T420s - questions

Was waiting for the MacBook Pro updates, very lackluster and the one I would get is the one with the 6750M card which is way too expensive.

I have some questions that pertains to the T420s and Thinkpads in general:

1. What resolutions are going to be available for the T420s?

2. What graphics card is going to be available for the T420s?

3. If it comes with a professional graphics card built for CAD, is it still possible to flash the graphics card to a consumer card, how easy is this and will it still be able to use the Intel GMA when needed if this is done?

4. In general, how reliable are the Lenovo battery claims? It claims the T420s is capable of 10 hours of battery life with a 6-cell.

5. Is the processor still going to be ULV grade or is it going to use the full-power ones?

Thanks, +1 rep will be added to everyone who helps.

 

I'm curious to hear responses on this as well.

 

Many of your questions can be answered here (the new TABook):

http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf

 

1. 1600x900 is the highest resolution

2. First release will be the intel gpu, later nvidia 4200m with optimus.

3. That is something one would only know when you get the laptop.

4. That is also something one would know once they get the laptop.

5. Processors will be the regular voltage one.

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T420s is not yet released.

 

Quadros are based off GeForce cores, you might be able to flash it, but why would you? They are polar opposites. GeForce focus on massive bandwidth to stuff computed faster, while Quadros focus on accuracy of polygons to make a long explanation short.

As lead_org has stated, more will be released when it gets tested/benchmarked.

 

I guess TSE would would want to play games on it more than use it for CAD programs, thus no need for the Quadro things of accuracy

But I think even though they are Quadro cards, they do perform well with games as well, so I don't think there would be any need to flash anything (like in the good old days ) At work I have a notebook with Quadro FX 880M (sadly not a ThinkPad) and it works great with games as well. How well the NVS 4200 will perform, we will find out when the first reviews popup, sometime in march hopefully.

If you can beleive the material that was shared by Lenovo, the discrete graphics version of the T420s will not hit stores before the middle of April.

On a sidenote, I also use the graphics card for gaming on my T500 ThinkPad. Otherwise the processing power is needed for programming / development and photo editing/management, for which maybe the integrated card would be enough. But I would not want separate machines for work and games.

I guess many feel this way, that is why there are so many questions concerning the graphics capabilities of the new ThinkPads. Then again, there are those who always say ThinkPads are professional working machines, why bother with good graphics? And I don't really see the end of that argument

 

time for a DIY Vidock if you want to game.

 

Or buying a dedicated gaming desktop/laptop lol.

I see DIY Vidock as more of a multi-monitor setup than playing games.

 

The DIY VIDOCK with ATI 5850 is pretty good.

 

if you check notebookcheck it's obvious that the NVS 4200M won't be a very powerful gaming GPU.

 

If the stats are right, with only 48 SPs and a 64-bit bus the NVS 4200M is getting dangerously close to the 12 EU Sandy Bridge integrated graphics. NVS4200M should be around ~5500-6000 3dmark06, whereas the 12EU Sandy Bridge integrated is around ~4500.

If you don't plan on gaming you should get the integrated model. If you do game, you have to decide whether the extra performance of the NVS4200M justifies the additional cost, heat, and noise. The good news is that battery life (when you're not gaming) should be about the same on either model. The bad news is that you're not going to see drastically better performance on the NVS4200M.

There are basically three choices:

You can get a higher-end machine (like the W520 or a gaming notebook) with a GPU that will blow the NVS4200M out of the water (the GeForce 460M for example is around 13k 3DMark06, or about 2.5x ahead of the NVS4200M). If you play games a lot or want to play newer/more demanding games with the settings turned up, this is your best choice.

You can get the T420s with the Sandy Bridge (integrated) GPU, which does a good job on older titles and less demanding games like WoW and StarCraft 2 on low. Both run fine on my desktop (which actually has a slower 6 EU Sandy Bridge GPU compared with the 12 EU Sandy Bridge GPU that the T420s will come with). Driver support has gotten a lot better here, too. If you are an occasional gamer or you have a desktop which you play on most of the time (as I do), this is probably the best option.

The third option is to get the T420s with the NVIDIA NVS 4200M GPU. The problem with this is that it's still not fast enough to run the most demanding games. What you will gain over the Sandy Bridge GPUs is better compatibility (although this is less of a problem than it used to be), more consistent performance (sometimes the Intel GPUs are just inexplicably slow), and the ability to turn up the settings on most titles a couple of notches. If money is not an object for you, or if you really like the T420s form factor but want the best possible performance, this is your best option.

 

The Quadro NVS series is not actually intended for CAD. It is primarily intended as a multi-monitor 2D productivity product. It should perform more or less identically to its GeForce equivilent.

As you probably know, though, the consumer and pro GPUs are usually based on the exact same chips. The difference is that the consumer GPUs have certain features (like ECC or full-performance FP64) disabled, and the pro GPUs have certain driver optimizations enabled to help CAD apps. Generally these tweaks do not significantly impact game performance, so it's perfectly reasonable to use a Quadro for gaming as long as you don't care about the price (which we don't in this case since I suspect Lenovo isn't paying much more for the Quadro).

