Performance: Intel Turbo Memory vs. SD card?

Hey guys, I have a T61P that has 1 gig of built-in Turbo Memory which can be used for ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost in Vista.

I also have a 4 gig SDHC card (Class 6 speed, whatever that means).

Which would improve the computer's performance more, using the Turbo Memory for ReadyBoost, or using the 4 gig SDHC card for ReadyBoost?

If it matters, my CPU is the T7800 2.6 ghz core 2 duo, and I have 4 gigs of RAM.

OR is there a benchmark I should try to find out which benefits me more?

 

According to proven benchmarks that were published Intel Turbo Memory provides little, if any performance gain when using 2GB of RAM or more.

When using 1GB of RAM it is definitely worth using, but for 2/3/4GB configurations it isn't even worth using it.

 

Hmm well if that is the case, then I guess I may as well use this very nice SD card for my camera instead.

 

Yeah you should, you won't see any relative gains when using Intel Turbo Memory unless you have 1GB of RAM or less...

Proof:

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3009

 

Good thing my computer is RIDICULOUSLY fast already

 

I don't question the benchmark stats, but just as another data point for everyone, I have a t61p with Intel Turbo Memory. At one point, I turned off the turbo memory feature to debug a BSOD problem. Anyhow, the machine was NOTICEBLY slower in booting and general use, to the point where I was getting really frustrated. Turning it back on, it was noticebly faster again!

 

I have T7700 4 GB RAM so I have a similar configuration. There is a definite improvement in response with the Turbo Memory (I have run with and without it). I also tried using a 2GB 150x SD card in a fast Express Card reader for ReadyBoost and using the Turbo Memory only for ReadyDrive. The system was not as quick as with the Turbo Memory only.

The best boost for system response is to get a fast hard drive like the Hitachi 7k200 since you already have a good deal of RAM. But when you come down to it, the Turbo Memory is quicker than a fast SD card, at least in a fast Express Card reader.

 

Disproof: I have found the contrary with my own machine, which has 4GB RAM and a T7700.

 

Thanks for the info bro!

I actually have the 7k200 Hitachi already Love it!

I will keep using Intel Turbo Memory as you suggest.

 

Application launches and etc. are MUCH faster with my 4GB SD (ReadyBoost) and Turbo Mem (ReadyDrive).

 

ReadyBoost is using at most 2GB of that SD card. Did you compare your current setup to using Turbo Memory for both Readyboost and Readydrive?

 

^^^^ Ditto. I have only tried two things. Turbomemory for ReadyDrive AND ReadyBoost. It was nice and fast. Currently I have TurboMemory for ReadyDrive only and 4GB SDHD class 6 card in the internal card reader (also SDHC class 6 compliant) for ReadyBoost. My current set-up is noticeably faster for application launch times. I mean programs like Word and Firefox have always opened almost instantaneously. I'm talking about programs like Photoshop and Premiere that normally take awhile to open. Those applications open in about 2 -3 seconds!

Boot-time is about 50 seconds. I think that's fast. Turbomemory for ReadyDrive? Maybe? I'm happy with the boot time.

Also, I have 4GB of RAM and the Hitachi 7K200. ReadyBoost still has something to offer even on a Thinkpad that it practically maxed out on hardware. The only thing that could make my system significantly better would be an SSD. I have doubts that readyboost would help much on an SSD system.

 

^^^ My 4GB SDHC card shows that it is full... It's using the whole thing for something.

 

The recommended ratio for ReadyBoost is 1:1 or 2.5:1 so if you have 2GB of RAM utilizing 2GB-4GB would be the sweet spot for ReadyBoost.

I don't believe you'd experience any speed difference when changing the size of ReadyBoost, as long it fits into the ratios above...

 

Late..., clean installed today, and just getting back up to speed AutoCAD 2008 now launches in a few seconds as compared to about thirty using the internal chip alone. I have a 5400 rpm drive, so I am not as fast as some, but this thing smokes.

