Thinkpads Forum

I have a few laptops (r61's, g550, e570, t60's) and want to swap in a new motherboard to one of them so's I can watch 4K movies. Plus for work I need 4K displays these days. Luckily the commoditization of "gaming" computers seems to literally translate into budget scientific workstations.

So really what I need is a gaming system but what I do is publishing/page layout so it doesn't need to be super low latency, ie I don't need high scanning frewuency support, I just need it to play 4K movies, and, even harder, play f'ing Fb videos smoothly.

I don't mind buying a new case with a dead machine in it if that's what I need to do to get the "right" mobo.

I don't care about the connectors. Stuff can be made to work.

Multiple monitors would be nice, but any more than 2 even if only one is 4k, is fine.

So what woiuld you suggest as a best motherboatd to do all this, in three cases:
1) most capable - THIS ONE DOES EVERYTHING (and more)
2) cheapest - cheapest way to get an old laptop up to 4K spec,
3) mid range - most performance for the money


I can get a 6 mo old legion i7 for $700 cad (about $450 US) and I'm wondering if I can get there or part of the way there with some cheap nvidia mobo that find in one of my old cases. I don't think there's abn RTX retrofit to a R61 but I thought I'd better check with you guys.

AdvThanksance

Forget about sticking random motherboards into laptop shells that were not designed for them. Laptop motherboards, unlike desktops, are not standardized.

Just get a modern / quazi-modern laptop / mini-PC.

If you want to watch 4K videos, a laptop or mini PC with a Ryzen 6000U series or Intel 11th gen processor will get you far. These have hardware decoding support for AV1, which is the newest mainstream video codec for 4K content. Ryzen 7000 is a

Older generations only have hardware decoding support for HEVC, which is still commonly used, but may be displaced by AV1 in the future. AFAIK not even a quad-core Intel 8th gen laptop processor can decode 4K video at 60fps without stuttering and other issues.

Yeah that's what I was suspecting: 4k images are easy. Lots of machines can do that. 4K video, not so many.

Thanks, that's great.

rs79 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:41 am

Yeah that's what I was suspecting: 4k images are easy. Lots of machines can do that. 4K video, not so many.

If you're looking for something cheaper, try looking for a mini PC with an Intel N100 CPU, a little quad-core chip built with the E-cores of an Intel 12th gen processor. Its built-in graphics already supports hardware AV1 decoding up to 4K 60fps.

4K video is hard because of two things:

1) it has four times the number of pixels compared to Full HD video

2) newer codecs like HEVC and especially AV1 are very CPU-intensive-- a quad-core Intel 8th gen might not be powerful enough to decode 4K AV1 at 60 fps. That's why it makes sense for them to have built-in hardware that can decode these videos with minimal CPU and power consumption. This is especially true for mobile and smartphone processors and SoC's as they're even more power-constrained.