The NVS4200M will not be a fast GPU, though. Notebook Check claims it's 48SP with a 64-bit DDR3 bus. That means it's going to suck. Expect performance that's about in line with the Radeon 6490M in the new MacBook Pro 15, which means that it will be about 1.5x as fast as the Sandy Bridge 12 EU integrated GPU (available on the T420s and also the MBP 13) and about 2x as fast as the T410's NVS3100M.

10 hours is with the bay battery. With just the 6-cell it's 6 hours.

No one can give you exact numbers for battery life without a unit in hand, but they seem plausible.

My T400 averages around 8W with reasonable (about 1/3) brightness while browsing the web. The Arrandale platform used in the T410/T410s is a little higher power so battery life suffered there. Thankfully Sandy Bridge is more power efficient so it should do at least as well as my Penryn-based T400.

If we assume 8W, the 6-cell should deliver 6 hours (assuming 48Wh) and the bay battery (32Wh) will give you an extra 4 hours. Obviously if you do something that's CPU intensive or if you raise the brightness a lot it's going to be less. But I think you can reasonably expect at least 4.5 hours on the 6-cell and 7 hours with the 6-cell and the bay battery, even with moderate use and higher brightness.

The T410s and T420s both use full-power CPUs (35W).

In the T400s generation, Core 2 Duo "Penryn" mobile CPUs were actually available in a ton of different power variants, including: 35W (full power), 28W (full power), 25W (full power), 17W (low voltage), and 10W (ultra low voltage).

The T400s used the 25W "full power" CPUs, whereas the T400 was available with either 25W or 35W CPUs. Keep in mind that the later Intel CPUs (T410 and T420 generation) include the graphics and memory controller in the power usage, so you need to add 8W or so to the T400-era CPUs to compare the power usage.

 

Although I would love to get a T420s, I've been burned (not literally) by the T400s and the T410s. My T400s had the infamous shutdown problem and had to have the main board replaced.

My T410s (520m integrated graphics) had an overheating issue. If you stressed the CPU (video conversion) the computer would slow to a crawl and eventually shutdown too.

On paper these models are awesome but are they stretching it too far by cramming all this heat generating technology into too small a platform?

 

I have SATA questions: is the Intel 310 micro SSD supported? Is there an eSATA (combined with USB) as it was in the T400s/T410s or that port is used (internally I mean) for the Intel 310? (I guess I can always buy an ExpressCard for eSATA).

Finally do we still need to pick between a card reader and an ExpressCard slot?

 

Intel 310 use micro pci not sata, T420s also will have a usb/esata combo port like the current line.

 

I know that the psychical interface is the mini pci express inside but I was wondering whether you needed a SATA lane or something. We have seen that in netbooks. The tabook pdf http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf lists One slot (ExpressCard/34), 4-in-1 reader (MMC, SD, SDHC, SDXC), Two USB 2.0 (one powered), one USB 3.0,
external monitor (VGA DB-15, DisplayPort), ethernet (RJ-45) under Ports. No mention of eSATA. Also under mSATA SSD it says "none". Of course that might be different with different models but i do not know that's why I am asking

However, this http://www./awesome-2011-thinkpad-t420t420st520-it-doesnt-get-much-better.htm article makes me think that there is Intel 310 SSD support Still -- I have no official source for this. It also says " 34mm Express Card and 4 in 1 SD Card" -- and??? That'd be news, welcome news as previously we needed to choose.

 

Don't think their miniPCIe is connected internally to their I/O controller, so you most likely won't be able to use a miniPCIe SSD. But until they come out, we can only speculate.

 

Just check the tabook, I though I read that there is a esata combo from some website but I was wrong.

 

Anyone have a rear shot of the machine? I'm guessing the combo port was replaced with the USB 3.0 port.

 

The T420s is supposed to have an improved thermal design that runs cooler. Also keep in mind that the Sandy Bridge in the T420s is more power efficient than the Arrandale in the T410s.

Basically all modern laptops can be forced to throttle if you push them hard enough. FurMark + Prime95 will push almost any machine over the edge, including my T400 which is generally regarded as a very cool running laptop. Obviously you shouldn't see throttling in regular use.

 

I agree with that throttling is going to happen with you push both the CPU/GPU at capacity simultaneously like that, but a machine really shouldn't be throttling if you are encoding or gaming--that is ridiculous. Coming from a M4400 where that was a big problem, there's no way that is acceptable. It borderlines on selling a defective product; if a manufacturer is going to sell you a 45w cpu with a 35w gpu, it really ought to function at speed in situations where you actually require that operating capacity.

 

Check out around the 1:00 minute mark in this YouTube video:

YouTube - First Look: Lenovo ThinkPad T420s laptop

It says you can get a 80 GB "high performance flash memory" together with a 320 GB HDD.

 

You guys rock. That must be the Intel 310 SSD yes especially with the 2.5" disks. I am suspecting they are using Hitachi Z disks (as they are only 7mm instead of 9.5mm) -- at least the 320GB hints at that. I mean, if you'd use 9.5mm they could run around with 500GB or 750GB. Just a guess of course.

Also, if there is USB 3.0 then eSATA matters much less you can easily convert USB 3.0 to eSATA with a cheap cable or adapter (Addonics even makes a powered eSATA version).