Thinkpads Forum

Haven't been in the thinkpad game for awhile and I was using my x61 until I just picked up a x230.


To be honest, I was researching the cpu of the x240's and the more recent versions and I'm just not seeing that much of a difference in cpu benchmark and scores. I even looked at the i7 6600u and I'm not seeing the scores.

I do realize that there is a huge improvement in power consumption. As the newer cpu's consume 1/3 of the power of the older cpu's in the x230 (namely the i5 3230m).

Is it really worth it to get a brand new thinkpad in terms of PERFORMANCE? Or am I missing something?

Performance hasn't increased much since Sandy and Ivy Bridge. You only get the current models or the models before that if you want better battery life and display options.

codek wrote:
Is it really worth it to get a brand new thinkpad in terms of PERFORMANCE? Or am I missing something?

If you're looking at X series, the answer is clearly "no". X230 was the last model with the full-voltage CPU.

Significant performance increase comes with larger models only nowadays...

Arguably there is a benefit for graphics processing power & gaming.
But thats if you want a small photo editor, or at a stretch to do some video editing on the go.
Still it's better to use a standard discrete graphics laptop.

Regarding laptops, Ivy Bridge cpus have nearly identical raw performance to the new Skylake processors. There are likely added optimizations that may make them perform noticeably better in certain tasks, but for the most part you can expect pretty similar performance.

Passmark scores:

The P50 with the following cpus:
6700HQ: 8009
6820HQ: 8664
E3-1505M v5: 8516
E3-1535M v5: 9266

P70 with the optional:
E3-1575M v5: 10546

And the older W530:
3740QM: 8370
3840QM: 8881
3940xm: 9377

T23 with 1.2 GHz PIII: 278

Unless you opt for the E3-1575M v5 in the P70, there really isn't a performance difference. In fact, the 3x40QM cpus are slightly faster.

Not worth it in terms of performance. Battery life will be better and you can get a nicer display on the newer models, but they aren't really faster. Graphics performance would be the biggest jump, but will not be noticeable in most people's day to day tasks.

We have a X230 which is still our daily computer, have a SSD installed, and honestly it runs just like new.
As an added bonus, the X230 has three (3) USB ports on it.
(Of which one of them is USB 3.0 port).
Also uses the modern 7mm 2.5" HDD/SSD size.

We also have an X250, but we sorely miss the three (3) USB ports from the X230 era.
(The X250 only has two (2) USB ports).

The X230 is a GREAT machine!

Yeah, it does look a bit like the x230 was the last proper Thinkpad.
My i7-3520M with an 180GB Intel 520 and 16GB Ram has plenty of horse power for my heavy office use. A cleaning of the CPU fan and exchange of the thermal pad to some propoer arctic MX4 cooling paste bought the idle temp down 15C, and the full load 20C (Playing some CS:GO, temp would jump to 90+C even on the max stepping in TPFancontrol. Now its in the early 70s.)

Hurstbridge wrote:Yeah, it does look a bit like the x230 was the last proper Thinkpad.
My i7-3520M with an 180GB Intel 520 and 16GB Ram has plenty of horse power for my heavy office use. A cleaning of the CPU fan and exchange of the thermal pad to some propoer arctic MX4 cooling paste bought the idle temp down 15C, and the full load 20C (Playing some CS:GO, temp would jump to 90+C even on the max stepping in TPFancontrol. Now its in the early 70s.)

Nice system. What's your FPS on CS:GO with which settings? Is it playable?

Thank God it's only 1366 x 768.

I'll check the FPS later, but there are no problems. It's absolutely smooth. The only exception is when going direcly through a smoke grenade.