X200 to x201 upgrade - is it worth it?

[zogthegreat]

Hi everyone,

My son has an x200 Intel SL9300 1.6Ghz laptop. He has found a motherboard from an x201 i5-520UM 1.07Ghz and he wants to buy it and swap the motherboards.

My question is is it worth it for the i5-520UM board? From my research I have found the following:

Intel SL9300 1.6Ghz:

The number of cores 2
The number of threads 2
Floating Point Unit Integrated
Level 1 cache size ? 2 x 32 KB instruction caches
2 x 32 KB write-back data caches
Level 2 cache size ? shared 6 MB
Multiprocessing Uniprocessor

C1/AutoHALT, C1/MWAIT, C2, C3, C4 (with Enhanced Deep Sleep) and C6 core states
Stop Grant mode
Sleep mode
Deep Sleep mode
Deeper Sleep mode
Enhanced Deeper Sleep mode
Deep Power-Down state
Dynamic FSB Frequency switching
Enhanced SpeedStep technology

Intel i5-520UM 1.07Ghz:

The number of cores 2
The number of threads 4
Floating Point Unit Integrated
Level 1 cache size ? 2 x 32 KB instruction caches
2 x 32 KB data caches
Level 2 cache size ? 2 x 256 KB
Level 3 cache size 3 MB
Multiprocessing Not supported

Thread C1, C3 and C6 states
Core C1/C1E, C3 and C6 states
Package C1/C1E, C3 and C6 states
Enhanced SpeedStep technology

From what I can see, other than a slightly longer battery life with the i5, (and slightly better video), he would do better keeping his rig the way it is and save up for a x201 i7 board.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

zog

[ajkula66]

Honestly, my experience has been that X201 offers worse battery life than X200, not the other way around.

The difference in performance is meaningful, and might be worth it depending on what the upgrade is supposed to accomplish in the first place.

My $0.02 only...

[ZaZ]

he would do better keeping his rig the way it is and save up for a x201 i7 board.

Or a SSD, which is much more likely to make his X200 seem faster for most uses and he can use the SSD is his next notebook or PC.

[zogthegreat]

Honestly, my experience has been that X201 offers worse battery life than X200, not the other way around.

The difference in performance is meaningful, and might be worth it depending on what the upgrade is supposed to accomplish in the first place.

How much worse is the battery life on the i5?

He uses the machine at work and school, (he is a Systems Engineer for Bell and studies Computer Science full time), although to be honest he is is very much like me in that he like to take things apart and make them "better"

Or a SSD, which is much more likely to make his X200 seem faster for most uses and he can use the SSD is his next notebook or PC.

Yeah, he aleady has SSD in both rigs, (he also has an x220 i7).

[rjwilmsi]

Looking at the single threaded performance of the CPUs at http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html the i5 520 UM would be a decrease in single-threaded performance, so it doesn't seem like a worthwhile upgrade. Maybe those benchmarks are with turbo disabled though.

[600X]

The X201 has actually got a better battery life. It all comes down to your settings. It wouldn't make sense that the X200 has a better battery life, since the X201 has a more efficient processor. It merely gets warmer due to the 32nm.

[ajkula66]

The X201 has actually got a better battery life. It all comes down to your settings. It wouldn't make sense that the X200 has a better battery life, since the X201 has a more efficient processor. It merely gets warmer due to the 32nm.

You're speaking from personal experience here?

[600X]

The X201 has actually got a better battery life. It all comes down to your settings. It wouldn't make sense that the X200 has a better battery life, since the X201 has a more efficient processor. It merely gets warmer due to the 32nm.

You're speaking from personal experience here?

It was tested by a well known person over at the German ThinkPad forum. He has an X201 and got sick of hearing how it gets hotter and has worse battery life than the X200. (it does get warmer, just to set things straight right away) He did a clean install of Win 7 on an Intel 320 (or X25, can't remember) SSD, installled all necessary drivers, set the display to 5/15, Wireless Lan on, and got something around 6W.

Anything else wouldn't make sense anyway since the Arrandale processors are more efficient, though I am the wrong person to ask if you want to know why exactly.

[ajkula66]

It was tested by a well known person over at the German ThinkPad forum. He has an X201 and got sick of hearing how it gets hotter and has worse battery life than the X200. (it does get warmer, just to set things straight right away) He did a clean install of Win 7 on an Intel 320 (or X25, can't remember) SSD, installled all necessary drivers, set the display to 5/15, Wireless Lan on, and got something around 6W.

Could you please post a link? I'm a member of German TP forum, but would rather not search for the topic without having any parameters...

My curiosity is based on two aspects:

a) The experience in question is directly opposite of my own

b) From everything that I know, Arrandales are a horror show when it comes to power consumption, unless one compares them to something along the lines of P4M...

[600X]

Sure thing: http://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/147818 ... 200-Niveau!

Your're lucky I remembered who posted it.

[matmat]

If you need "more power", there are X201(t) boards with an i7-640LM (2x 2,16Ghz)