Thinkpads Forum

Hi Everyone,

To make a long story short, I've been offered an upgrade from a T61p to a T410 ("Elite Edition" as stated by the web) and was wondering what everyone thought about this.

Granted that the T410 machine would easily blow T61p out of the water, but my biggest concern about it is the video card performace and I'd like to keep it in a 14.1" class LCD/size. The T61p has an nVidia FX 570M while the T410 has the NVS 3100M. When researching both cards, it looks like the 570 still outperforms the 3100. Graphics are important to me, but the deal is pretty tempting, so your thoughts are welcomed.

Thanks in advance all!

Kamika007z

If you like the 4:3 form factor, I'm assuming here, and your GPU still out performs the newer card, why upgrade?

The reason why I'm being offered an upgrade is due to a few reasons, a couple being the DPC Latency issues (more can be read about it on the Lenovo forums under the T61 audio stuttering thread), and the other is that my board needs to be replaced... again. So they are instead offering a replacement instead.

Keep your thoughts going on this, I really appreciate it!

Best,
Kamika007z

Now, do you have a widescreen or a standard screen T61p? Keep in mind that they used a crippled version of the Nvidia GPU in the standard screen T61p, which means that the NVS 3100M is actually significantly more powerful than the 14.1" FX 570M. I don't know if they offered 14.1" wide T61p systems or not, but I know the 15.4" systems had the more powerful 570M.

Also, the G92/G94 core Nvidia GPUs are notorious for heat-related failures. I think that the T410 would be the better choice just due to a more powerful CPU, (possibly) more powerful GPU, and a more reliable machine out of the deal.

Yes, mine is the 14.1" 4:3 aspect ratio-sized version.

Could you help me find information about the 570M on the 4:3 LCD being slower?

If that's the case, then that answers my question...

Thanks in advance!

This thread on another forum might shed some light on this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=230307

I wish I could find some more quantifiable evidence for you, but the GPU in the 14" T61p is a 128MB version with a 64-bit bus, versus the 256MB version in the 15.4" T61p, with a 128-bit bus. That particular GPU is still about as powerful as what you can get in the T410/T510. I think the reason for crippling the 14" version was to reduce temps... I could see how a GPU like that in a smaller thin and light notebook could be blazing hot. Add that to the fact those Nvidia GPUs fail quite a bit and that would be a thermal time bomb.

If I remember correctly the 14" 570M benchmarks about a 1900 in 3Dmark06. This I remember from looking into upgrading my old T60p with a T61p board. Only the 14.1" T61p board will fit in that chassis, and the GPU isn't all that more powerful than the T60p's FireGL.

So, in short, getting the T410 with discrete graphics will mean you've got a significant upgrade in GPU power. Most likely a reliability upgrade as well considering all the bad press Nvidia got with the G92/94 time bombs they shipped.

Thank you LegendaryKA8. You're making this an easier decision.

As for the 4:3 aspect ratio machine, I still have my T60P 2007-8JU

Thanks again!