Is the MX250 worth it over the Intel 620?

I was wondering if it was worth it to get the MX250 over the Intel 620. Currently looking at the Think pad T490 and in order to get the MX250, I need to upgrade to an i7 and then select the MX250. That would cost an extra $400. The games that I would play (but not often) are games like cuphead, terraria, hollow knight, minecraft, etc.

Also, how would the Intel 620 respond to a 1440p resolution?

Thanks!

 

Always go with the dedicated GPU if you're going to play games and to future proof your system since you cant upgrade the GPU on most laptops. You can save money by going with a 1080p screen option instead of 4k because its pointless on a laptop and plus you'll lose battery life. You'll also play those games at native resolution.

 

Unfortunately, I can't really save much money since there's no 4k option to begin with on the T490. The default is like a 720p screen, so I would personally like to at least upgrade to a 1080p. The default config is roughly $950 with a 1080p screen, i5, and HD 620. If I were to config it for the mx250, it would be roughly $1400. Again, I won't be gaming on this daily (I do have a desktop on campus), I would probably play a game over the vacation weeks when I go back home which is when I would use the laptop to play a game.

 

The MX250 is monumentally faster than the HD 620, its not even close. If that's worth $450 to you, I have no idea. It's a pretty steep increase to be sure. Do any other benefits or spec upgrades come along with that or is that $450 only getting you the GPU?

 

For the thinkpad, the base cpu is an i5. The only way you can get the gpu upgrade would be to upgrade to an i7 cpu. So roughly, the cpu upgrade is around $200 and the gpu upgrade is $250 (hence the higher $450 total). So yeah, the i7 is nice to have and might be slightly better, but I believe an i5 is capable of the stuff I need it to do (or I think it will be).

 

Compared to the normal price of Thinkpads with good specs i think its worth $1400. The HD620 can handle those games fine but again going with the i7 and mx250 will help futureproof your system.

 

If it's the difference between the i5-8265U and the i7-8565U, the CPU upgrade will net you not much performance. They are both 4 core 8 thread. Unless they are using the 25W TDP configuration of the i7 and the 15W configuration of the i5 and have the cooling to match. Which CPU models are they exactly between the two? Overall that's a much easier pill to swallow though getting an upgrade on both.

For instance, on the LG Gram 17, both the i5 and i7 versions are 15W TDP and the performance difference between the two isn't very great.

 

Taking a look online, I believe the t490 uses a 15W i5 and i7, however, both chips have the ability to reach a tdp of 25W.
Eitherway, when looking at benchmarks, the i7 scored 17 more points in cinebench, 63 points in Multi 64bit, and 630 so points more in PC mark tests. In other words, I personally do not believe that the CPU upgrade will benefit me much, it all comes down to the GPU portion.

 

Check out the P43s, too. It almost always come with a GPU (the Quadro P520, which is an 18W version of the MX150/MX250) and usually one of the 1080p IPS panels (instead of the 768p TN junk base panel).

Occasionally, when on sale, the P43s comes out ahead of the T490 in terms of specs/money.

 

That's interesting, didn't think about that. Taking a look at the base models, the P43s does come out better than the t490 (with the i7 + mx 250 + 1080p screen) right now. My only question then is would you know how well the battery life is? I couldn't find a lot of good reviews for it, or would it be similar to the t490?

 

The 1440p screen is worth getting on the T490. It's very bright and has excellent color gamut, higher than the 1080p panel.

Charles

 

Respectfully, I personally feel otherwise, having the same panel in my X1C6. It's glossy, and not Macbook Pro or even Alienware M11x glossy. It's "at max brightness, I can still use it as a serviceable mirror in the office" glossy.

So high brightness is needed just to even see items on the screen. The PPI is also just high enough that native scaling is simply too small for all uses and cases (it's generally fine, but even with decent eyesight, it's going to strain my eyes to always see everything). Running 125% scaling is not always successful in windows 10 - even today, I can still occasionally catch native, Microsoft written Win10 system components with blurry presentation. It get worse when I dock and undock from my work setup, which has two dissimilar displays.

It also has somewhat slow response time. Not horribly slow, but still slow enough to be noticeable.

That being said, it is a beautiful display and when its good aspects can be enjoyed, they are wonderful (including the resolution).

As for the OP's question, the P43s is using the same chassis as the T490 (same small 50Whr battery). Only difference is a Quadro P520 instead of a MX250.

 

Hmm, I don't know why but I read the t490 had 8/9 hours where as the p43 only had 5 hours. Though, it was different websites so testing methods probably varies.

As for screen, I can't say I'm too picky with with the screen, resolution, and color acurracy (or course, better colors are always appreciated). But yeah, for reference, my desktop monitor is a LG 24gm77 which if I did my research correct, is roughly 72% of the ntsc color gamut. And that has worked well for me for 4 years now.

 

I just bought another laptop this time with a mx150

I run Grid 2019 on all high and average 30fps at 1080p
with a hd 620 I would see 10fps at 720p