Need help choosing GPU on Thinkpad T-series

Hi, I am considering buying a Thinkpad T-series laptop sometime soon, and was wondering about the graphic cards available in the models from http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/en/. I really like the thinkpads and am really sure that's the laptop I want, although I want to be able to do some occasional gaming. How good a graphics card do I need to play games like Oblivion, Dark Messiah, Neverwinter Nights 2, BF2142, HL 2, and games in that (varying) range on reasonable (medium) settings? I see that from lenovo.com I can currently get the nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M on a 14" T61 with Rosa, and a ATI Mobility Fire GL V5250 256MB on a 15.4" T60p.

Since it's not possible to upgrade graphic cards on Thinkpads, should I go for one of these or wait till a newer card gets out? I see that someone posted "I found that lenovo will release T61p arond June,5 ( and even earlier ) and it will come with NVidia Quadro FX 570 M 256MB video card". I saw someone say this card will be about twice as good as the ATI Fire GL V5250, which again is better than the nVIDIA Quadro 140M?

June 5th is not that long for me to wait, although the 25% discount goes out 30 May.. will there be new discounts by the end of June? Should I buy a laptop now, or will I need the NVidia Quadro FX 570 M 256MB video card to play games good enough?

also, to play games such as those above on Vista would it be good to have more than 2GB ram? If I buy 4GB, would that affect the operating system I have to use (32x, 64x )

 

I would definitely wait for the FX 570 M as it will be DX10 based although ideally if you want to game you want to look for a graphics card and not a workstation graphics card which are optimized for CAD and such.

 

Since t61p is coming so soon (the 5th supposedly), why not wait? There'll always be another "sale" just around the corner (the release of the t61p, back to school, etc. etc.).

if you buy 4GB, vista 32-bit will recognize only around 3gigs of it. 64-bit will recognize all 4, but driver support is iffy. On the other hand, since Lenovo ships the T61 with vista business 64-bit, i'm sure drivers will be compatible at least initially.

 

The only problem is the Thinkpad T-series don't offer gaming graphics cards. or do they? I don't see any from lenovo.com at least. I don't need my laptop for pure gaming, but would like to be able to when I find time, and I really like the Thinkpad T-series..

 

Well, it's not like you won't be able to game at all. You'll just see a slight reduction in speed and fps when compared to comparable GPUs, like the 8600M GT...possibly a few crashes depending on the game and drivers.

 

Ok, but what about that 4GB ram issue.. Do those games i mentioned above support Vista 64-bit? Is it better to go for 2 gb ram and the normal 32-bit vista?

 

If you buy a Thinkpad T61 and want to play games like Oblivion or BF 2142, you'll need the best video card available (the Quadro NVS 140M), as well as 2 GB of RAM and a processor with 4 MB of L2 cache (I'd recommend either the T7300 or T7500).

Currently 4 GB of RAM is overdoing it in a notebook. You don't need it. Those games do not support 64-bit Vista. I would go with 2 GB of RAM and regular 32-bit Vista, because a lot of programs run into compatibility problems with 64-bit Vista (I'll give you an example - my Microsoft Office will not run on a 64-bit operating system).

 

Thanks, I think I know a little better what I want (and need) now
I will probably wait till June and see what better graphic card Lenovo can offer on the T61, and then get a T7500 or 7700 processor with 2 gb ram and Vista. Although, since Vista requires some ram to run while playing games like Oblivion and BF 2142, wouldn't it be better to get 3 gb of ram (would Vista "recognize" all 3 gig)?

 

Lenovo won't offer a better video card on the T61. When the T61p comes out, it's supposed to have an Nvidia Quadro FX 570M card, which is based off one of the 8600M cores. I have a gut feeling that the T61p will be a 15.4" laptop though. It's supposed to be announced on June 5th, so stay tuned.

Vista would recognize all 3 GB of RAM, yes. Vista never uses more than 1 GB of RAM at a time. For gaming purposes, 2 GB of RAM is enough. Unless you're going to be doing some pretty intensive work like encoding, you won't need 3 GB of RAM. Currently 2 GB sticks of RAM are pretty expensive compared to 1 GB sticks of RAM, and I really doubt that the extra 1 GB of RAM will matter that much in Oblivion or BF 2142, even though they're quite RAM intensive games.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong (and hopefully I am cuz it'll make a difference to me when I buy a laptop...)

I think the major problem is, if you get an OEM version of Windows, you only get the version that came with your system (i.e. either the 32-bit or the 64-bit), not both. Unlike the retail versions, Microsoft won't give you the free upgrades from 32- to 64-bit either....so you're basically stuck with whatever you choose unless you want to pay $350 for your own retail version.

If it were otherwise, I'd definitely grab the 32-bit version now, and then just upgrade to the 64-bit when better drivers are available and get the best of both worlds.

 

I have one more question concerning the NVidia Quadro FX 570 M 256MB video card. Does it support an extra screen connected to the laptop, so that i could swipe my mouse from the laptop screen to and externally connected extra screen? (I don't know what its called or what cable you would use to connect an extra screen, just normal VGA-cable?)

also, does it take alot of extra power from the laptop to handle an extra screen (say, if i was browsing on the laptop screen and playing a game on the extra screen?). would I then have to consider buying a better system configuration than without connecting an extra screen?