Quadro 1000M vs. 2000M

Hey everyone. I'm thinking about buying a Thinkpad W520 by the end of the month for college (engineering major). The two options on said laptop for GPU cards are the Quadro 1000M or the Quadro 2000M, with the later being a +$250 upgrade. I don't know if it's worth that sort of money considering the games I currently own and games I'm considering buying.

Own:
Axis and Allies (2004)
Command and Conquer: Generals (and Zero Hour)
Civilization IV (and expansions)
SimCity 4 (and expansions)
Battlefield 1942 (and expansions)
GTA: SA
World in Conflict (and Soviet Assault)

Looking at buying:
Civilization V
Total War series
Battlefield 3
(perhaps) Battlefield Bad Company 2 (loved the 360 version, though I heard hit detection on PC is terrible)
Sins of a Solar Empire


I'm a big fan of RTS games, and I usually don't bother with FPS gaming on PC (I'm a console-tard, lol...). Would I be jsut fine with a 1000M, or would the 2000M be worth the extra? I'm not a huge gamer in the first place, so I don't need the latest and greatest to entertain me.

 

Both GPUs are honestly not the greatest for gaming (especially since they're generally intended for workstation work), but looking at what you want to play in the future, the 2000M would definitely run it a lot smoother.

The information on the 1000M is a bit lackluster (from a quick google search anyhow) but I think that 1000M is to 540M as 2000M is to 560M (very roughly).

If you haven't looked already NoteBookCheck has some benches:
1000M
2000M

Hope that helps. ><

EDIT: Also I think a stronger GPU would be better for engineering considering you might be working with CAD and such programs in the future.

 

Well, I'm not "into" gaming too much (I'm more of a casual gamer; workstation graphics are fine for me) and I'm sure that most of my engineering programs are either CPU intensive (I' getting a quad-core) or I'll use computer labs. The engineering programs probably aren't very GPU intensive anyway (I'm doing computer engineering).

The W520 with a 1000M comes to ~$1700 on Lenovo's website, and ~$2000 for the 2000M version. I'd like to haggle the price to 1300-1500 if I order. Not sure how much of a performance reduction I'd get with a 1000M (like you said, information is scarce...).

 

On another note, is there any particular reason you're buying a Lenovo? There are plenty of other laptops that could probably do everything you want for less.

 

I'm avoiding consumer laptops because I want the better build quality of a business-grade laptop. I was originally looking at the HP Elitebook 8440p, then 8460p when it came out. However, I discovered that 14" machines didn't offer the power I wanted (plus, I hear of complains across the board for the 14" screens used in HP/Dell/Lenovo laptops), so I'm looking back at 15" laptops. The 8560p/w starts at around 6.5lbs, so that's way too heavy for my liking (I'll only have one computer and I want it relatively lightweight). Right now I want to do computer engineering, though I have two years before I commit (my university groups all engineering majors under "General Enginerring" for the first two years), so I would like to be able to run whatever enginerring programs I might run into (meaning I would need a professional GPU).

My girlfriend's parents have two laptops that are close to the machines I was looking at, a 8440p and a Thinkpad T510; playing with both, I liked the Lenovo better because it felt better built, lightweight (compared to my current laptop in my sig), and the keyboard was so much better (lots of good things are said about Thinkpad keyboards, plus I hate island keyboards...).

Currently comparing between the W520 and the Dell Precision M4600, though I'm leaning towards the Lenovo at the moment.

 

Quadro 1000 and 2000 are exactly same apart from that 1000m have 96 CUDA cores while 200m have 192. The increase of CUDA cores will supply a better proforms for CAD software but a little improve on gaming.

however, since you also concern M4600 which is a better choice. You could choose the Firepro 5950 on M4600 which is more suitable for gaming rather than quadro. And it is much cheaper (even cheaper than Q1000m). The reason it is cheaper is because the AMD card do not have the advantage that NVidia card have with the CUDA cores on CAD software. However, if you just want a workstation for gaming, it is a much better choice.

and, more importantly, You could only have the 1080p screen on W520 if you pick up the 2000m, but you could have it on M4600.

 

EDIT: Removed. Necro.

 

Actually, for 15" workstations, the HP and Dell have the best screens out there (10-bit IPS panel with RGBLED backlight), though HP is pretty hefty. I'm currently interested in the same laptops as you and made a little comparison which might help you out if you don't already know this info already.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/582633-m4600-vs-w520-vs-8560w.html