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English => News => Topic started by: Redaktion on April 27, 2026, 13:04:43

Title: Maximum capacity: This makes the ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 a local AI powerhouse
Post by: Redaktion on April 27, 2026, 13:04:43
No big NPU, no problem: While the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 may not be a Copilot+ PC, with a strong dGPU, up to 192 GB RAM and three 4 TB SSDs, this device can be used to run AI locally.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Maximum-capacity-This-makes-the-ThinkPad-P16-Gen-3-a-local-AI-powerhouse.1283615.0.html
Title: Re: Maximum capacity: This makes the ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 a local AI powerhouse
Post by: davidm on April 27, 2026, 22:32:03
You can't mention local AI on x86 without mentioning Strix Halo. LLMs are all about fast RAM. VRAM is the fastest. RAM is relatively slow. On this laptop, with double channel RAM, it's about 90gb/s, VRAM is up to 1.7tb/s on a proper 5090. Strix Halo has 128GB of quad channel RAM, which is about 256gb/s.

If the model fits in VRAM, it's the fastest by far, if it doesn't, it gets a lot slower. With Strix Halo, larger models can still be run at tolerable speeds for many purposes, but with dual channel RAM at half that speed, things slow way down to the level of unbearableness. The breakthrough models today barely fit in 24GB VRAM, other models are niche or neat toys.

Someday, consumer x86 will start to match shared RAM speeds higher end Macs have had forever, until then, sites like notebookcheck will keep glossing over that elephant in the room.