Thinkpads Forum

Guys I just got my w520 with nvidia quadro 1000M and 2GB of VRAM.
I just want to see if the drivers and everything is set up for "max performance". I just wanna be blazed by the machine. So I decided to download 3dmark11 to check. The software showed some animations but quite slow, about 5fps each. I got a score of P1100 more or less. I just have a bad feeling. Is that score a good one ? I saw it compared to that of the CPU (6000). Please tell me if I need to do something to see 80fps ! I think something is not correctly setup.

That score seems about right, 3DMark is designed to push any system to the limit, so no one can expect to run the latest version anywhere near fluidly.
This link has a lot of info on your video card, and many test results for you to compare with:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Qua ... 317.0.html

If I understand everything correctly (which is a fairly rare occurance BTW), the Quadro graphics cards are more highly optimized for open-gl applications, and overall system stability, whereas the geforce cards are optimized for Directx and performance. The card you have is excellent for 3d modelling, CAD and CAM, video and picture editing and othe professional programs, at the expense of game/benchmark performance. this link http://www.anandtech.com/show/4668/hp-z ... d-quarters is for a desktop, but it shows how the quadro cards are optimized diffrently from the geforce, with excellent performance in the "professional" benchmarks, and terrible performance in the "game" type benchmarks.

I wouldn't call Quadro cards performance in consumer 3D applications 'terrible' just slightly behind their consumer counterpart, they do have better image quality though.

Also note that you have the nVidia 1000M with 96 CUDAs. The 2000M has 128.
FWIW, I imagine you would get 10fps in 3DMark instead of 5 with it.
If you want a gaming laptop, look here to get you in the right direction:

http://www.bestgaminglaptop.net/article ... g-laptops/

I hear that the Origin PC laptops with Clevo bodies are REAL good for games. However be prepared to give them your arm or leg for one.
Good luck.

Guys,

Thank you for the replies.
I had in the past a T60P and had the same comments: the GPU was for professional apps and not for gaming. I dont quite understand that ! Isnt it about number of transistors, bandwidth and clock speeds ? Why would an app using opengl or directx would work fast on a CAD app and not on a game using same or related 3d technology ? I cant understand that Is it about driver ? About firmware ? About a limitation the manufacturer puts or what ? Is there a way to tweak or make the GPU behave as for gaming ? I heard some guys overclock, I heard there are drivers or I dont know ! I am right now playing Battlefield 3. Sometimes, even at max resolution everything is fluid however every 10 seconds does a big lag. I monitor with Sysinternals Procexp and dont see anything weird about CPU or whatever. I dont understand all this.

Please help me understand

Workstation cards are optimized for accurate polygon drawing, where as consumer gaming cards take shortcuts to increase polygon render speed. You're not going to notice a polygon being offset by a pixel during a game, nor does it matter. I don't think you'll be able to get it to become a GeForce card very easily if at all.

I'd overclock the 1000M. I'm playing BF3 at 1920x1080 on the 2000M with a fair overclock at 30FPS. Not sure about your occasional lag though. You may want to check out background processes and run a defrag.

Colonel, thanks for the tips !
Is there any specific software for overclocking the GPU ? Any recommended value ?

Ok I just downloaded and am testing EVGA Precision.
I do see that the Core Clock changes by itself to 203MHZ.
What is happening and cause my lags is that the GPU temperature raises, when it goes to 90o celsius it puts the clock to 203MGZ until the temperature lowers, then again to 701MHZ. This causes lot of lag. I wonder if there is a way to prevent from underclocking or to underclock less than from 700MHz to 200MHz.

Hope someone can help me, as when it is at 700MHz the games are incredible and when it lowers to 200, it really sucks.

Hope someone can help me.