 

Yes but it's not necessarily speeding up anything. The advantage of ReadyBoost is that the flash memory is very fast compared to the hard disk for small size I/O operations. The transfer rate is actually slower than the hard drive. Especially your hard drive. So when the I/O operation gets large, then the hard drive would be faster. Vista checks out your device when it sees it and comes out with a recommended cache size. I haven't seen Vista recommend all of 2GB yet (in my case it recommended 1860 MB if memory serves). Did it recommend 4GB in your case?

Now if you tell it to use the 4GB, then Vista will go ahead and use what you tell it to. But one of the problems with cache size is that the bigger the cache size, you might be slowing the cache down. It gets very complicated because caches have lots of different structures and policies, and I don't know what Vista does for Readyboost in detail. But for a lot of caches, a bigger cache means a bit more time to find something in it.

Worse yet, I have seen a huge amount of my Readyboost used for large recorded video files. These are files that should not be prefetched at all, with the possible exception of a few pages at the beginning and at the most recently accessed page. Having a bigger cache might just encourage that sort of thing.

In the actually event, my 2GB fast SD didn't speed things up compared to intel Turbo Memory.

 

It did in my case as I mentioned above. Turbo Memory alone vs Turbo Memory and 4GB SDHC = Turbo Memory and 4GB SDHC has noticable improvement on application launch times. Sounds like aadadams has the same experience.

It recommended either 3760 MB or 3860 MB for me I can't remember which, but definately one of the two.

All I can say is that I have only seen real life performance improvements and no performance decreases in any areas since setting up Turbo Memory for ReadyDrive and 4GB SDHC for ReaadyBoost.

 

Well I have been trying different settings myself for the last few days, and so far the fastest setup seems to be Stallen's setup... using the Turbo Memory for Readydrive only, and using my 4 gig class 6 SDHC card.

I didn't realize how fast my system was until my co-worker played with my laptop. His reaction was hilarious. He has a Lenovo (not thinkpad) laptop that is only about 3 months old. I think it has a Core 2 Duo, might be a Core Duo, but it's dual core. Anyways, his is by no means a crappy PC, it has 2 gigs of RAM and it runs Vista Business like me, so it shouldn't be much slower than mine for daily tasks right?

Wrong...He tried opening Word, Excel, Outlook, IE, Photoshop, just whatever programs he could find. Just about any program opens in a split second on my laptop. He was amazed, he said wow I didn't expect it to be this fast... He says, I knew it would be faster than mine but this is ridiculous, it's FRUSTRATING how fast your computer is!! He said it made him depressed seeing how much faster my laptop was compared to his.

That really made me appreciate fully the awesomeness of my lappy! Yes, it takes around a minute to boot, to me that seemed like a long time because I'm used to XP on my fast dual core home PC. But dude...once you are booted and logged in, everything is fantastic, it flies.

I am really happy with this setup, it is truly a joy to use such a fast and responsive laptop, and I think the all black look is dead sexy personally!

This is probably the most fun purchase I have made for years!

P.S. - I have had my laptop for like 5 days now and I have used it A LOT... and guess what... I have not seen one single BSOD or any type of Windows error or unusual behavior. I have been playing online games, working, using OLD programs from Windows 95 era, using crazy circuit analysis software, etc... So far everything has worked in Vista 64 bit, I thought for sure some of my software wouldn't work. Everything works perfectly, no crashes or BSOD's, it's like magic baby. This laptop is like a friggin lucky charm or something, it has made my work so smooth lately. It makes any computer task a whiz.

FYI I really need to mention, right when I got this laptop I did a fresh install of Vista. I have no idea if it would have run this great with the extra junk installed that it came with. Don't know, don't care. Don't know what Thinkvantage is, don't care. All I know is it works GREAT after the fresh install.

Let me tell you how awesome this laptop is...I was using it in the lab today for 2 hours, and I accidentally had it on Max Performance mode, which uses more battery power. Everyone was noticing how fast every program loads. anyways After 2 hours of working with circuit software and excel and word and stuff and looking stuff up online, I had like 60% of my battery charge left. WTF? That seems like more battery life than I would expect especially on max performance mode! This thing is fast, DEAD silent, and the battery lasts for so long, and it never gets hot. It's like a magic laptop I swear, it is hard to believe how awesome this thing is. On top of it all, it is tough, thin, light, and looks like a serious piece of equipment instead of a cheezy toy like 99% of other laptops.

I am so glad I didn't buy any other laptop!

 

^^^ LOVE that post!!!

That is how I feel. Just do a clean install and forget about STinkVantage. Life is much easier that way.

 

Then it must be pattern of use dependent because that setup slowed me down.

Do you work with large media files often? I think that is the thing that screws up ReadyBoost. I hope they fix it soon.

 

I have 15.4" T61 with built-in Ricoh 4-in-1 card reader. Does anyone know if this card reader fully support the "class 6" SDHC cards?

Thanks!

 

On the advice of this thread, I've purchased a 4GB SDHC Class 6 card from Patriot which I am now using alongside my Intel Turbo Memory in my t61p where the SD is for ReadyBoost and the turbo memory is for ReadyDrive. Thus far, I can't tell the difference, but it's only been a few hours. I can tell you that the SD card is sure getting a workout though judging from the LED on the front of the t61p. Damn thing is like constantly going. Wonder how much battery life that will eat. Hmm.. Speaking of which, I wonder if the system throttles the activity/performance of ReadyBoost/Drive when you're on battery. I hope not.

Anyhow, I will report back with more when I've had this running longer.

EDIT: My system has 2GB of RAM.

 

You quoted the answer to your question.

 

It's unlikely that readyboost will cause your battery life to suffer. It has the potential to make it improve. It is a solid state drive (SSD) meaning it has no moving parts. A SSD used with ReadyBoost should reduce access to your primary hard drive which is a moving/spinning drive that uses a significant amount of power.

I noticed lots of access to the internal card reader right after I inserted it and right after boot-ups. After that, it is usually in idle unless I am launching an application or actively doing any number of other things. Again, I noticed the most improvement on applications that usually took a long time to launch. Other than that I don't notice much in other areas.

Also, I did not intend to encourage people to run out and buy a card for Readyboost. I was merely stating I have some improved application launch times. I also have not had any stability issues or performance degradation with this set-up.

 

Has anyone tested using a 4GB ExpressCard SSD for ReadyBoost compared to the SDHC cards? I have an ExpressCard slot just sitting around doing nothing. If I could get a nice performance boost out of sticking a 4GB SSD in there, would be awesome.

 

The light on my SD card rarely ever flashes. When it does, it blinks a few times and stops. Usually it only happens on boot or opening big apps. Pretty much liek Stallen said.

 

Hi
Where did you get a T61P with a T7800, 4GB RAM and 1GB built-in Turbo Memory ? I don't see the this product in Leveno's website. What is the product ID? I really wish to have such a product with 200GB HDD too! Please send me the product ID.
Thanks,
Power and Media Lover

 

All of these are options on the US Configure To Order site. Perhaps you are looking at preconfigured models?

When I pick 7800, Vista Ultimate, 4GB, Turbo Memory and a 200GB drive, the price goes up by US$1400, more than double the price of the base system, so not for the faint of heart.

 

I have the same question. Will a 4GB SSD expresscard do the job for readyboost?

 

Yes, Expresscard SSD's can be used for Readyboost, but just keep in mind that the Expresscard data interface may not always be equally fast on all notebooks. I don't know about the performance on the T61. Also, the performance of Expresscard SSDs can differ between manufacturers. The Lexar SSD as an example is supposedly not very impressive:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=7403

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/first-review-lexar-expresscard-ssd-254364.php

 

All,

I have since gone back to just using the Intel Turbo Memory. My system seems faster using it for ReadyDrive and ReadyBoost than splitting it up between the Turbo Mem and my 4GB SDHC card. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it was noticeably faster just using the integrated Turbo Mem.

