Lenovo ThinkPad P50 upgrades

Released 2016 · support ended

CPU is soldered (BGA) to the system board - no CPU slot and not user-upgradeable (6th-Gen Skylake H-series: i7-6700HQ/6820HQ, Xeon E3-1505M/1535M v5, 45 W class, CM236 chipset). Machine types 20EN/20EQ; do not confuse with the thinner ThinkPad P50s. WWAN and WLAN use dedicated M.2 slots and do not consume storage bays; ExpressCard/34 slot present; no optical drive. Some options (WWAN, smart card reader, fingerprint) are model-specific - check the MTM suffix.

Upgrade guide → What fits, step by step, and official documents.

4x DDR4 SO-DIMM, 2133 MHz, 64 GB max 4 × DDR4 SO-DIMM · up to 64 GB total · 2133 MT/s

Four unbuffered DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets, no soldered memory. ECC works only with the Xeon E3-1505M/1535M v5 configs; i7 configs should use cheaper non-ECC. Registered/server RDIMM/LRDIMM will NOT work. Speed is capped at 2133 MHz (PC4-17000) - faster DDR4 runs only at fallback speed. Lenovo validated 16 GB modules (64 GB total); 32 GB SO-DIMMs are not listed as supported. Modules must be unbuffered SO-DIMMs.

No compatible offers right now.

2x M.2 2280 + 1x 2.5" 7 mm SATA bay 3 × SSD / HDD M.2 2280 / 2.5" (NVMe / SATA) · max 7 mm thick · up to 4 TB

Up to 3 drives at once: 2x M.2 2280 (each SATA 6 Gb/s OR PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4) plus 1x 2.5" SATA. The 2.5" bay takes 7 mm drives only (9.5/12.5 mm won't fit) and uses a shock-mounted bracket - caddy/cable may be needed if the machine ships without one. Lenovo validated 1 TB per SSD and 2 TB HDD (4 TB total = 2+1+1); larger unvalidated drives often work. RAID 0/1 spans specific configs and needs the RST driver.

No compatible offers right now.