Thinkpads Forum

I have a T530 with i7-3720QM / Nvidia 5400 and need to get more ram capacity. I've upgraded screen / battery etc and am pretty happy with it (bar the weight )

I use it as a music DAW and am running some heavy sample libraries so having 32gb ram would be a real advantage.

I'm wondering - is it just a matter of swapping the mobo with the W530 board?

Can I keep the same CPU / heatsink combo? And is there anything else I would need to swap?

Thanks in advance

I don't think you can use the T530's heatsink on the W530's motherboard, since the W530's heatsink has quite a difference in terms of the screws' positions. Have a look at the W530's heatsink and the T530's heatsink for a comparison.

I believe that you would need the W530's heatsink, and the W530's heatsink mounting bracket (this is already provided with the motherboard, I believe). You can keep the processor, and install it as it is. There isn't such a difference that would prevent you from using your current processor in the W530's motherboard.

I can't be sure if this is the only difference that separates the W530 and the T530 apart, though.

Welcome to the forum!

As far as I remember the heatsink for the W530 is different and the screw holes are in different places. So your current nVidia heatsink will not fit.

The CPU will fit in the slot. However, you can only fully use the 4 slots of RAM of the mobo if you have a quad-CPU, if your current T530 has a dual-core one you're stuck to max 2x 8GB RAM.

You'll also need a bigger 135W (or better: 170W) charger!

Tasurinchi wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 01, 2019 5:07 am

However, you can only fully use the 4 slots of RAM of the mobo if you have a quad-CPU, if your current T530 has a dual-core one you're stuck to max 2x 8GB RAM.

That is strange; wasn't the 4-slot W510 the only machine that suffered from this particular problem (2x4GB max)?

I recall that any consumer single/dual/quad-core Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge could address up to 32GB of RAM, unlike Arrandale. There should not be a strange limitation that would artificially limit the W530 to use only 16GB, instead of the full 32GB that it can address with a dual-core Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge processor.

Screamer wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 01, 2019 9:53 am

single/dual/quad-core Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge could address up to 32GB of RAM

Nope, 16GB RAM modules are only supported from the 5th generation Intel CPUs onward. So although there are 16GB DDR3 RAM modules available, they will not work with the Ivy Bridge CPU's.

Summarizing:

Dual-core: Max 2x 8GB
Quad-core: Max 4x 8GB

Thanks all! Sounds like best option is to grab a motherboard with the heatsink.

This is a great forum

thinktwan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 01, 2019 12:05 pm

Thanks all! Sounds like best option is to grab a motherboard with the heatsink.

And a quad!

Otherwise, you will gain "only" more graphic power, but no more RAM...

Edit: Ignore my dumb comment about the quad!

OP already has a quad i7-3720QM.
He just needs to make sure he gets a W530 mobo with 4 RAM slots, and not with only 2 slots!

I think that I may have poorly phrased my question, but that is good to know.

What I was trying to say is, could a 4-slot W520/W530 address up to 32GB of RAM with a single or a dual-core variant of Sandy/Ivy Bridge? I was wondering if that setup could use 4 sticks of 8GB RAM modules in a 4-slot W520/W530.

The (W520) dual-core Sandy CPU (like i7-2620M) can only support 16GB RAM.
The Sandy Quad can support 32 GB.

The (W530) dual-core Ivy CPU (like i7-3520M) supports 32GB RAM, as does the Ivy Quad.