what is the most powerful Thinkpad?

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Whitieiii · #1 Post by **Whitieiii** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:45 am

I'm asking what would be the most powerful Thinkpad that is capable of running windows 7... one requirement it must have a 13" or smaller screen

I love my T440s for travel but it it is just too big and I am going to pick up another Thinkpad for my travel just don't know what I want....the x series look like something I would like but it to be under 13" and it must have intel CPU

suggestions?

#2 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 4:28 am

I would suggest an X230 with i7-3520M CPU (Ivy Bridge), 16GB RAM and a few mods:
- classic keyboard + palmrest from an X220
- FHD mod + screen

OR its predecessor:
an X220 with i7-2640M CPU (Sandy Bridge), 16GB RAM and one mod:
- FHD mod + screen

#3 Post by **Ibthink** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 5:22 am

The most powerful 12" ThinkPad capable of running Windows 7 would be the X260 (or the upcoming X270 Skylake model).

theterminator93 · #4 Post by **theterminator93** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 6:36 am

The new X270 with the Kaby Lake CPU won't have Windows 7 support. So the newest you can go is an X260 which ships with Sky Lake, it has an available i7-6600U CPU.

#5 Post by **Ibthink** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 9:38 am

The X270 will ship with Skylake as well (as an option).

Whitieiii · #6 Post by **Whitieiii** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:34 am

I won't run anything but windows 10 on any computer newer than an ivy bridge 3rd gen... I think I can get the x220 with the most powerful i5 (2.5 I believe) offered and a 128 gb ssd with 8 gb ram.... I would like to replace the board in it with the lowest i7 (2.7 I believe) later on down the road but I wouldn't want to unless I can sell the i5 board...

Also another question.... the x220 with the 2.5 i5 or 2.7 i7 and 9 cell battery plus the slice battery installed with 8gb of ram and an SSD, what kind of battery life would I expect from this machine given that I use it for general web browsing and watching videos? How about some light video editing?

#7 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:46 am

If you stay in that era, do get an X220 with i7 CPU, as only those have a USB3 port.
The X220 with i5/i3 "only" have USB2 ports.
All X230 and up also have USB3 ports.

Don't waste money by first buying i5 and then upgrading (for still more money) to i7.
i5 mobos don't bring all that much...

Whitieiii · #8 Post by **Whitieiii** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:53 am

I would only use usb on an x220 for mouse and usb 2.0 flash drives

FryPpy · #9 Post by **FryPpy** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:01 pm

Whitieiii wrote:I would only use usb on an x220 for mouse and usb 2.0 flash drives

Think further... Now USB3 is a common standart for highspeed USB devices... more and more flash drives (even cheap ones) are USB3 + USB HDDs. USB3 can provide more (electrical) power. If you don't need it now... may be tomorrow;)

My advice (path that i've already passed) X220 (with dead mobo) and X230 i7 mobo. It is perfectly sit in X220 body. Only aesthetically bad thing is DisplayPort hole in X220's body occupied with miniDisplayPort connector... but i think i can make black plastic adapter for this. As a result you can do classic keyboard mod (keyboard cable + EC mod). And if you need more - FHD mod.

Whitieiii · #10 Post by **Whitieiii** » Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:26 pm

FryPpy wrote:
Whitieiii wrote:I would only use usb on an x220 for mouse and usb 2.0 flash drives
Think further... Now USB3 is a common standart for highspeed USB devices... more and more flash drives (even cheap ones) are USB3 + USB HDDs. USB3 can provide more (electrical) power. If you don't need it now... may be tomorrow;)

My advice (path that i've already passed) X220 (with dead mobo) and X230 i7 mobo. It is perfectly sit in X220 body. Only aesthetically bad thing is DisplayPort hole in X220's body occupied with miniDisplayPort connector... but i think i can make black plastic adapter for this. As a result you can do classic keyboard mod (keyboard cable + EC mod). And if you need more - FHD mod.

True... but I think with 5 other computers I am set on usb 3.0... the main reason for the x220 is just so I can have a computer when I'm away from home and want to watch videos or visit websites that don't work so well on my phone or when mum needs to get online when we are away from the house since she can't see her tiny smartphone.... I don't think It will be used as much at home as I think it I will

Puppy · #11 Post by **Puppy** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 12:00 pm

X220 has keyboard but lacks native USB 3.0 support (except selected i7 models) and its cooling design is not good. X230 is the last model that use the full power mobile CPU, X240 and newer have ULV version (~ 20% slower) but supports faster memory, SATA/NVMe interface and GPU. If you didn't insist on the ancient OS you'd have much more choices.

Note that X230 and later have extra-crippled keyboard design due single Insert/End key and related Fn-Lock issues.

I would also consider ThinkPad 13.

theterminator93 · #12 Post by **theterminator93** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 12:08 pm

Whitieiii wrote:Also another question.... the x220 with the 2.5 i5 or 2.7 i7 and 9 cell battery plus the slice battery installed with 8gb of ram and an SSD, what kind of battery life would I expect from this machine given that I use it for general web browsing and watching videos? How about some light video editing?

If you're patient, you can find 2.8 GHz i7 X220s on eBay for $150-$200. I got a 2.8 i7 X220 Tablet (6/10 cosmetic condition) with no HDD or AC adapter for only $120. I got an X220 with the 2.8 i7 in 9/10 condition (but with a cracked palm rest, which I replaced for about $12) with a new (junk) aftermarket 6 cell battery, no RAM, HDD or AC adapter for $220. It worked out well for me since I have a ton of extra RAM, AC adapters and a few spare SSDs lying around. I plan on modding the X220 with the FHD kit once batch 2 ships.

