation to explore the offerings from the “Think” family in this genre as well. Then recently, I got my hands on this ThinkStation P340 SFF, and it didn’t fall short of impressing me.
My Experience with SFF Workstations
Since the last few months, I’ve been surrounded by over a dozen decommissioned SFF workstation desktops. These were HP workstations from 2012/2013, but they helped me gain some familiarity with this SFF segment. These are very easily serviceable and have four RAM slots, several PCIe slots, and all that in a relatively compact package. We’re not talking about as compact as the ThinkCentre Tiny, but definitely smaller than the regular tower workstations like my Dell Precision T3600.
The ThinkStation P340
This ThinkStation P340 is more recent and exhibits most of those characteristics with a bit of a modern touch. There’s the same concept of sliding trays that can be worked with easily, a lot of scope for expansion including RAM slots and all that good stuff. I love how the optical drive somehow camouflages between the front vents.
Initial State
This workstation arrived mostly clean, and in a pretty good condition. There was this dent that appeared to be the result of a serious impact, but everything else looked great otherwise. It came with a 10th Gen Intel Core i7 Processor, a single 32GB DDR4 RAM module, and a 1TB Samsung NVMe drive hidden behind this massive heatsink.
Restoration
One of the only things I needed to perform as a part of the restoration was some cleanup inside out, and replacing the CPU thermal paste. Rest all was perfectly fine. With such high computing power, memory, and storage space, the only thing that bothered me was the integrated graphics, which is the Intel UHD 630.
GPU as the Bottleneck
There are several upgrade options on this workstation. For storage, you can either replace the NVMe drive with a larger capacity module or add another SATA drive to the empty area here. For RAM, you can add up to three more 32GB modules to make it 128GB in total. But what would you do to improve the graphics performance? Now being an SFF workstation, the amount of choices for a discreet graphics controller you can use here is pretty limited. Some of it comes with limited space and the rest with how much power you can supply it. Even if you could somehow find a decent low-profile GPU, it will most likely not fit in the space. The Nvidia Quadro P1000 is a perfect match. It is reasonably capable in terms of performance, almost on par with some older mid-budget consumer GPUs, and fits well in the limited space. So unlike the GTX 1060 on my Dell Precision T3600 that has two fans and a separate connector from the PSU to feed it power, this Nvidia Quadro P1000 only has one fan, barely extends beyond the PCIe connections, and also takes power directly through the PCIe slot. The only other thing I had to do was to find a mini-DP to DisplayPort cable so that I could connect displays to this GPU.
Conclusion
Though I wish there was a little more space for even more powerful components inside, at least with a relatively modern CPU, 32GBs of RAM, a TeraByte of storage space, and now a sufficiently capable discreet GPU, and still plenty of scope for future upgrades, the owner of this machine should have no trouble editing videos on this gorgeous ThinkStation.
Outro
That's all I have for this video, and thanks for watching it to the end. May the maker watch over you. See you in the next video! And yes, "Free Palestine!".