T61 Video Card, Which to choose?

Okay. So I'm not THAT interested in gaming but it would be nice. I'm going to law school in the fall. My question is, will the discrete graphic cards drain battery during normal usage? (WiFi on, Microsoft Word, etc) or only when watching DVDs, etc?

I'm more concerned about Vista Aero. Will it run smoothly with the x3100?

 

Hello and Welcome
I think Aero will run fine on Vista.And yes, the integrated GPUs consume much less power than the dedicated solutions.

 

As far as I understand, the x3100 was somewhat designed to run Vista well. I don't think it will have any problems running Aero.

And all indicators point to the NVS 140m being a battery hog. Discrete graphics will drain battery life more than integrated regardless of activity. The NVS 140m just uses more power and drains more battery than the X3100, no matter what you're doing.

What kind of games are you going to be playing? If it's not the latest releases then the X3100 will be fine. It will run games like HL2 well, but not games like Oblivion. Hell, the NVS 140m isn't all that great at gaming anyway since that isn't what it's designed for but it is better than integrated.

I'm going to law school too and battery life is what matters most to me. The X3100 gets much better battery life than the NVS so that's what I went with. I'd like to play games but I doubt I'll even have the time, so going dedicated just wasn't worth it to me.

 

As long as you do not expect to play any newer 3d games or run intensive 3d applications then the integrated graphics is fine.

Just remember, you cannot upgrade the GPU once you go with the integrated. Personally, I like having my options open after I buy a laptop. Therefore, personally I would choose the one with dedicated (discrete) graphics just in case the need ever arises.

 

I'd suggest the NVS140M. It should be fine at playing 1-2 year old games or possibly the latest MMORPG at normal setting. As for Aero, I'm sure both card will suffice. I had a Dell with a 6800 and it played most games fine. The NVS140M, according to 3DMark, is half the power. I'm wondering if it will play DX10 Crysis.

 

i suggest looking at your previous gaming habits during the last year or two (and half the amount due to law school), if you don't game regularly (regularly being at least once a week) and play graphically demanding games, i don't think it's worth the trade off with the worse battery life. Remember, you have to live with a worse battery life everyday doing daily tasks. but if you don't game regularly, you might regret for a few minutes for the lack of a dedicated graphics card when that "must-play" game is released once a year. besides in the end, it's just game, you can play it when you get your next computer, by then the game will be $5 instead of $50.

you can also look at how much you tote around your laptop. if your laptop is almost always plugged in, then by all means go for the dedicated graphics card.

it's almost like buying an SUV for the purpose of one day you "might" drive on dirt road, but for the other 364 days, you're paying a lot of money for gas.

 

I PC game rarely, and when I do, it's stuff from 2-3 years ago. People seem to be getting through, though sometimes barely, games from a year ago with the Intel 950, I figured the 3100 would be just fine.

I'm all about the battery, I'm not going to ruin my daily experience for the occasional game

 

the NVS 140M can't be THAT much of a battery hog
any tests to prove this?
I just ordered a T61 with the 140M.
my guess is at most 10% worse battery life, which is just fine by me

 

Will the 140M really be able to run Oblivion? I wonder!

It really is. I forget the link, but others in the forum have pointed to Lenovo's own internal testing showing that the battery life is around 30-40% worse than integrated, which is scary considering internal testing is usually overly optimistic about battery life.

If battery life is important, don't bother with the 140m.

I'm more curious about whether the 140m produces significantly more heat when doing day to day things or even when watching a DVD compared to the x3100.

 

Can anyone with a x3000 in their desktop or a similr notebook integrated chip tell me how Vista Aero runs with the 3100? Also, will the turbo memory improve Vista's graphical performance?

 

If Aero can run smoothly on my GMA 950, then it'll have no problem on your X3100.

There aren't noticable improvements with the Intel Turbo Memory at this time. It's still very new and laptop manufacturers aren't making the most out of it.

 

Manufactures aren't making most of it? isn't there only one way to put it in? Or is software not making the most of it? Can you explain how it works to me?

 

In theory the OS should be able to read/write to the flash memory without having to bother with the Hard Drive. Random access speeds should be much better on the flash memory than the HDD since there's no moving parts, and it should save you some battery life. As of now no real improvements have been noticed.

 

I'd say forget the T.
And get an X60/s/61... it'll be as important to your imagine as decent clothes.
Lots of lawyers have an X.
You'll look like a lawyer.
The articling students and wannabes have their crappy HP widescreens etc.