Lenovo ThinkPad W550s Ultrabook Mobile Workstation Review

Name: Lenovo ThinkPad W550s
Brand: Lenovo

by Joshua Gulick — Wednesday, July 15, 2015, 12:05 PM EDT

Before we moved on to battery testing, we took a quick look at how the Lenovo ThinkPad W550s fares in a typical game. We also tested the system with SPECviewperf 12, a well-known workstation graphics benchmark.

Far Cry 2

DX10 Gaming Performance

When it comes to lush vegetation in a steaming, sinister jungle, no one pulls it off quite like Ubisoft does in its Far Cry series. Far Cry 2 uses high-quality textures, complex shaders, and dynamic lighting to create a realistic environment. The game’s built-in benchmark gives us a good look at a system’s performance with DirectX 10.

Here, the ThinkPad W550 couldn’t keep up with the Precision M3800. It posted 47.96fps in a game that’s getting pretty long in the tooth. It’s fair to say that the workstation ultrabook isn’t designed for heavy gaming. If you’re killing time at hotel on business travel, the W550 can handle basic gaming without much issue though. If you’re looking for more, you’re better off throwing a gaming laptop into your bag for off-work hours.

SPECviewperf 12

Open GL Performance

SPECviewperf is anOpenGL performance benchmark for workstations. It’s had plenty of contributors over the years, including Creative Labs and HP, among other members of SPECopc. The benchmark is an excellent way to compare a system’s ability to create content with other workstations.

Because SPECviewperf 12 is designed solely for workstations, we have only the Dell Precision 3800 to compare to the Lenovo ThinkPad W550s. The two systems provided similar scores in most cases, and trade victories.

Tags: Nvidia, Intel, core i7, Lenovo, ThinkPad, Quadro

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.