Thinkpads Forum

According to these 2 websites:
http://dailytech.com/NVIDIA+Announces+E ... le7686.htm
http://www.laptopspirit.fr/2288/nvidia- ... ssionnels/

It looks like the Nvidia Quadro FX 570M is equivalent to a GeForce 8600M GT. It is the same chips as Nvidia's High-End GPU, but with lower clockspeed. Good news, no? I think I will have to order a T61p... Sigh

I'm definitely glad I held off on a T61 in favour of a T61p. The T61 140M 3D benchmarks are ok, but nothing out of the ordinary, however if the performance of the 570M is roughly similar to the 8600 M GT then heavier gaming on the Thinkpad will be much more feasible.

Anyway, what is a little more alarming is, if you look at the French site, the power usage for the 570M vs the 140M.

The 140M uses about 10W vs 570 using 35W. Given that the 140M T61 already doesn't last as long as the X3100 equipped T61, I wonder what sort of battery life the 570 will provide.

Also, 35W will generate a significantly larger amount of heat. I can only hope this won't be a problem in the 14" T61p.

canfraggle wrote:I'm definitely glad I held off on a T61 in favour of a T61p. The T61 140M 3D benchmarks are ok, but nothing out of the ordinary, however if the performance of the 570M is roughly similar to the 8600 M GT then heavier gaming on the Thinkpad will be much more feasible.

Anyway, what is a little more alarming is, if you look at the French site, the power usage for the 570M vs the 140M.

The 140M uses about 10W vs 570 using 35W. Given that the 140M T61 already doesn't last as long as the X3100 equipped T61, I wonder what sort of battery life the 570 will provide.

Also, 35W will generate a significantly larger amount of heat. I can only hope this won't be a problem in the 14" T61p.

I don't see why the drivers can't shut off pipelines when required, and lower the clock speed so that performance and battery life is similiar on battery, but great on Maximum Performance/ AC.

although underclocking and improved cooling / vents will be helpful in keeping temps down. i think heat will present to be a problem. the thermal specs for a core2duo is 34W. so the GPU will be using more power than the CPU under full load.

Personally, I'd prefer a Sony SZxxx solution, have both!

Even if you underclock/disable parts of the beefy video card it won't perform as efficiently as a video card designed from the bottom up to energy efficient. The X3100 will always trump discrete video cards in terms of battery life.

So why not put both into the machine?

Would it cost that much more than a machine with just the discrete video?

The only real stumbling block I can think of would be cooling, since you'd need to have the cooling infrastructure in there for two gpus, which might be hard in an already tight space..

But in terms if, having your cake and eating it too.. I can't think of a better solution.

rukiri wrote:
Even if you underclock/disable parts of the beefy video card it won't perform as efficiently as a video card designed from the bottom up to energy efficient. The X3100 will always trump discrete video cards in terms of battery life.

This is what AMD is planning on doing.

Dead1nside wrote:

canfraggle wrote:I'm definitely glad I held off on a T61 in favour of a T61p. The T61 140M 3D benchmarks are ok, but nothing out of the ordinary, however if the performance of the 570M is roughly similar to the 8600 M GT then heavier gaming on the Thinkpad will be much more feasible.

Anyway, what is a little more alarming is, if you look at the French site, the power usage for the 570M vs the 140M.

The 140M uses about 10W vs 570 using 35W. Given that the 140M T61 already doesn't last as long as the X3100 equipped T61, I wonder what sort of battery life the 570 will provide.

Also, 35W will generate a significantly larger amount of heat. I can only hope this won't be a problem in the 14" T61p.

I don't see why the drivers can't shut off pipelines when required, and lower the clock speed so that performance and battery life is similiar on battery, but great on Maximum Performance/ AC.

These new GPUs should support those features with the new Powermizer 7.0 standard. Nvidia's website description:

PowerMizer 7.0 Mobile Technology

A cornerstone of the NVIDIA® GeForce® 8M Series of GPUs, PowerMizer 7.0 Mobile Technology delivers numerous mobile power management techniques to manage the power consumption of both the GPU and the entire notebook:

• Adaptive clocking and engine gating ensure the GPU is only consuming as much power as is necessary for the task at hand
  The GeForce 8M Series architecture is significantly more power efficient and utilizes the latest advances in chip process technology to achieve this
  Dedicated HD video processor to playback Blu-ray and HD DVD with the highest quality requiring less use of the CPU and thereby extending battery life
  More circuits using lower voltage rails
  More clocking and voltage scaling steps for finer control
  Support for GDDR3 memory at 1.8V
  NVIDIA SmartDimmer™ technology for intelligent, granular display brightness control for maximum battery life.
  ASLM (Active State Link Management) technology for ultra efficient use of the PCI Express link
  Uncompromised power management support for MXM-based notebooks

canfraggle wrote:I'm definitely glad I held off on a T61 in favour of a T61p. The T61 140M 3D benchmarks are ok, but nothing out of the ordinary, however if the performance of the 570M is roughly similar to the 8600 M GT then heavier gaming on the Thinkpad will be much more feasible.

Anyway, what is a little more alarming is, if you look at the French site, the power usage for the 570M vs the 140M.

The 140M uses about 10W vs 570 using 35W. Given that the 140M T61 already doesn't last as long as the X3100 equipped T61, I wonder what sort of battery life the 570 will provide.

Also, 35W will generate a significantly larger amount of heat. I can only hope this won't be a problem in the 14" T61p.

that where a 20cell battery would come in handy