W520 + ViDock to replace my setup?

Hey guys,
I am really considering going with the Thinkpad W520 and getting a ViDock with a GTX 560Ti, GTX 570, or ATI 6950 2GB so I can replace my current M17x R2. Currently, I am not satisfied with my laptop enough to keep it, so I am probably going to ebay it. I think I can match/beat the performance of it with a DIY ViDock. If I can get a 2x link working, it should be fast. I have a 1080p monitor external so I was going to get the HD+ screen since the 2000M will have better performance on it. The HD+ screen still has the 95% gamut right? Is the ViDock 4+ faster than a DIY ViDock running at 2x link?

I was going to go for the i7 2720qm, 8gb ram, hd+ screen, color sensor, and the quadro 2000m. What do you guys think?

 

The screen is 95% gamut yes, I think you should get better performance, but 17x is not slow by any means so not certain, but remember its 1x pcie 2.0 you get not 2x unless you do modding.

Your sure the 2000M is not powerful enough on its own? And also if you get the vidock, do you really need the 2000M compared to 1000M? It will only hurt batterylife and some people say that if you stress a quadcore and 2000M to 100% the machine will throttle as its too much heat if both are running max, not sure if thats on all laptops

 

How good is the 1000M? I was looking at the eBay ones and they all seem to have the 1000M. They are all much cheaper than lenovo currently. I was going to do the Mini PCIe card mod. I think I have to run a mini-HDMI cable out the chassis? I don't think I want to cut a hole in the Thinkpad. Should I be able to play games with the 1000M at 1600x900?

 

If you're going to get a ViDock and use 1600x900 resolution, why not just get a T420/T420s? Why worry about the onboard video at all?

If you want onboard, the 2000M plays games quite well on its own.

Last, keep in mind that to use a ViDock or DIY eGPU, you'll need to run an older BIOS revision prior to the change from a 3.0TOLUD to the 3.5TOLUD in the newer revisions if you want 4+GB of RAM in the system.

 

Cant tell if thats powerfull enough for you, I am just saying that if you get the DIY vidock then are you sure you need a good internal gpu? Yes you will put a little card into your pci express slot and in that you have a mini hdmi cable that goes into your box where you have your PSU that powers the GPU and the littel adapter

But read this thread if you want more info on DIY Vidock http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/418851-egpu-experiences.html

 

It would be smarter to go with the 1000M. I was just considering the 2000M because I can't upgrade. If it brings down the battery life, then I'll just go with the 1000M. Is there anything wrong with the older BIOS? Will it work with UEFI?

@bogatyr - I want the W520 because it comes with the Quad core. Besides, doesn't the ViDock connect to an external display?

 

Plagiarism at its best.

I don't really mind, though. Getting back on topic, as far as I'm aware, the 2000M shouldn't bring about much lower battery life, compared to the 1000M. Though I have to say, if you have 2 Radeon 5870's in CrossfireX, why bother with upgrading?

 

Lol. I posted that blurb about the 1000M in a thread before, that's all.

 

Everyone should understand that the W520 only offers 95% gamut with the FHD screen. From the current Lenovo PSREF:

 

Whoops, misread it, thought he went for the FHD

 

Having run the 2520 (X220), 2540 (T420s), 2620 (X220) and the 2720 (W520, 2000m) - I didn't notice a speed difference for myself.

What I run daily:
I play quite a few games and I run 3 virtual machines when my laptop is on (1 Win2k8 core as domain controller, 1 Win2k8 core as sql server, 1 Win2k8 full as team foundation server) with Visual Studio 2010 and Sharepoint Server 2010 on the host. I also used the same 8GB of HyperX 1600Mhz across the systems. The host is Win7 x64 Ultimate and I use BitLocker driver encryption on SSD drives.

The one difference in speed was the video card for games (2000M destroys the iGPU and the NVS4200 is barely better than the iGPU), but I decided the ViDock was a better choice. So I settled on the T420s for my personal laptop.

You should be able to use the official ViDock with the internal LCD if you use the modified Optimus drivers from nando4 in the eGPU thread over in the graphics forum.

I should say that we do use W520 laptops at work for engineers - but for the 1920x1080display and the 2000m dGPU, not the quad core processor.

EDIT: And the older bios on the W520 should be fine. Some of the other series have fan/throttle issues but I don't recall seeing those complaints from the W520 guys nor did I experience them with mine. Fixes for those problems is all the newer bios revisions offer currently, as far as I know. But I did stop reading about those problems once I settled on the T420s.

 

Thank you. I wouldn't to be stuck with the 60% gamut. The reason why I am giving up the dual 5870's is because I want something a little more portable with battery life but still remains powerful (need a quad core). I think the W520 is a perfect fit because I've heard it lasts 8 hours with the 9-cell and I just love the Thinkpad branding (the keyboard, trackpoint, thinklight...).

