Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message
T520 cpu upgrade and fan
T520 cpu upgrade and fan
Hello
I have a T520 with an i7-2760QM - 16GB RAM
and would really like to upgrade it to something more powerful.
What's the best I could do ?
thanks.
I have a T520 with an i7-2760QM - 16GB RAM
and would really like to upgrade it to something more powerful.
What's the best I could do ?
thanks.
-
- Moderator
- Posts: 2156
- Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:38 am
- Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
Well, that's almost the most powerful CPU for this series, you could upgrade to a i7-2820QM, but I'm not sure if 0.10 GHz more and 2MB extra L3 cache will bring a huge performance jump...
IBM Convertible 5140/L40SX/220/240/240X/2*340CSE/360PE/365XD/380D/380E/380XD/380Z/390/560E/560X/2*570/2*600/600E/750Cs/755C/760CD/760EL/760XD/770E
A20p/A22p/A31/i1600/G40/R50p/R61i/S30/SL510/2*T22/4*T4x/11*T6x/6*T40x/6*T5x0/3*W5x0/W700/3*X2x/4*X3x/3*X4x/5*X6x/3*X6xT/12*X2xx/4*X30x/Z60m/3*Z61x
A20p/A22p/A31/i1600/G40/R50p/R61i/S30/SL510/2*T22/4*T4x/11*T6x/6*T40x/6*T5x0/3*W5x0/W700/3*X2x/4*X3x/3*X4x/5*X6x/3*X6xT/12*X2xx/4*X30x/Z60m/3*Z61x
-
- ThinkPadder
- Posts: 1450
- Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:45 pm
- Location: North Ridgeville, Ohio, United States
- Contact:
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
2860QM is the best CPU at 45W. The two available Extreme CPUs (2920XM and 2960XM) both have a 55W TDP - and according to CPUBenchmark.net only the highest clocked one (which is just 100 MHz faster than the 2860QM - the 2920XM has the same base clock but a slower turbo) has a higher benchmark than the 2860QM. More heat and cost are the drawbacks. The decision is yours...
T480 with T25 keyboard | T25 | W520 i7-2860QM·Quadro 2000m·IPS FHD | T601F T9900·NVS 140m·LED AFFS UXGA
T420 IPS FHD | X220 IPS FHD | T61p·T61·43·42p|X13 Yoga G3·220T·301·41T·24·23·22|G41|A31p·22m|i1200|TransNote
600|770Z|770|760XD|760EL|701C|755C
T420 IPS FHD | X220 IPS FHD | T61p·T61·43·42p|X13 Yoga G3·220T·301·41T·24·23·22|G41|A31p·22m|i1200|TransNote
600|770Z|770|760XD|760EL|701C|755C
-
- Senior ThinkPadder
- Posts: 2484
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
Also even if you upgrade, your graphics card is bottlenecking you. If you are using for heavy gaming, the Nvidia 4200M may well be the one limiting your performance. Almost all laptop GPUs are simply not powerful enough to run the latest games in ultra graphics.
Build a cheap dual Xeon system and use desktop graphics instead for gaming. As for workstation, I don't think you need anything more powerful than that and the prices are very ridiculous. (3820QM is also much more expensive than 3720QM) I guess you could try planting a T530 motherboard instead and deal with keyboard firmware issue. Your drives, fan and RAM should work fine in the new motherboard.
Build a cheap dual Xeon system and use desktop graphics instead for gaming. As for workstation, I don't think you need anything more powerful than that and the prices are very ridiculous. (3820QM is also much more expensive than 3720QM) I guess you could try planting a T530 motherboard instead and deal with keyboard firmware issue. Your drives, fan and RAM should work fine in the new motherboard.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
Modern games are a loss with these computers, even a T530.
In my discoveries the T430/T530 have acceptable GPUs that do ok at older games... it has 1/2Gb of ddr3 vram on a 128 bit bus.
It should do fairly modern fps shooters at 720p and medium detail.
And then you have to content with the terrible keyboards.
The 64 bit bus gpus in the 420/520 series isnt fun.
In my discoveries the T430/T530 have acceptable GPUs that do ok at older games... it has 1/2Gb of ddr3 vram on a 128 bit bus.
It should do fairly modern fps shooters at 720p and medium detail.
And then you have to content with the terrible keyboards.
The 64 bit bus gpus in the 420/520 series isnt fun.
-
- Senior ThinkPadder
- Posts: 2484
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
My T530 with nvidia has 1gb graphics but even then it is a bottleneck with 3820 i7 and 16gb ramTonyJZX wrote:Modern games are a loss with these computers, even a T530.
In my discoveries the T430/T530 have acceptable GPUs that do ok at older games... it has 1/2Gb of ddr3 vram on a 128 bit bus.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
-
- Senior Member
- Posts: 837
- Joined: Wed May 19, 2010 11:21 pm
- Location: Pardubice, Czech Republic
- Contact:
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
The cpubenchmark.net score difference between the i7-2760QM and the cpu's mentioned, is a nominal 8%. The scores range from 6650 - 7200.theterminator93 wrote:2860QM is the best CPU at 45W. The two available Extreme CPUs (2920XM and 2960XM) both have a 55W TDP - and according to CPUBenchmark.net only the highest clocked one (which is just 100 MHz faster than the 2860QM - the 2920XM has the same base clock but a slower turbo) has a higher benchmark than the 2860QM. More heat and cost are the drawbacks. The decision is yours...
