Thinkpads Forum

Hi, recently I bought a 2920XM cpu, also very recently my love for Thinkpads started.

Want to combine those two things into one, so this cpu has to go in a thinkpad.

After some research, two possbile options were left for me:

W series and T series, W series a bit too expensive for me...

With 17" being too large to my personal taste, only 1 option left: 15".

Do have some questions, since T520 top models are being sold with 2720QM & 2820QM cpu's,
I take it cooling must be ok for 2920XM as well, or am I wrong? (I know tdp is 10watt higher)

Cpu alone is 55watt, will the 90watt brick be enough, or should I get 120 watt brick?

Same question in case the T520 is equipped with Quadro 4200?

Planning on doing video rendering & photoshopping, do I really benefit from the Quadro, or is Intel 3000 enough for me?

Can get second hand (demomodel) in following configurations;
i3-2310 / 4gb / 320gb / 1366*768 / 6cell batt / Intel HD 3000 total cost: 789 Euros
or
i5-2540 / 4gb / 500gb / 1600*900 / 9cell batt / Quadro 4200 total cost 1120 Euros

Now I am not saying money is no issue, but If there is nog huge benefit from the Quadro,
I am tempted to buy the cheaper model.

If there is really a benefit for me, than buying the more expensive machine is no problem for me.

For gaming, I already have a Clevo with 920xm & 5870 in crossfire, so the Quadro is not needed at all for gaming.

Would appreciate some help, did not come across much info on the internet.

Cheers.

It should, considering it shares a chassis with the W520.

The T420, which only ships with dual-core Sandy Bridge, will take a quad-cor Sandy Bridge chip.

That said, there's no chance for overclocking in the near future as the relevant bits are locked out.

For video editing, I'm tempted to say it's Quadro status will get you some more features in some editors, but you'll have to check to make sure on that with the software vendor.

The fan for T520 is different from the one for w520, which is less efficient.
You can definitely do such a upgrade since T520 supports i7-2920xm, but it would get quite hot, considering that even w520 cannot handle it very well (for normal use, i7-2920xm is quite hot on w520, for OC, w520 is not good enough to make it "Extreme")

Do you care about screen resolution? 1366x768 sucks, IMO and I would pay extra just for that.


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Thx a lot for the feedback, appreciated.

So basically, what I read between the lines is hat I am playing dangerous games with a 2920Xm in a T520...

Think I will build myself a Clevo W150HRM, then.

It has a HD+ screen, so good for photoshop, and still have a brandnew full HD screen from
a Clevo barebone that I bricked due to bad bios flash.

These are more or less designed to take this cpu anyhow, a lot of Bto companies in Holland, Belgium and Germany offer them like that.

But will be around on the forum, still have a X60S, R400, X201 & a X300...
(Yeah I know, I am a hardware addict)