Thinkpads Forum

Ok so i'm ready to order this 14" T61 (spec below - maybe i will tweak it a bit , like 2.2G CPU and different Vista version. :

but i heard the 800Mhz memory is not available yet.
any idea when they will be available ?
what you guys do for now, order 667Mhz and then upgrade ? sounds pricy to me.

by the way any idea of battery life 6Cells Vs 4 Cells ?

thanks Dan

Description Part number Unit price* Quantity Price*
ThinkPad T61 with nVIDIA Graphics - 1 Year Depot Warranty
Edit 7662CTO $1,614.00 1 $1,614.00
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz 800MHz 4MBL2) 1
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 1
Operating System Language: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium - US English 1
System graphics: nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M 1
Total memory: 2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM) 1
Keyboard: Keyboard US English 1
Pointing device: UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader 1
Hard drive: 100GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm 1
Intel® Turbo Memory hard drive cache: Intel Turbo Memory 1GB 1
Optical device: DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim 1
System expansion slots: PC Card Slot & Media Card Slot 1
Wireless card: ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EMEA/LA/ANZ 1
Bluetooth: Integrated Bluetooth PAN 1
Battery: 6 cell Li-Ion Battery 1
Power cord: Country Pack North America 1
Modem cable (RJ-11): PSTN cable 1
Language Pack: Language Pack US English

Rumours say that it wont be until the year end.

wow that is way too far to wait for. i guess it will be 667 then.

Rumors are WRONG.

You can buy it from Newegg right now, although Lenovo is not shipping T61s with it yet.

brentpresley wrote:Rumors are WRONG.

You can buy it from Newegg right now, although Lenovo is not shipping T61s with it yet.

I guess you are confusing it with desktop memory. Even I got confused before. 800Mhz for notebooks are not yet released. I could not find them in newegg.

I have just bought two 1GB Kingston Sodimm PC2-6400 on Newegg. They are currently out of stock. Stock will resume on Monday.

I did not know . My appologies for the confusion

Chill. No need for apologizing.
I just found out these RAM about 2 week ago. There are no news on Anandtech or Tomshardware indicating the release so it is natural that most of us don't know. I will test the two RAM with my new T61 and post feedback later.

how much are 2G then ?

thanks Dan

Around $180-250

danny_isr wrote:what you guys do for now, order 667Mhz and then upgrade ?

Don't waste your money with the 800Mhz RAM. Here is the information I have gathered reading from various forums and tech sites.

"It's a bit of a marketing gimmick, but this is the story. The FSB is 800MHz, but the Northbridge chip can only talk to the RAM and Video at 667MHz. So basically the chip can talk to itself really fast, but talking to anything else is at 667MHz.

The effect of this is that the chips will be able to reach a higher clock speed for the line of processors, but it doesn't really help you immediately."

The Counterpart wrote: "The FSB is 800MHz,

This means the CPU can talk to the memory at 800MHz.

The Counterpart wrote: but the Northbridge chip can only talk to the RAM and Video at 667MHz.

This means other components that are allowed to directly access memory (like hard drive DMA) can talk to the memory at 667MHz.

The Counterpart wrote: So basically the chip can talk to itself really fast, but talking to anything else is at 667MHz.

What do you mean by "the chip can talk to itself". Which chip is talking to itself? The CPU talks to the memory at 800MHz.

The Counterpart wrote: The effect of this is that the chips will be able to reach a higher clock speed for the line of processors, but it doesn't really help you immediately."

Why not? If the CPU can talk to the memory at a faster speed, doesn't that speed up your computations?

docinthebox wrote:

The Counterpart wrote: "The FSB is 800MHz,

This means the CPU can talk to the memory at 800MHz.

No, the CPU can talk to the northbridge at 800Mhz (FSB = CPU <-> Northbridge).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820134343

It was hidden, had to select "more" in the left hand side menu to get PC6400 as an option.

I found the Kingston page for the 1GB card. Sells for only cheap, not bad eh...

http://shop.kingston.com/partsinfo.asp? ... 800D2S5/1G

the t7200 t7400 and t7600 fsb speeds are only 667 so going to 800mhz ram would not do anything.. unless Im mistaken.. but thats what all the specs show on the cpus?

I was stupid enough to buy these, only to find out that they don't work @ 800Mhz on the new T61. I was optimistically that at least the timing will improve as the RAM runs at lower speed. Turn out that they run at same old 5-5-5-15, which is just as the cheapo ValueSelect Corsair RAM.

I posted the following response in another thread and have copied it here. Seems that folks are confused about what the "Santa Rosa" board provides. The FSB (between CPU and Northbridge) is 800MHz. The bus between Northbridge and RAM is 667MHz. End of explanation. <grin> Oh, here's what I said before....


In response to this question and others like it I wish to point out that the "Santa Rosa" motherboard in the T61 series has a fixed memory speed maximum of 667MHz, not 800. Putting 800-qualified RAM into these machines will have no effect (that is, they won't run at 800 because the motherboard is not designed to support that speed). FSB (front-side-bus) speed and memory interface speed are not the same thing....it's nice when they match (as they do in the Napa motherboard) but not necessary or mandatory that they do.

This is just one of the reasons (e.g., the issues with the lame Intel Turbo Memory being another) why the "upgrade" from Napa to Santa Rosa isn't that much of an upgrade (in terms of raw performance increases). Next year's motherboard (code name "Montevina") will bring support for DDR3 (not the 667 DDR2) RAM and with it higher memory interface speeds.

I hope this helps. Questions? Write to me....