T61p- Forget it. Make your own T61p!

Okay. Lenovo is really screwing up the T61p launch, so it's not coming, anytime soon.

The only difference between the T61p and the T61 15.4" is the dedicated graphics card.

How hard would it be to just buy a T61 15.4", slap in a Nvidia 570M, and call it a day?

We'll strike back against Lenovo- by not waiting until the next Intel refresh before getting the graphics we deserve!!

 

It would actually be ridiculously hard without ruining your system.

 

Is 570M the confirmed card for the T61p?

 

The 570m is the confirmed card. No you can't change the graphics card easily. The x3100 is integrated into the motherboard. The graphics card is not part of an interchangeable standard.

 

Yeah, that was a dumb suggestion. You can't swap video cards on most laptops.

 

Use an external graphic solution instead?

 

Outstanding... Another thread that deserves sticky.

And, Kebs, try and report it back.

 

Wow. Well that sucks.

Someone needs to design a modular video card, like PCI/Express for motherboards. We need the market to be freer. Free markets=low prices and greatest selection.

I wonder if a lot more people would buy thinkpads if they could find the best gaming video card out there, and drop it in.

Course it may just void any kind of 4 year protection plan =)

But hey, this just means we need that T61p to come out hm?

 

What we need is a X61s w/ a PCI-Express port on the bottom, this way if you wish to game, you simply attach a base to it with an ultra high performance GFX card in it. Best of both worlds, ultra portable and desktop replacement under AC power.

 

I feel like merging this with the other, I cant wait until its released in a month or so and threads like this finally stop.

 

Sweet! Sounds like a plan man. When I get my T60p I'm going to do some quick mods and upgrade it to x61p with Turbo Memory, RAID 10 w/ dual boot, overclock it, and all that jazz.

 

Actually, there are Express Card to PCI Express enclosures coming out. They probably won't ever be cheap enough to be worth buying though.

 

Is that like where there's a huge cable coming out of my expresscard slot and my phat 8800 GTX is sitting on the table by itself attached to its own power supply? Yeeaaahhh....

 

Even if they did make that, it would be a pain and a half to deal with. And well. you know.. probably stupidly expensive. You might as well buy yourself a desktop.

 

Well, on some laptops with dedicated graphics, the gpus are removable (Asus, Dell, etc). For Dell, they are replaceable, but its still unknown for Asus. Potentially Thinkpads have this too? The only thing is, you would need to find a GPU with the same interface, which won't happen until the T61p is out anyways, so its not much use.

 

Hehe. "How to swap out your onboard GPU"

 

Tools you'll need:

Hammer
Drill
Saw
Diet Coke
lots and lots of duck tape

 

Oh, you forgot one tool:

New T61.

 

Haven't you guys seen these yet? http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/expressbox1/

Not that they're cheap..

 

"Supports full-size or shorter PCI-E cards that require up to 55 watts of continuous power"

There goes your hopes of putting in a modern video card lol.

 

Well, you know people can be creative when they need to be, so I'm sure he will find a way...

 

Not to mention it defeats the purpose of a laptop...

 

So does a docking station, using an external monitor, external keyboards, external mice Yet people still don't go with the "wow, everything's built in" attitude, and prefer to do things their own way.

 

Yep. I mean, I can understand a docking station and maybe an external mouse (must be bluetooth ), but only when you're at home... taking it with you defeats the purpose.

 

Google MXM and Axiom. Unfortunately these form factors haven't really caught on.

 

... and WUXGA res, no?

 

The differences for the T61p are the dedicated 256MB video, the 1920x1200 WUXGA display, the 2GB of RAM on a single 2GB stick, the 100GB 7200RPM drive, standard DVD burner, Bluetooth, 9 cell battery, Vista Ultimate as default OS.