Lenovo ThinkStation P2 Tower Gen 2 Review

The Core Ultra 7 265 hits the 89th percentile for CPU performance, making this a multitasking beast. The 512GB SSD is a cheeky move at the 40th percentile, so you'll want an immediate storage upgrade. Ports are top-notch (90th percentile) and Wi-Fi 7 is a welcome extra, but the RTX 5060's 69th-percentile GPU score means it's not a rendering warhorse.

The Lenovo ThinkStation P2 Tower Gen 2 is all about the CPU. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 265 with 20 cores sits in the 89th percentile of our workstation CPU benchmarks, making it one of the best multitasking chips you can get without jumping to a dual-socket Xeon. Pair that with 32GB of speedy DDR5-5600 (82nd percentile) and a port selection that lands in the 90th percentile, and you've got a connectivity beast ready for a desk full of peripherals. The included Wi-Fi 7 and a full-sized SD card reader are nice practical touches. But the 512GB NVMe SSD is a stingy choice for a machine targeting productivity and AI acceleration—it ranks in the 40th percentile, meaning half the workstations we test ship with more storage. The RTX 5060 with 8GB of GDDR6 lands at the 69th percentile for GPU power, so it's adequate for entry-level rendering or light AI work, but don't expect it to set any frame rate records. And at 9.67kg with a chassis that earns a miserable 36th-percentile compact score, this is a permanent desk anchor. You won't be schlepping it to a LAN party.

The Core Ultra 7 265 chews through multi-threaded workloads about 35% faster than the median workstation in our database. Compiling huge codebases, running parallel VMs, or churning through 4K video edits all feel snappy. The 32GB of DDR5-5600 keeps the CPU fed nicely—you're getting well-above-average memory bandwidth here. The RTX 5060 does fine for CAD, moderate 3D modeling, and AI inference using its tensor cores, but the 8GB VRAM ceiling means large AI models or 4K texture work will quickly hit a wall. The CPU's built-in NPU does give a boost for certain AI tasks, which helps offset the mid-pack GPU a bit. Still, if you're doing serious GPU rendering or model training, the 5060 is more of a starter card, and you'll notice it sitting in the 69th percentile—decent, but nowhere near the top.

We can't pin down a single MSRP, but vendor listings range from a believable $2,067 all the way to an absurd $599,453—probably a listing error unless that includes a solid gold mouse pad. At the low end, this config is a steal: an 89th-percentile CPU, 32GB of fast RAM, and a Wi-Fi 7 workstation for just over two grand. The cheapest store listings we spotted make this one of the most affordable ways to grab Intel's Core Ultra 7 in a prebuilt tower. If you can snag it at the sub-$2,100 price, you can put the savings toward a larger SSD and still come out ahead.

Against gaming-focused rivals like the HP OMEN 45L GT22-3080 or the ASUS Republic of Gamers GM700TZ, the P2 Tower sacrifices GPU muscle for a vastly stronger CPU. Those machines will often pair a lower-core-count chip with a higher-tier GPU, so they're better for pure gaming or GPU rendering. The Dell XPS EBT2250 goes the compact route but won't touch the P2's multicore performance or I/O. Then there's the Apple iMac M4, which sits in a different universe: silent, gorgeous, and perfect for creative workflows that don't need a discrete GPU, but its sealed design means zero internal expansion and fewer ports. The MSI EdgeXpert is more of an edge-server play and less a direct workstation competitor. If your work involves heavy parallel compute and you want a tower you can open (even if the first thing you'll do is add an SSD), the P2 Tower is the logical pick.

Skip this if you need a quiet, compact machine or a storage-loaded powerhouse out of the box. The 36th-percentile compact score and 9.67kg heft mean it dominates desk space and won't move easily. Creative pros who want a sleek all-in-one will find the Apple iMac M4 far more appealing. Gamers should look elsewhere—the RTX 5060 falls behind even last-gen mid-range cards, and a 500W PSU won't let you easily fix that. If you're allergic to upgrading storage on a brand-new machine, the 512GB SSD alone is reason to walk away.

The P2 Tower Gen 2 is a CPU monster dressed in a silly storage configuration. The Core Ultra 7 265 is a genuine productivity weapon, and the port selection is superb. But that 512GB drive is a head-scratcher—plan to add a second NVMe stick before you install anything serious. If you find a store listing at the lower end of that wild price range, it's a fantastic deal for a software dev, CAD, or light AI workstation. Just budget for a storage upgrade and accept that the RTX 5060 keeps this thing grounded to mid-tier GPU tasks.