T520 2720QM battery life and graphics question

[bwalex]

Hi,

I've been a long time Thinkpad user and am thinking of buying a new one now. I am considering the T520 with a dual core and a quad core. I do have some questions regarding the quad-core:

1) Can I simply disable the discrete graphics on the quad core? I absoutely don't need anything but the integrated graphics.

2) How is battery life of the T520 with the 2720QM processor in comparison to the 2620M ?

Thanks,

Alex

[Q-Ball]

Does this question need to be asked on more than one forum?

To summarize:

-No, you don't need a quad-core for web browsing.

-If you absolutely must have a quad-core, get the best value for your money. It doesn't matter whether or not you need it but just get the best amount of stuff for that price. So if it means you're getting a Quadro 1000M it's more of a bonus than anything. It's a waste of cash to get a T510 with the same outfit minus the discrete graphics.

-Yes, the battery life is about the same as an i7-620M from a T510.

-You can't explicitly disable the integrated graphics but Optimus will do that for you (as long as you're running Basic and not Aero).

[Colonel O'Neill]

Heh. It's okay if OP checks back on all of them. Extra redundancy though.

[bwalex]

Well, I fail to see the problem in asking on multiple forums. It's not like I could have known that most users hang out on both.

As for the workload, and as I mentioned on the other forum, it is not representative of my average workload but rather a workload that I would assume more people are familiar with. My usual workload involves VMs, compiling, FPGA design synthesis, Engineering calculations with Matlab, etc.

I simply don't need the extrs graphics, and in any case the point of my question was to assess whether the trade-off between performance and battery life of the quad core vs the dual core is worth it or not.

Regards,
Alex

[Q-Ball]

"My usual workload involves VMs, compiling, FPGA design synthesis, Engineering calculations with Matlab, etc."

So you don't know about what CUDA does?

And you aren't aware that programs such as MATLAB can use this to compute way faster than 4 cores of a CPU can?

Here's a list of the programs that can benefit from the use of the integrated graphics- at the very least MATLAB is listed:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_app_tesla.html

These programs can use the power of the nVidia graphics card to accelerate processes. These processes execute and complete vastly faster with CUDA than without.

So take the extra graphics power. You'll be able to use it.

[bwalex]

"My usual workload involves VMs, compiling, FPGA design synthesis, Engineering calculations with Matlab, etc."

So you don't know about what CUDA does?

A bit patronizing? Of course I know what CUDA "does" or rather is. It doesn't offer any advantages for most of the workloads. You can't compile C programs on a CUDA core. You can't synthesize FPGA designs on CUDA cores. You can't run a VM on CUDA cores. The only thing it offers some speed-up for is some calculations. And I say some, because many are simply not that easily parallelizable.

Please, just stick to my original question instead of trying to give me advice on something I didn't ask for.

Regards,
Alex

[JaneL]

OK, both of you, drop the attitude. No more sniping at one another.