 

That is very interesting. The Sandy Bridge dual cores are pretty impressive. I am learning software development and I am told it is best to get a Quad Core. I should probably go with the FHD, as well since the more screen space the better when programming. One of my favorite games is GTA 4, which is more CPU dependent than most games, I want to try to get a laptop that can handle that as well as my other needs. If I go for the FHD, then I should probably get the 2000M, right?

 

I'd just get FHD with the 2000M and forget ViDock for the moment. ViDock will give you an upgrade option down the road, if you ever need more graphics power. If you were getting a different model, one that doesn't come with the 2000M then I'd say get the ViDock now.

 

I can tell you that unless you are not doing anything multimedia related, you will probably not get 8hrs out of the W520. Sure, I can get 8.5hrs-ish out of my W520 if I just used it to surf the web on WLAN without encountering Flash anywhere, but that gets pretty boring. It lasts around 7hrs for what I do on it, which includes some 720p & 1080p MKV files over the local network, music, YouTube, and surfing the web.

 

When mine is one battery, I will have WLAN off. In other words, I won't be using the internet or flash. I will be writing code and using word documents. Besides, I am even looking at the slice battery.

 

I find it hard to write code a lot of the time if I don't have some background music or something, especially in the easy trivial parts. In the trickier parts I take off my headphones. Guess it's a weird habit of mine.

The W520 itself is around 6lb and 1.4" thick, with the slice battery it will be over 7lb and around 2.5" thick. Just make sure you can carry it around if you need portability.

 

Considering the laptop that I have now, I'll be fine . I wish some bios modders would hack the W520 bios. We need a good BIOS that removes the 2920xm lockbit, changes the RAM setting back to 3gb on 32-bit mode instead of 3.5gb(for vidock), and allows the mini pcie link to be set to 2x. That would be awesome.

 

The problem with unlocking the CPU is heat. The CPU temperatures get dangerously close to thermal shutdown at full load, when the system is brand new with minimal dust. Full load is defined as Linpack + Furmark on 1080p Xtreme Burn-in windowed. The GPU gets so hot that it throttles briefly every 2 minutes or so. While the laptop itself runs cool, its components certainly do not run very cool under max load. Though, if you use an eGPU, then only the CPU will be stressed and the CPU stays quite a bit cooler (by about 20C, actually) if the GPU isn't also being stressed. But, I have to ask, is the 2920XM really worth it? For the price of the upgrade, you can get another laptop.

 

I'm not getting the 2920xm, I just think it's not right to lock it. Those temps are really hot. Does a repaste job help? If the CPU throttles a lot, should I really get this notebook?

 

I personally haven't heard of anyone trying a repaste on a W520. The good news is, though, I've never seen the CPU throttle under load. Even at 98C, it was Turbo-ing 1 bin (i.e. 2.8 GHz). When gaming, the GPU hits maybe 80C and the CPU hits around 85C max. Both temperatures are in the 70's for most of the time, though, when gaming.

 

Alrighty... I haven't researched the ViDock solution for a while, but I thought they were limited to 1x or so via the ExpressCard bus? While someone with an integrated GPU will experiene huge gains with a ViDock, I think the gains would be minimal if any with the W520, especially with the Quadro 2000M. Looking at things on Notebookcheck, I don't see why it wouldn't play GTA4 at high(if not maxed) settings. I'm running GTA4 at max very smoothly with my G73 with its single 5870, and there doesn't seem to be a huge performance difference between the 2000M and the single 5870.

 

eGPU - ExpressCard 1, with an i7 and I think an Nvidia GTX 560Ti you're looking at 19k sysmark06
ViDock (proper ViDock) - ExpressCard 2 compatible - should be faster than the eGPU system until the eGPU people release an EC2 compatible board

 

It doesn't throttle, at least it never did for me on my 2720. He is talking about the top of the line processor for the W520.

 

This is interesting... One of the very reasons I am bugging Dell for a refund for this laptop. My M17x R2 is pretty much fully maxed out, except for an SSD and unsupported GPUs, this is as good as it gets for this laptop, and I am struggling with GTA 4. It is stuttering all over the place. I have tried everything from turning off CrossFire to uninstalling and reinstalling GTA 4 with a different patch to no avail. Wouldn't you be disappointed? I sure am since the game came out in like 2007.

 

Do you think the W520 w/ i7 2720qm, FHD screen, Color Sensor, 2000M + a monster desktop w/ i5 2500k, gtx 570 setup would be more ideal than the ViDock? Granted, it would cost a lot more, but I'm not sure about how well the ViDock will perform.

 

I thought the HD+ was 65% and only the FHD was 95% gamut.

 

Actually, you can notice performance difference depending on the card because of drivers.

 

As it was pointed out before, I was corrected I thought he meant the FHD screen

 

My bad. I must have missed the post.

 

If your ultimate aim is fastest possible graphics then I'd suggest look at a Macbook Pro 15" which has a x4 2.0 (20Gbps) Thunderbolt port and add a Sonnet Echo Express to it. The best you'll get from a ViDock/eGPU is x1 2.0 (5Gbps). That approximately doubles if the Optimus tweak engages on a x1 2.0 link as it does on a x1 1.0 link.