Thinkpads Forum

I mean the Nvida 570m wasnt bad, but i see notebooks for 800€ which they have included them...

Whats the new GFX-card for the forthcoming T62p ?
Any1 with an idea ????

8800 mobile ? Going back to ati ?

I would love ATI with AMD chipset and PowerXpress technology in next generation ThinkPads - it should enable switching between integrated and dedicated GPU but...

I highly doubt they'll switch back to ATI even though ATI are going to have better tech (See post above). They must have made the switch for a reason. I'd love to know about the next performance T Series too, but I don't think we'll know until perhaps June-August.

I can't see why Lenovo would go back to ATi. There is no ATi card that come close to GeForce performance-wise. Maybe for more battery, but it doesn't worth the performance tradeoff... If one wants a T6Xp, it is for the graphic card.

570m in 800€ notebooks? Where? Anyway, you know we don't pay only for the graphic card... If it was only for the graphic card, everybody would buy another brand.

NVidia's got hybrid GPU technology which can use a discrete and onboard gpu.

tylerwylie wrote:NVidia's got hybrid GPU technology which can use a discrete and onboard gpu.

As a Linux advocate I thought you'd be supporting ATI as they have made available without NDA lots of materials on their GPUs meaning that the RadeonHD driver can be produced.

I thought it was only ATI/AMD that had the hybrid GPU system.

Let's see now, statistically, about 29% of all driver errors/faults in Vista is due to nVidia drivers, while it is 9.3% for ATi. This is based off a 158 paged long collection of error reports from MS.
The extremely long T61p 570m thread on the forums don't help the statistics. That alone would make it feasible to switch back to ATi, due to less support hours required.

Lenovo hasn't learned from IBM's bad experience regarding nVidia cards...

Back in the days, when they put them in hi-end G41 units (first ThinkPad with 128Mb VRAM, and the only one that you can swap the video cards in) people were pulling their hair out trying to get these things to work properly under XP, let alone Linux...and this was probably the main reason why a very capable (for its time) desktop replacement was sent to the dustbin of laptop history pronto...

One thing that has stopped me personally from ordering a T61p in WUXGA format for my better half was the amount of people complaining about the video chip issues. So I'm another one on the long list of potential customers waiting for the Lenovo to come to their senses and go back to ATi...

Just my $0.02...

Troels wrote:Let's see now, statistically, about 29% of all driver errors/faults in Vista is due to nVidia drivers, while it is 9.3% for ATi. This is based off a 158 paged long collection of error reports from MS.
The extremely long T61p 570m thread on the forums don't help the statistics. That alone would make it feasible to switch back to ATi, due to less support hours required.

Nvidia has much more marketshare than ATI, so it would stand to reason that they have more problems as a percentage.

i also get the impression that the nvidia drivers are crap. having lots of problems with them (bluescreens, freezes.). havent really got a stable driver until now.

The gulf between ATI and NVidia is not that far as the fanbois make it seem - and even then that gulf really only exists at the very top end.. for mid-range notebook chips, which seem to be what get shoved into thinkpads, its pretty much a dead heat..

I've always been impressed with the ATI in my T60 It can't run top of the time games like Call of Duty 4, but I can run Battlefield II on the highest settings @ 1024x768.

I don't think people buy Thinkpads for the graphics card or gaming ... if I but another Thinkpad, it's going to be for the small size and portability.

Miller88,
X1100? Are you sure it isn't a x1300 or x1400?

computerpro3 wrote:Nvidia has much more marketshare than ATI, so it would stand to reason that they have more problems as a percentage.

And both are very tiny compared to Intel, which already was at 49% in Q4, 2006, while ATI and nVidia is at about 23% both of them. I predict since then, Intel has grown tremendously with the introduction of x3100 (also available in macbooks), ATI/AMD has lost market share and nVidia has gained some too with the G80 instroduction. Intel is at a driver failure cause at 8.83%

Being a company focusing on performance graphics, and with the sucess and workforce they have in comparison to ATIs division, 29% is just far from acceptable.
Also, GPUs across many lines share many registers and structure, so retrofitting a driver to work on a never series many times just includes new registers or a few changes here and there.

On the other hand, MS was pretty late in documenting how driver implementations were to be done with Vista, so they can also blame themselves somewhat.

I for one have really been enjoying being able to run games like COD4 at fairly high performance levels on my TP. If I had known how much I would enjoy that before my purchase, I would probably have gone for the larger laptop with more dedicated video ram to be able to play games at even higher performance levels.

But on the other hand, I do enjoy the smaller form factor and better looks, easier portability, of my 14.1 4:3 unit. Everything is a compromise.

Dead1nside wrote:

tylerwylie wrote:NVidia's got hybrid GPU technology which can use a discrete and onboard gpu.

As a Linux advocate I thought you'd be supporting ATI as they have made available without NDA lots of materials on their GPUs meaning that the RadeonHD driver can be produced.

I thought it was only ATI/AMD that had the hybrid GPU system.

I'd tell both of them to go blow themselves, but as it stands the nvidia linux driver is sweet compared to the ATI one, and I still use intel over both

i also had more probs with nvidia than ati....just so naive and basic bugs, horrible....

i hope the new one is an exchangebale gfx-card....how long are we waiting for this ???

i think Lenovo switched to nvidia because AMD bought ATI, and IBM has never done business with AMD or does anyone of you have a Thinkpad with AMD-CPU?

The last graphic cards of the P-models were always the midstand-range cards, the best which fits in a 15,4"-notebook.

T61p: nvs-570m -> geforce 8600
T60p: FireGL 5250 -> radeon x1700
T43p: FireGL.... -> radeon x700

a geforce 8800 is to big for a 15,4" notebook. the only 15,4" wich a 8800 is an fat alienware notebook.

I strongly believe that the next T62p graphic-card would follow the tradition, so it would be the workstation-version of the Geforce 9600.

BachManiac wrote:i think Lenovo switched to nvidia because AMD bought ATI, and IBM has never done business with AMD.

Maybe not in the Thinkpads, BUT in the desktops you can get AMD, so I don't think IBM "not doing business" with AMD is correct. I currently own a ThinkCenter tower with an AMD.

SHG

Wierd... I have had more problem with ATi cards than Nvidias. Had to change the motherboard of my T43p and T60p because of the graphic cards. Never had any problem with my FX 570M (and I am running 2003 and overclocking my graphic card).