w520 still worth it - or go for a precision 4800 or w530?

Title pretty much says it all; looking for a decent mobile workstation. Looking for a newer form factor, but none of it really matters as long as I can A) Upgrade RAM/Swap/Repair Parts and it is B) Somewhat powerful.

 

Well, it depends on how much performance you need, especially from the Quadro 1000M or 2000M. The quad-core CPUs offered in the W520 should still be very usable today for most tasks, though if you have a heavy GPU workload, you might want to look for something newer and more powerful.

 

As Jarhead said, the processor on the W520 can probably handle whatever you want to throw at it, but graphics differences between generations are more pronounced. You'll notice significant graphics differences between the W520, W530, W540/541, & P50. If your workload is graphically demanding and you want a Thinkpad, a P50 would be your best option.

 

I think by far w520 is the best bang for your dollar. FYI I have and use all 3 at the moment. CPU performance is nearly identical for me, even encoding videos is not much faster using my m4800 vs w520.

 

Using the W520 as my daily driver since 2012. Love this machine. But be warned, the CPU and GPU (Quadro 2000m in my case) generate too much heat for the form factor to cool. Video editing on this machine took the temps upto 91 degrees on the CPU within a minute of rendering or heavy usage.

But if your usage does not involve simultaneous high CPU and GPU utilization, this machine provides incredible bang for buck for perf, one of the best keyboards on a laptop ever, as well as an amazing and accurate (with the right calibrated profiles) display. I have 3 hard drives in it, upgraded to windows 10 (need to update BIOS to get bluetooth working on it), and use a custom fan profile on TPfancontrol to manage temps and Throttlestop to keep the CPU at 1.5ghz (2820QM) for daily usage.

Just one thing though, the speakers are really low quality.

 

Oh yeah, can confirm that it gets pretty hot, and you'll get better sound quality from gas station earbuds. but overall it's still a nice machine.

Personally I use mine as a stage server for my home server environment.

 

I have found temp to not be an issue. I use tpf control, throttlestop to prevent turbo. I've advised a bunch of people that intel "turbo" feature is rather gimmicky because the voltage and the cpu go high but the performance gained from one core is not worth it. Depends on the program, some render using the 8 cores and some from the GPU.

I also bought the 55w cooler from the 2920xm model and used it on w520. Of course I repaste the thermal every 2 year and blow out the fan religiously. I've found the dolby drivers and the certain sound tweaks make the audio decent but I have my main one hooked up to a sub and satellite speakers.

I never break 75 C even when encoding video.

Yes my other w520 also serve as my learning, development box and other one as my ESX host, virtual router, security appliance, and many more. It's been by far the best machine I've owned in terms of value/performance. My wife loves it because it's so quiet. I used to have a huge noisy white box server.

 

This.

I'd also like to thank the awesome people on this thread for helping me get the best out of this machine. Its a reliable little workhorse that has been a lifesaver on multiple occasions when I've had to make small changes and re-render videos on site.

EDIT: You can also use MSI Afterburner (IF you will be using apps that turn on the dGPU, remember you can keep the dGPU off for pretty much everything) and limit the dGPU's speed as well. In some cases where the CPU will be maxed, its better to turn the dGPU on and keep to a minimum as then the iGPU won't be utilized leading to cooler temps on the CPU and the dGPU which will only be considered as idle.

 

Revising a uber dead thread, but never ended up buying one. Threw some money into a desktop. Looking at w530s - worth the buy or spend an extra few and get something better? Thoughts please?

 

Chiming in here(usually lurk, don't really post much): Just built a W530 from a parts machine about a month ago(not something I would recommend, but I had enough replacement stock laying around). I wanted something powerful enough to do some light gaming on the go as well as handle multiple Linux VMs, with decent battery life(Optimus), and relatively decent portability. With the SSDs, i7-3740QM, 24GB of RAM and the K2000M this seems to suit my needs very well. I'm running a 1600x900 display for now with plans to jump to the 1080p panel a little later on. I don't do any 3D work other than light gaming, and any sort of video editing I do is strictly offloaded to my desktop. Other than that if you don't need anything super small form factor it's still a decent machine for day to day stuff.

 

Depends how you're using it. The W530 can still do well with processor and memory-limited applications, but graphics tech advances faster, so it can't handle some of the latest graphics-intensive programs as well as something newer. But if your graphics needs aren't too demanding, then it will serve you well. The build quality is good, so you don't have to worry about accidental drops or electrical problems. And replacing the battery when it's worn will give you back excellent battery life. Yesteday, my W530 with the additional slice battery made it through my 10-hour workday with time to spare. It's also very easy to access and replace components if needed or wanted - which is becoming less common even on business systems.