Thinkpads Forum

I have a T60p 20078DU... Intel Core Duo T2700 @ 2.33GHZ, ATI V5200 video running XP... I only have one Gig of RAM tho, and was wondering if upgrading to 2 (or more gigs) would be worth it...

Note I not a gamer, however my son uses this machine quite often (his middle name is Warcraft... he is also beta testing Warhammer as we speak). 'Junior' has made the 'occasional' comment re my RAM, or more correctly, my lack of it.

I realize that Thinkpads are not optimized for gaming, however I'm looking for direction as to whether I should log on to crucial.com for a stick or two, to get him off my back?

1gb of additional ram is pretty cheap these days. Worth the peace and quiet.

Yes... about $60 for a gig at Crucial... Not being a gamer myself, do you thnk RAM will have much effect on gaming performance? I would think that the GPU would be the main bottle neck...

Also can anyone recommend benchmarking software... free if possible?

RAM definitely helps... storing textures in memory means the GPU can access them faster rather than retrieving them off the HD each time they are needed.

For benchmarking, try 3DMark06 Basic. It's a free limited version.

T60p 20078DU... Intel Core Duo T2700 @ 2.33GHZ, ATI V5200 (256megs) video running XP RAM, NOW updated to 2 GIGs...

Faster booting (I think)... I haven't run much other than 3Dmark06 on it yet... Hardly worth the expense from a gaming perspective.


With 1 GIG RAM 3Dmark06 1596 3Dmarks (87th percentile)
With 2 GIG RAM 3Dmark06 1600 3Dmarks (86th percentile)

In a nut shell it might be a powerful office computer, but it sure 'ain't no barn burner' of a gaming machine... NP here, cause I'm not into gaming... sorry son, looks like its time to update / replace your desktop!

One question though... The memory is recognized by 'my computer / view system info / hardware'. It is also recognized when I run the Crucial online scanner, however if I look in ThinkvVantage / System Info it shows 2046MB on the main page (yes 2046, not 2048). If I click on the advanced tab, under 'memory module info', it shows 1GIG in slot 1, and nothing in slot 2...

Has anyone seen this before?

speedbump wrote:Yes... about $60 for a gig at Crucial... Not being a gamer myself, do you thnk RAM will have much effect on gaming performance? I would think that the GPU would be the main bottle neck...

Also can anyone recommend benchmarking software... free if possible?

you can't ever have too much RAM for gaming. VRAM is another thing. everything else is less important.

mattbiernat wrote:
you can't ever have too much RAM for gaming. VRAM is another thing. everything else is less important.

Followup... despite the infantisimal differences in the 3D benchmark, after a couple of hours screen time junior has pronounced that the game he is beta testing (Warhammer age of... something) is running hugely better with 2 gigs of RAM versus the old 1 gig config... Looks like I got him off my back for $72 CAD, for awhile anyway

Looking at a new desktop gaming machine 'to his specs' for Christmas... WOW, I used to think IBM laptops were expensive! Pretty easy to drop a few grand on a powerful gaming desktop...

Just for the fun of it, you can try and download the FR-41 here:
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=30244
run it using default settings, and you'd notice MUCH less disk swapping, and much less loading time now that you have more than 1 gig of memory.

Troels wrote:Just for the fun of it, you can try and download the FR-41 here:
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=30244
run it using default settings, and you'd notice MUCH less disk swapping, and much less loading time now that you have more than 1 gig of memory.

Sorry but thats a bad link

Yeah, you're right. It's really unstable from time to time. Direct link is http://www.theprodukkt.com/downloads/fr-041_debris.zip , which is the same file.