Thinkpads Forum

Looking at the Dell UltraSharp UP2414Q, 23.8" as the first
affordable IPS monitor with more than 150 DPI, I wonder
which Thinkpad-Model would offer a docking station, which
would support driving an UHD Monitor at 3840x2160 ?

The mentioned UP2414Q needs at least Win7 and a DisplayPort 1.2
connection, in order to access its full native resultion.
The UP2414Q has NO internal scaler to magnify smaller resolutions.

As far as I learned so far:
a)
With the Dock II for the T43p we are stuck with a simple PCI slot,
which would not connect to a graphics card with enough power and Display Port.

b)
With the Advanced Dock for T60p/T500 we are still limited to PCIe 1x,
which probably would be compatible with PCI 2.0 and maybe PCI 3.0 graphics cards:
max lenght 168mm, max 50W, -> the PNY Quadro K600 could be a candidate for testing.
- - -

For newer Thinkpads, is there any combination of T- or W-model and Docking Station,
which would drive an external UHD monitor at 3840x2160 free of hassles?

to continue my monologue,
one alternative would be a Dell package
Precision M4800 15inch QHD 16:9, nVidia K1200M, 3kg,
with their Port Replicator II and UP2414Q, for approx 4000 Euros all together (Feb 2014).

By the spec sheet the K1000M and K1200M should be able to drive
UHD 3840x2160 externally via Display Port 1.2. But this is untested so far.

I'm not sure how a UHD monitor will tick over through an Advanced Dock... maybe out of a new enough video card in the PCI-E slot.

No chance of UHD, let alone any form of decent video coming out of a Dock II for the T4x. The Dock II's PCI-slot was more for expansion rather than discrete graphics, and even plugging in discrete graphics doesn't help your laptop much... as it hogs the PCI bus, for performance barely better or on-par with your T43's X300. And I believe no PCI-slot video card can match the T43p's X600 or V3200 ATI graphics.

The Advanced Dock presents a maybe- and opens up the possibility of using a pretty nice range of Thinkpads(T6x, T5xx, W5xx). The PCI-E slot in the Advanced Dock may be a cheap hack of a x1 slot, but you can still use some pretty nice GPUs... such as the Radeon 6450, I believe RMSMajestic mentioned he has a 7750 working in his, which would put you in the NVIDIA Kepler-era. I'm pretty sure GPUs that new can support UHD... but I'd do the research.

The one thing you need to watch out for with the Advanced Dock- you can buy a GPU with a fan on it, but make sure the fan isn't too tall, or that the video card isn't too long. You also can't buy a GPU that needs extra power from a PCI-E power connector.

You can also ditch the dock idea altogether and look up those hacks on converters that convert ExpressCard to PCI-E 1x, then get a 1x to 16x slot, then get a separate power source rigged up, but that's a lot of work.

If you want an external GPU, ditch the dock and use an expresscard version of eGPU instead. Then install your favourite GPU with your favourite thinkpads.

The new TPs should have no problems running the external screen.

lophiomys wrote:For newer Thinkpads, is there any combination of T- or W-model and Docking Station,
which would drive an external UHD monitor at 3840x2160 free of hassles?

The T440p and the T540p are specified to to drive 3840*2160 @ 60 Hz through DisplayPort. This is for models with the Intel HD Graphics 4600 in the processor as well as for models with the NVIDIA Optimus technology. The W540 is also specified to drive the same resolution @ 60 Hz. I didn't find information whether the signal, that these models hand over to the docking station is DisplayPort version 1.2 or another version. For the T series models, Lenovo offers the ThinkPad Pro Dock and the ThinkPad Ultra Dock. Both have DisplayPort 1.2, the Ultra Dock has two of them. For the W series, they seem to offer the ThinkPad Ultra Dock with a 170 W adapter.

The T440 and the T440s are also specified to drive 3840*2160, but at 30 Hz, and the docking stations will only work with the integrated graphics models from these series.

Here is a link to the docking stations:
http://support.lenovo.com/de_DE/product ... IGR-4tpjf4

Try to drive this with a TP

http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/promotionalf ... de-monitor

lophiomys wrote:b)
With the Advanced Dock for T60p/T500 we are still limited to PCIe 1x,
which probably would be compatible with PCI 2.0 and maybe PCI 3.0 graphics cards:
max lenght 168mm, max 50W, -> the PNY Quadro K600 could be a candidate for testing.

This guy on Youtube has done some work maxxing out his T60p and T61p using the Advanced Dock, and I think he's using a card in at least one that would drive your UHD panel. Though whether it would achieve good performance when displaying HD video or gaming, I don't know.
Thinkpad T60 Multi-monitor demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYHzeSr_eFM

I recall reading somewhere else that some folks have had issues trying to upgrade the card in the Advanced Dock too far...something about the performance not really improving, even if you managed to get the card recognized and working. You might scan through this thread to get updated on what people have tried with the Advanced Dock:
Mini review: Advanced Dock with T60p
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358

Phil.

Thank you, this info is very much appreciated.