The X220T gets about 5 hours of real-world use in my wife's hands. She usually just browses the web and occasionally watches some online flash videos. My X220 (with a junky no-brand aftermarket battery which only holds about 75-80% what genuine 6 cells hold) gets about 4 hours of the same, though I usually don't watch videos online. With a genuine battery it should run over 5. Doing some scaling math, you should expect to see about 15 hours of life on a 9C+9C. Video editing (assuming you don't do the final save/export) on battery would probably drop that figure 25-35%.

Whitieiii · #13 Post by **Whitieiii** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 6:38 pm

theterminator93 wrote:
Whitieiii wrote:Also another question.... the x220 with the 2.5 i5 or 2.7 i7 and 9 cell battery plus the slice battery installed with 8gb of ram and an SSD, what kind of battery life would I expect from this machine given that I use it for general web browsing and watching videos? How about some light video editing?
If you're patient, you can find 2.8 GHz i7 X220s on eBay for $150-$200. I got a 2.8 i7 X220 Tablet (6/10 cosmetic condition) with no HDD or AC adapter for only $120. I got an X220 with the 2.8 i7 in 9/10 condition (but with a cracked palm rest, which I replaced for about $12) with a new (junk) aftermarket 6 cell battery, no RAM, HDD or AC adapter for $220. It worked out well for me since I have a ton of extra RAM, AC adapters and a few spare SSDs lying around. I plan on modding the X220 with the FHD kit once batch 2 ships.

The X220T gets about 5 hours of real-world use in my wife's hands. She usually just browses the web and occasionally watches some online flash videos. My X220 (with a junky no-brand aftermarket battery which only holds about 75-80% what genuine 6 cells hold) gets about 4 hours of the same, though I usually don't watch videos online. With a genuine battery it should run over 5. Doing some scaling math, you should expect to see about 15 hours of life on a 9C+9C. Video editing (assuming you don't do the final save/export) on battery would probably drop that figure 25-35%.

I'd run windows 8 or 10 on the tablet version of the x2x0 or windows 7 on the laptop version... with the 9c tablet battery and 9c slice battery installed you will get about 15 hours of web browsing and watching videos? That's really good and with the i7? I would maybe want to have an nVidea graphics card in another machine to speed up the export... just seeing what I could do if I wanted...

theterminator93 · #14 Post by **theterminator93** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 7:08 pm

That's the great thing about the newer CPUs - they only throttle to as high a clock rate as they need to based on how they're being utilized. The 2.8 GHz i7 won't always run at 2.8 GHz unless you force it to, and under most circumstances it'll run at speeds under 2 GHz.

Also keep in mind the slice battery doesn't work with the tablet flavor of the X220. The X220 also only has one GPU option - the iGPU - so no nVidia.

Whitieiii · #15 Post by **Whitieiii** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 7:35 pm

The tablet version isn't my first choice but that's also good to know... I know for size I won't get nVidia graphics... i had a x131e with i3 cpu and ssd that thing running windows 10 was a pig online since I have to run google chrome on it... I sold it since it wasn't powerful enough for me editing light video on the go even with an ssd and 8gb of ram.... it was the fastest cpu offered but I think it had a ULV cpu in it

dr_st · #16 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 3:24 am

Puppy wrote:X220 has keyboard but lacks native USB 3.0 support (except selected i7 models)

Well, all i7 models really.

Puppy wrote:X240 and newer have ULV version (~ 20% slower) but supports faster memory, SATA/NVMe interface and GPU. If you didn't insist on the ancient OS you'd have much more choices.

And the CPU lower relative clock has long been offset by improvements in the architecture. I.e., if X240 would perform about on par with an X220, and maybe slightly lower than a X230 (given comparable configurations), then later models already surpass them. And you get the low-voltage low-power CPU as a bonus.

Puppy · #17 Post by **Puppy** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 6:22 am

dr_st wrote:Well, all i7 models really.

It is a question whether the extra USB 3.0 port is recognized by other OS than Windows. For example by Acronis bootable CD or Windows recovery CD that contains generic drivers only.

FryPpy · #18 Post by **FryPpy** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 8:06 am

Puppy wrote:It is a question whether the extra USB 3.0 port is recognized by other OS than Windows. For example by Acronis bootable CD or Windows recovery CD that contains generic drivers only.

It is not from Intel chipset it made from NEC usb 3.0 controller (like in W701). It can be configured to work in USB 2.0 mode in BIOS. Any modern Linux distro can handle it and Acronis True Image 2016 (linux based) works well. BIOS can boot from USB device on this port. But i don't know anything about Windows recovery CD and USB 3.0 generic drives.

Puppy · #19 Post by **Puppy** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 9:51 am

FryPpy wrote:It is not from Intel chipset it made from NEC usb 3.0 controller (like in W701). It can be configured to work in USB 2.0 mode in BIOS. Any modern Linux distro can handle it and Acronis True Image 2016 (linux based) works well.

So it works in USB 2.0 mode only there ?

dr_st · #20 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 1:51 pm

If an OS does not have a driver for the NEC uPD720200, which is one of the first USB 3.0 controllers on the market, the chances of it having any drivers for Intel Ivy Bridge USB are next to nil.

If I understand things correctly, after reading a bit - in USB 2.0 mode - generic USB drivers should work for any controller that presents itself as a USB 2.0 controller?