 

Interesting as I use a 4GB SDHC card, you need to run some benchmarks

TBH I havent noticed to much speed difference between SDHC and the installed Readyboost drive.

 

I also noticed that the turbo memory does it a little jump when it comes to things. My computer starts up much faster than before enabling turbo memory (it has the same before/after time up to the point where the desktop first appears....then after that..it's a blast...all the system tray icons and sidebar load up noticeably quicker than without turbo mem enabled.

I also uninstalled the driver and just tried using a 2GB SD card and it wasn't such a noticeable difference.

 

Did you guys have to do anything special with drivers or anything to get the SDHC cards to work? My T61p won't recognise a 4Gb Kingston SDHC card - card tests out ok in a camera, but laptop doesn't want anything to do with it..

 

You just insert it into the slot and the autoplay window comes up asking if you want to use it for readyboost.

 

I use a Sandisk Extreme III SDHC... but yours should work. Sometimes I have to eject and re-insert the card a few times before my latop will recognize that I inserted the card.

Does your memory card slot work for other cards? If not, uninstall the driver from the control panel - reboot, download the "ricoh 4-1" memory card driver from Lenovo, re-install the driver - reboot.

 

HP has rejected readyboost because there is little performance gain and the gain is smaller when there is more memory in your system. I had that card until I got a WWAN card. I saw no difference in my system performance when I removed it on a 4 gb 7800 t61p.

 

Slot works fine for other (non HC) cards but this one is not recognised at all, ie. push it in, the light comes on briefly then nothing, Vista doesn't display the autoplay box..
I can't really return it as DOA as I've now found it will work in a camera..

edit: tried removing and re-inserting many times to no avail, and also reinstalled Ricoh driver - still no joy

Anything else I can try??

 

is posting to be posted

 

Hi

In a few weeks my turbo memory card needs to make way for my WWAN card, and Im looking at purchasing a SDHC card as a replacement.

Im considering the Sandisk Ultra III 4Gb or 8Gb SDHC cards. I know 8Gb might be an overkill but I may use it for other purposes as well.

Can anyone confirm if thee cards will work with the built in ricoh 4in1 reader?

Thanks

 

I thought the max for turbo was 4 gig?

 

I see no reason why they wouldn't. However, 4GB is the current maximum for readyboost... if that is what you are planning to use it for...

 

Does anyone know if all T61ps have SDHC capable readers? Or any way to tell if mine is different in some way?

 

I would assume that all of them would have the same type of memory card reader. But who knows...they buy lcd's from various manufacturers, so they may do the same with these things as well

 

Just tried card in another T61p - didn't work in that either.
Does work in a camera and my PS3 though which tends to point towards the ThinkPad(s) being the problem..?

 

I've got nothin for ya except to re-boot and keep inserting and removing. I one time had to remove and re-insert mine several times before it would recognize.

Maybe uninstall and re-install the ricoh 4-1 driver. Maybe you've already tried that I forget.

 

i am not really up to speed on my SD tech knowledge but from what i have gathered SDHC class 6 is as good as it gets. does anyone see a problem or deficiency with this card for use with ReadyBoost?

http://www.meritline.com/a-data-turbo-sd-card-150x-4gb.html

 

Yup, reinstalled drivers several times with reboots in between, also removed and reinserted the thing lots - still no joy.
Can't send it back cos it works fine in other stuff - and now not convinced this laptop is actually SDHC compliant so reluctant to fork out double the cost of the Kingston card on a Sandisk one...

 

Hi Timd75, I have your same problem on my T61, it sees SD up to 2 GB, but it doesn't recognize both the 4GB SD and the 8GB SDHC I have.
Note I've checked that another HP laptop equipped with the same Ricoh chipset and the same Win driver shows no problem.
Have you found a solution ?

Thanks in advance,
Terry64

 

Do any of these tricks work if you have 4 or more GB of RAM?

I've actually heard some really good things about Thinkvantage, but I'll heed your advice and get rid of it when I get my machine. Oh, sorry for derailing things a bit if I did.