Thinkpads Forum

I'm a bit curious... does anyone have a full testimony or solid experience between the W700 and W701? From my understanding, the performance difference is negligible from a CPU raw-power standpoint. The two absolute best CPUs(QX9300 vs. i7-920XM) for both are neck and neck in PassMark CPU score, and both tiers for the GPUs are based on the same core(FX 2700M and FX 2800M are based on 9800, FX 3700M and FX 3800M are based on 280).

Doesn't seem like I'd gain much at all going from a W700 to a W701. Are there any newer technologies in the W701 either?(USB 3.0, SATA 3) I doubt they managed that... I do understand the W701 has a much nicer screen, LED-backlit instead of the W700's crazy dual-bulb solution for supreme brightness.

I'm also fully aware it's not possible to plop a W701 board in to "franken" a W700. A lot of the innards are offset, it'd be best to get a whole base. The W701's video card does use the newer standard of MXM, so if a modded BIOS allowed the installation of outrageous cards such as the GTX 480M, 580M, 680M, Radeon 5870M, 6870M, and Quadro 4000M/5010M, I'd probably be down to get a W701 at some point. The FX 3800M is a 100 Watt card too- so all those cards would work without a problem, unlike the W700, which has cooling only for 75-watt cards.

I would think that a W701 would have slightly better battery life with the iCore processors than the Core2Duo, unless Lenovo redesigned the mobo where it doesn't save energy.

Thinking about upgrading already Medessec?
I would like to come across an LED backlit W701 and cross check it with my unit.
Fairly surprised about the WEI score of the QX9300. I believe it was 7.1 last time I checked, 6.8 on the FX2700M.
I haven't tried speccy nor CPU ID on it though.
I would love to take it to a LAN party sometime, that thing barely fits in a 15.4" laptop bag
I have FRU 43R2476, I cant zip it up and I'd have to take out the pads on the bottom.

I did check up about the GPUs too, thinking I could use SLI with an ultrabay but I misread it from a Lenovo Y500.
I had talks with my friend a year about about getting a super expensive laptop with RAID configuration.
We joked about getting a Sager laptop, those have some very neat configurations. Easily past $8,000...

We joked about getting a Sager laptop, those have some very neat configurations. Easily past $8,000...

You can get a D900F or X7200... they're still insanely powerful by today's standards. I recently upgraded my D900F to have a GeForce GTX 680M, and it now plays Bioshock Infinite fluently on Ultra. The X7200 supports SLI configurations, but not sure about how the BIOS finds Kepler GPUs...

Thinking about upgrading already Medessec?

Well... you know. Considering my options. The screen seems to be the only worthwhile benefit of upgrading... fair point with the battery life, but battery life really doesn't matter to me as much.

To transport my W700ds, I use a Targus backpack that came with my D900F, it's an enormous hiking backpack, but the W700ds fits in the laptop sleeve of the main pocket very nicely. In the second pocket, I keep my X60 SXGA+ Tablet.

I've had both the W700 with a QX9300 (overclocked to 4x3500MHz) and a W701 with an i7-920XM and its TDP raised to 85W.

Clock-for-clock both CPUs have roughly the same performance, although I'd say that the i7 comes out slightly on top. Where the i7 really scores is during full load, i.e. all cores at max. Despite being limited by its TDP and not being able to raise all cores to full speed (they reach roughly 2800MHz), it completely annihilates the QX9300. During compilation of big packages, which is an excellent case for multiprocessing and hyperhtreading, the i7 managed to get it done in roughly half the time of the Core2.

As far as power usage is concerned, the W701 is far, far worse. I just can't get it below 30W or so in complete idle and with all power-saving measures in place. Even with a fairly new battery, that doesn't give you more than maybe 120 minutes runtime. The W700 fared better, I think I got it below 20W or so once.

The W701 actually has one USB3.0 port, but that's it.

The screen on the 701 feels a lot brighter, but that's probably because the 700 screen I used had aged for a while. You don't have this problem with the 701's LED screen.

I find the GPU a bit lackluster for today's standards, despite having the 3800M. It's not upgradable tho: http://ridingtheflow.blogspot.de/2011/0 ... nd-of.html
I do wonder if the W700 can be upgraded however. I managed to make it work with a HP card, which indicates that it might not be locked down in the same way the W701 is.

Medessec wrote: To transport my W700ds, I use a Targus backpack that came with my D900F, it's an enormous hiking backpack, but the W700ds fits in the laptop sleeve of the main pocket very nicely. In the second pocket, I keep my X60 SXGA+ Tablet.

Wow. I am having a hard time fathoming carrying that around Medessec!

At least you get good exercise out of it

Which of your laptops do you take to your classes most of the time?