What's the history of conumer-ish gpu's in ThinkPad's?

Or other business-class notebooks for that matter?

The T500 is my first business style notebook and I think it would be hard to go back to consumer after handling quality like this My one fear is gaming though -- I do have some modest needs which the T500 mostly covers (Mostly Source games for now).

Is it safe to say Lenovo will continue with this trend (I don't know the history)? And if not; are there other company's that provide a consumer-based gpu? Or can you use the workstation gpu with the consumer counter-parts driver?

 

ThinkPads are typically designed for stability, not flash.

 

HP Elitebook models come in 2 variants, the xx30p and xx30w models. The xx30p models have consumer GPUs (Radeon) while the w models have workstation GPUs (Quadro or FireGL).

I have read about some people successfully putting GeForce drivers on Quadro cards, however, people attempting to put Radeon drivers on FireGL cards have (so far, to my knowledge) failed.

 

So it's safe to say that someone who enjoys light gaming (in my case - Source engine fps') and great build quality can always find something within the business line of: HP, Dell and Lenovo?

 

Yes. And it's not like workstation GPUs are that bad for gaming. It'll still perform well, just not as well as the exact same card with Radeon/GeForce drivers.

 

Lenovo will surely continue its trend of making excellently-built business notebooks in their T-series line. They will also surely continue offering discrete graphics cards as an option. They will also surely continue only offering moderately powerful cards as their discrete option instead of gaming-level cards. They do this because they are less expensive, smaller, use less battery power, and produce less heat.

Putting a true current-tech gaming level card in the T-series would raise prices, decrease battery life, and increase heat output - all of these would reduce their sales to the business market. The business users are Lenovo's target market for the T-series, not gamers, so they are not going to make a decision that alienates their target market.

Expect Lenovo to continue to put moderate discrete gpu's in the T-series to satisfy the needs of the business users that need the discrete option. Do not expect Lenovo to start placing high-end mobile gaming gpu's in the T-series.

 

Well, in the IBM era consumer or decent graphics cards were few and far between and the gap between a horrible GPU and a powerful worstation GPU in a ThinkPad was alot bigger. I owned a 14" T21 and it had an 8MB S3 Savagel GPU in it, not very well known. They made the powerful A series in the IBM era, i'd say the A31p would be one of the older, unofficial predecessors to the W series, having the FireGL 7800 i think, a very impressive for it's time 1600x1200 res 15.1" screen. The 7800 is basically an overclocked 7500, which was even found in ThinkPads as new as the T42. It even had a FireWire port. It however was alot of money so i'd say you could find good graphics in the ThinkPads back then but most think they were crap for graphics because most could only afford mid-range ThinkPads at the time. The model was 2002-2004 i think.

 

if you want to play games, just get the expresscard + desktop graphic card solution proposed by Nando4 (a forum member), it only costs like 150 USD all up, and should solve your gaming woe on your laptop.

 

And I wouldnt say its so much that they havent been/are not interested in putting in more powerful GPUs in the T line (because graphics arent important to business), but rather it's an issue about heat generation and power consumption. The T series was always their highend thin and light mobile machine. If you put in a top end gpu, you are going to have significantly worse battery life (or a huge and $$$ battery), a large chassis to vent the extra heat, and a large adapter (130W+) to supply the power. That all adds to travel weight and size, which dont mesh well with the T series' design intents.

 

After buying my first business class laptop I could never go back. The quality of my dell vostro and thinkpad are unmatched. The only way I could ever use anything else is a server type setup where I really only deal with it through RPDs and have it sit on a cooler its whole life.

 

LOL, I feel the same way.

 

Very well said. I've owned many differnt brands of consumer grade laptops (HP, Dell, etc.) and when I switched over to a Thinkpad in early 2008 (my very first one), I was simply blown away at the quality. Keep in mind, I don't play games, I use mine mostly for personal use (Documents, internet, etc. no heavy gaming). I now own 2 Thinkpads, and will never look at another consumer class notebook again.
As for if Lenovo is on par with consumer GPU's, I would say yes. They are a little behind (Dell is always ahead in this game) but thier current offerings are VERY good choices nonetheless. Plus you have your choice of a workstation model (W) so for any heavy gaming, or other heavy usage most people would opt for a W500/700.

 

I work my laptops hard. I used to game pretty hard on them (including the t400 and vostro) and I consider myself a pretty decent power user/multi-tasker. Sure I can go out and buy a consumer grade laptop that can do this work, but the feel and operation leaves alot to be desired. I just grew tired of paying extra for flimsy keyboards, super hot vents and sweaty legs. So I looked at the dell business tab out of curiosity when I was looking for a replacement and found out I could get the business version of the inspiron with more options for less money. So I ordered it up and fell in love with the business class approach to laptops. I always loved business class notebooks, but never really got to use them. At this point the only issue with my thinkpad that I can think of is that it was not born a W700.

 

I had a thinkpad for about 2 years. I enjoyed the "feel" of the business quality. The overall quality of it was quite crap but the case felt very sturdy.

Right now I'm using a Dell Inspiron (same as Dell Vostro but differnet color) with a Vostro keyboard. It's definitely showing its age - hinge wear, etc.

If I end up buying a new laptop anytime soon I will be seriously thinking about getting a Thinkpad T or Dell Latitude for the moderate gaming I do.

Oh yeah, and this Vostro keyboard completely owns the Thinkpad keyboards I have had ... which means great quality.

 

Wow, a Dell keyboard outpacing a ThinkPad keyboard, kinda sad. Quality was crap but "the case felt sturdy..."?

 

(shrug) Different keyboards feel different to different people.