This laptop is a local AI monster: Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 review

[Redaktion]

The ThinkPad P16 is Lenovo's most powerful ThinkPad laptop. With the new ThinkPad P16 Gen 3, Lenovo evolves this 16-inch workstation to be a bit more mobile, while still delivering serious performance - however, that performance is limited by one specific factor.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/This-laptop-is-a-local-AI-monster-Lenovo-ThinkPad-P16-Gen-3-review.1221962.0.html

[Dave10]

Great review of the P16 GEN 3! It seems that powering such a class-leading workstation with just one Thunderbolt cable isn't much of an issue in most cases.

I wish they could bring the six-button physical touchpad back. But what I really want to see is what the "Space Frame", aka "Roll Cage 2.0", looks like underneath the keyboard (I'm an old fan of T61 BTW).

[4k for only dual-channel]

up to 192 GB RAM

Good.

67084 MB/s

Bad: 4000 bucks for just a common dual-channel (=128-bit) system, like 99% of consumer PCs and cheap laptops out there.
Just a reminder of how much faster AMD Strix Halo RAM is:
Bandwidth:
ThinkPad P16 Gen 3: 89.6 GB/s = 128-bit * 5600 MT/s / 1000 / 8.
AMD Strix Halo: 256 GB/s = 256-bit * 8000 MT/s / 1000 / 8.
This is 2.86 times faster.
But Strix Halo's problem is that it only goes up to 128 GB RAM.

Over a Strix Halo (laptop), this has a 192-bit 12 GB VRAM GPU, but this is still only 12 GB.
Using this GPU, the prompt processing will be faster than on Strix Halo tho:
3dmark.com/search:
RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell Mobile: "Average score: 12228" (14875 in this review).
AMD Strix Halo Radeon 8060S Graphics: "Average score: 10012".

Judging by the not so huge speed difference (48.6 %), in total, the RTX PRO 3000' (=5070 desktop GPU chip running at lower Watt) 12 GB VRAM are not going to be able to compensate for Strix Halo total almost 3 times higher memory bandwidth when it comes to running AI / LLMs, and a Strix Halo system should be much cheaper, too.

And indeed, using this total memory capacity and speed calculation, Strix Halo wins:
P16 Gen 3: 25267 = 12 GB*672 GB/s + 192 GB*89.6 GB/s.
Strix Halo: 32768 = 128 GB*256 GB/s.
PS: AMD, Strix Halo refresh/sucessor with up to 192 to 256 GB RAM when? (make sure it's not the outdated RDNA3.5 iGPU, tho:
The leaked FSR4 INT8 looks so much better on RDNA3 / RDNA3.5, than what RDNA3 / RDNA3.5 officially support, but AMD is quiet about it (they are not the good guys (anymore/if they ever were)):
youtube.com/watch?v=VPMOjdvmHMk "FSR4 on RDNA3 on Windows!!! How To Guide and Side by Sides Tested on RX 7800 XT"
youtube.com/watch?v=yB0qmTCzrmI "AMD Tried To Hide This From You - FSR 4 INT8 on RDNA 3 & 2 Tested"

youtube.com/watch?v=v70p700D94U And here Owen shows that even AMD's /r/radeon hardcore crowd is starting to get pissed off on AMD for also not releasing FSR4 INT8 (and righteously so, of course).)

[zil]

The camera bump is atrocious and pointless and the 4 narrower keys left from the Enter key are just inexcusable design errors.