How good are the W520 systems?

[BobA]

I have a T520 with a slower i5 CPU but am looking at a W520 system with the i7-2860QM CPU .. How much better is the W520 system? Are there problems using the 90W power supply? Thanks for the time ..

BobA

[pianowizard]

Externally, the T520 and the T520 are identical. Does your T520 have the i5-2520M? Its Passmark rating is 3,611, whereas the i7-2860QM is 8,028 -- see http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php. That's a dramatic difference, though you aren't going to see everything becoming twice as fast because the CPU isn't the only factor that determines speed. For very basic tasks, the improvement would be pretty small, although for heavy-duty stuff the performance increase would be significant. Have you considered upgrading the HDD to an SSD? Many users have found that to be a more worthwhile upgrade than getting a faster CPU.

I will let others give you feedback on the 90W power brick.

[BobA]

Does your T520 have the i5-2520M?

Yes, it has the i5-2520M CPU ..

For very basic tasks, the improvement would be pretty small, although for heavy-duty stuff the performance increase would be significant. Have you considered upgrading the HDD to an SSD.

Right now, I have a 750G/7200 drive (I like the space). The T420s allows one to put an mSATA memory disk in the system as the OS drive. Can both the T520 and W520 do the same? I did that with my T420s and really like that.

Any other advantages to the W520 over the T520? Does the 16G make a difference? I do some heavy-duty stuff on occasion but usually I am just doing a lot of things all at once more so than heavy-duty processing.

Thanks.

[wolfman]

You can add an mSATA SSD to either the T520 or the W520. You can also add an ultrabay HDD adapter to either in place of the DVD burner (this is the configuration for the T420 in my sig below).

W520 has the ability to go to 32gb of RAM, T520 is maxed at 16gb. It doesn't sound like that's going to matter to you as you are questioning if going to 16gb will matter. W520 also has better graphics card options than the T520.

Sounds like I'd try the SSD before swapping for a quad core machine if I were you. Also, be aware than the W520 comes with a 170 watt power supply that weighs 1.4 or so pounds by itself. I carry a W520 back and forth to work each day and leave the power supply at home (I use a dock with second 170 watt power supply at work). When I traveled for a week earlier this year, the extra weight of the adapter in the bag was noticeable. YMMV.

[BobA]

Great input, Wolfman. I wasn't aware I could put 16G in the T520 .. that's good news. What's the highest CPU one can put in the T520? I don't care about graphics card (do I?) .. so upgrading my T520 sounds like the best route.

I'll do the mSATA as well as I have an extra one ..

[wolfman]

If memory serves, you could configure a T520 with at least the 2860QM (2.5 ghz) quad core processor. You might be able to go higher than that, but I'd check the tabook (although it's hard to tell now because they have been cutting out models with the T530 introduction - currently shows 2.2 ghz quad models offered). Someone around here likely knows the specifics. The question on that would be is the heatsink fan that shipped with your 2520M sufficient or would you also need to purchase a new heatsink fan.

Edit - confirmed the above as there is a T520 on sale on eBay with the 2860QM: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad ... 757wt_1251.

Personally, none of my workloads require anything other than integrated graphics. So it really comes down to what you use the machine for whether or not the graphics card options matter to you. I tend to avoid machines with discrete graphics since that's another point of heat and failure that I don't need to risk.

[BobA]

Yes, I saw the eBay T520 i7-2860QM .. really tempting but the LCD is only HD resolution and it's more $$ than I want to pay. Thanks again for the help, Wolfman - especially the graphics advice. I think I will be sticking with the T520. There are three others with the i7-2720QM CPU on eBay .. which isn't bad though it's not the i7-2860QM.

[BobA]

If I eventually want to do Photoshop and video editing, is the T520 NVidia GPU going to be sufficient or should I really consider a W520? Thanks for all of the help .. Bob