Should I upgrade from W530 to P1?

I stopped upgrading my Thinkpads a few years ago. Now I am still using Thinkpad W530 (processor: i7-3920XM) for work. As you know, W Thinkpads are powerful machines.

I know Thinkpad P1 (processor: Intel® Xeon® E-2176M vPro 6 Core Processor or 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8850H vPro) is lighter and has long battery life. I use my laptop mostly for software programming (web sites). I don't do graphics or gaming. I often have many applications open at the same time. Sometimes, I got out of memory message on my W530 (32G). Sometimes, I feel the system is a bit slow.

In terms of system power and work productivity, does this upgrade make a big difference? Is P1 much faster than W530?

Thanks for help!

 

The 64GB of memory may help, but the CPU isn't significantly faster.

 

I would disagree with this statement. Even the Core i7-8750H is significantly faster than the Core i7-3920MX: Comparison

The new hexa-core CPUs are maybe not twice as fast as the Core i7-3920MX, but the difference is huge and significant.

Yes, it is much faster in almost every way. RAM is faster, storage is faster, the CPU and especially the GPU are much faster (though the faster GPU does not matter if you do not utilize it anyway). Its a huge performance upgrade.

 

Everyone has their own definition of significant, but I would say unless it's at least twice as fast, then it's not significant. That's also only if you're pushing the CPU to the limit. Typical usage won't do that. Getting more memory will make a bigger difference than the speed of the memory. SSDs were fast in 2012 when the W530 was released and that's unchanged today.

 

ZaZ and ibmthink, thank you so much for your input!

ZaZ, feels good to see you help people generously like what you did at least 10 years ago. Thank you!

I have ordered a P52 ( Xeon E-2176M vPro MB, NVIDIA Quadro P2000, 32 GB memory) instead of P1 out of concerns about heat and sound in P1. I will order additional 32GB memory from NewEgg

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...LC-_-na-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16820232156&cm_sp=

I am hoping that this P52 and memory will deliver the significant improvement in performance.

Your thoughts?

Best.

 

I'd say that the P1 has better cooling, and is easier to maintain (repaste).

Do you really need the xeon cpu and ecc memory?

 

I use my laptop mostly for software programming (web sites). I don't do graphics or gaming. If Xeon and Intel® Core™ i7-8850H can deliver similar performance, I would use Intel® Core™ i7-8850H. It is also cheaper. No need for ECC.

Do you think that P1 (i7-8850H + Nvidia Quadro P2000 4GB) would be great for me? Or should I go with Xeon on P1 for even better performance?

I googled and found reports about the fan noise issue. Many people voice concerns about the thermals too. I often open many apps and browser tabs at the same time.

Thanks!

 

There's no difference between the 8850H and Xeon, at least in this chassis the Xeon won't make any difference even though the default boost clock is higher. The power limits would just force it to run on par or worse with the 8850H.

The 8850H also has configurable turbo limits so you can limit it to be faster or slower to control heat output.


The GTX1050Ti on the X1 Extreme is better, since it's the same GPU as the P2000 and overclockable.


If you only program, get the X1E. Don't waste money on what you don't need (quadro+xeon).

 

X1E seems tempting. One quick question. I plan to to 32GB memory from Lenovo, but I will buy and add another 32GB myself. Does X1E or P1 allow me to do that?

Another question: I would like to have two hard drives: one for the system and tools, and the other for my work and data. Seems X1E comes with only one drive. Can you confirm that?

Thanks for helping me out!

 

Buy your own ram and drive, easier and cheaper.

X1E and P1 MB is the same in terms of expansion and I/O. X1E can do RAID with dual drives.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Good choice on getting the P52 instead of the P1. You'll still have a removable battery and the option to get a spare battery for longer runtimes when you're on a pinch.