Some applications can be offloaded to a remote machine, where you can get a machine with a Xeon E5-26x0 cpu scoring 14000 for $200.
T420 i7 3612QM seabios; T420 i7 3630QM; T400 Q9100 seabios; T61 P9600; T60 libreboot; x62; x60s libreboot, led; x24 xiphmont led
-
- ThinkPadder
- Posts: 1756
- Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2012 3:08 pm
- Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
When upgrading a laptop CPU I always factor in heat and power consumption. That's because I use my laptops away from home. At home, nothing beats a desktop with 32 GB ram, powerful GPU card, IBM Model M keyboard, dual 27" FHD IPS monitors and more storage than I know what to do with. The 3570K Ivy Bride CPU will outperform pretty much any laptop CPU.
Laptops for me are tools for the road. Battery life is more important than CPU power. The OP's laptop is pretty powerful already. I wouldn't upgrade the CPU but rather save that money towards a desktop or small form factor PC in a tight space.
Laptops for me are tools for the road. Battery life is more important than CPU power. The OP's laptop is pretty powerful already. I wouldn't upgrade the CPU but rather save that money towards a desktop or small form factor PC in a tight space.
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
I also think there's some unreasonable expectations of what you can do on battery here.
The T420/520 almost veers towards the W520 where you are trading off portability and battery for performance... remember these are 2nd gen. laptops so even with a fresh battery and an ultrabay i do not expect a real world 4hrs of work.
These have always been DTR type units.
Even if you buy something newer in these 7 generations we have I think a laptop in this class will burn power unless you want to move to an ultrabook which then would not suit the avg. person here.
The T420/520 almost veers towards the W520 where you are trading off portability and battery for performance... remember these are 2nd gen. laptops so even with a fresh battery and an ultrabay i do not expect a real world 4hrs of work.
These have always been DTR type units.
Even if you buy something newer in these 7 generations we have I think a laptop in this class will burn power unless you want to move to an ultrabook which then would not suit the avg. person here.
-
- ThinkPadder
- Posts: 1450
- Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:45 pm
- Location: North Ridgeville, Ohio, United States
- Contact:
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
Actually - with the slice battery I had no issues using my W520 to do audio editing while I waited for my wife to go through a medical conference late last year, which lasted 6 hours. I only used about 50% of the total battery capacity - I depleted the main 9C battery and tapped about 10% of the slice battery's capacity - translating to 10-12 hours of real life usage with the "big battery" solution and 5-6 hours with a standard 9 cell only.TonyJZX wrote:The T420/520 almost veers towards the W520 where you are trading off portability and battery for performance... remember these are 2nd gen. laptops so even with a fresh battery and an ultrabay i do not expect a real world 4hrs of work.
Now for someone doing CPU and GPU intensive CAD type work, I certainly agree... 2-3 hours on the 9 cell would be my guess, though 4-6 with the slice. The T420, T520 and W520 don't work with the ultrabay battery - only the slice (The T420s doesn't work with the slice but does work with the ultrabay battery). But then again, even with the newer CPUs like 50 and 60 series... where they really shine is better battery life while doing light work. Load them up and they eat through the battery just as fast as a 20 series will.
T480 with T25 keyboard | T25 | W520 i7-2860QM·Quadro 2000m·IPS FHD | T601F T9900·NVS 140m·LED AFFS UXGA
T420 IPS FHD | X220 IPS FHD | T61p·T61·43·42p|X13 Yoga G3·220T·301·41T·24·23·22|G41|A31p·22m|i1200|TransNote
600|770Z|770|760XD|760EL|701C|755C
T420 IPS FHD | X220 IPS FHD | T61p·T61·43·42p|X13 Yoga G3·220T·301·41T·24·23·22|G41|A31p·22m|i1200|TransNote
600|770Z|770|760XD|760EL|701C|755C
-
- Senior ThinkPadder
- Posts: 2484
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: T520 cpu upgrade and fan
One problem also is if you have 2820qm and these powerful processors, you have to make sure the heatsink is clean enough and the paste is good. My friend has thay very machine with 2820qm and after 3 years of league gaming, the paste went so bad that it ended up with 75 degrees on idle and 1fps in gaming (with that throtting and the CPU is still alive)
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)
-
- Similar Topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
-
T420 - Quad Core CPU and BIOS upgrade (or downgrade)
by ojciec » Fri Dec 15, 2023 4:49 pm » in ThinkPad T400/T410/T420 and T500/T510/T520 Series - 3 Replies
- 5886 Views
-
Last post by axur-delmeria
Mon Dec 18, 2023 12:04 am
-
-
-
Keyboard stickers for ThinkPad T400/T410/T420 and T500/T510/T520 Series
by PowerPC » Fri Feb 09, 2024 2:52 pm » in ThinkPad T400/T410/T420 and T500/T510/T520 Series - 1 Replies
- 431 Views
-
Last post by dr_st
Fri Feb 09, 2024 4:14 pm
-
-
-
Can I replace my T440p stock fan with a Noctua fan?
by cultOfThinkpad » Wed Jan 10, 2024 2:41 pm » in ThinkPad T430-T490 / T530-T590 Series - 4 Replies
- 1320 Views
-
Last post by keithsketchley
Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:04 am
-
-
-
What is the fastest CPU upgrade for W520 without modding
by James1138 » Sun Oct 15, 2023 6:14 pm » in ThinkPad W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series - 1 Replies
- 6689 Views
-
Last post by TPFanatic
Sun Oct 15, 2023 6:29 pm
-
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests