At MWC, the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen5 thin workstation caught our attention. We were impressed with the 2020 X1 Extreme Gen4, and we’re expecting great things from this new model, so let’s look at what’s new.
First, this ThinkPad Extreme Gen5 is powered by Intel’s Alder Lake platform, which delivers higher peak performance and power efficiency simultaneously.
According to Lenovo’s official specs, the 12th generation Core i9 H-Series processor (with vPro) will be available for this chassis.
Secondly, the most powerful GPU option will be the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with 16GB of video memory. Of course, more affordable models can be selected at order time (3070 Ti, 3060, 3050).
Because it’s a workstation, it can receive up to 64GB of RAM in its two SODIMM slots. From a storage perspective, two M.2 PCIe Gen4 and up to 8TB can be configured at order time.
On paper, it seems close to the MSI Raider GE76 we reviewed recently. However, the X1 Extreme Gen5 is much more compact and light (4.4 Lbs), so we’ll have to see how the cooling performs in the real world. Yet, this is shaping up to be one of the best “performance per Lbs” laptops for 2022. We’ll see!
The endgame for all this computing power is to generate and display awesome graphics on the 16” display (16:10 ratio). There are four display options with different resolutions (WUXGA, WQUXGA), brightness (400-500-600 NITs), and color accuracy (100% sRGB, 100% Adobe RGB) with or without touch.
As a workstation, the X1 Extreme Gen5 has plenty of ports, including two ultrafast Thunderbolt 4 that give you excellent options for additional storage and monitors.
| 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 |
| 2x ThunderboltTM 4 |
| 1x SD Card (SD Express 7.0) |
| 1x HDMI 2.1 |
| 1x Audio (headphone and microphone combo jack) |
The 90Wh battery capacity is large, but keep in mind that battery life will vary depending on the system configuration, especially the CPU and GPU. To give you an idea, the power supplies go from 135W to 230W for this model.
Last but not least, Lenovo says it uses as much recycled material as possible, and 90% of the packaging is made from such materials.
Overall, this workstation is exciting and should offer significantly higher performance than last year’s model, which was already impressive (read our X1 Extreme Gen4 review). I’m looking forward to putting this laptop to the test.
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