T520 upgrades?

[painiac]

I'm looking to buy a T520. This will be my first Thinkpad.

I would prefer an i7 processor, and a 1080 screen. I am capable of swapping out either if I can only find a model with only one of these: which will be cheapest/easiest to obtain?

Can a proper 1080 panel be dropped into a T520 with onboard graphics that has a lower-res screen? I found the guide that claims you can, but everyone that sells them has dire warnings about making sure the resolution on the new screen is the same as the old one.

Are the processor sockets on all the T520s the same? I plan to disassemble it and apply new arctic silver to the processor regardless, so the amount of work doesn't matter to me. My chief concerns are availability and cost.

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

which will be cheapest/easiest to obtain?

Luck of the draw. Seriously.

Can a proper 1080 panel be dropped into a T520 with onboard graphics that has a lower-res screen? I found the guide that claims you can, but everyone that sells them has dire warnings about making sure the resolution on the new screen is the same as the old one.

Well, two things here:

a) LCD is a "drop-in" replacement, regardless of what sellers might say BUT

b) make sure that you're getting a genuine AUO panel with proper revision (V4) and NOT a "compatible" replacement...these LCDs have been discontinued and locating a real one is not such an easy task.

As for the CPUs, I'll let someone else answer that part since I haven't played with these machines enough to be absolutely certain one way or another.

Good luck.

[painiac]

) make sure that you're getting a genuine AUO panel with proper revision (V4) and NOT a "compatible" replacement...these LCDs have been discontinued and locating a real one is not such an easy task.

That's really good to know. Thank you for cluing me in to that.
So I suppose now I should worry a little that the few "1080" T520s on eBay might have had a poor-quality 1080 panel dropped in to increase resale value? I assume there's no real way to know without disassembling the laptop and looking at a label on the back of the LCD?

[ajkula66]

So I suppose now I should worry a little that the few "1080" T520s on eBay might have had a poor-quality 1080 panel dropped in to increase resale value?

Not necessarily. Most re-sellers value their own time way too much to play with stuff like that.

I assume there's no real way to know without disassembling the laptop and looking at a label on the back of the LCD?

HW info, Moninfo, Powerstrip...these are the free utilities that one could run in Windows and see what the panel really is.

Have you seen this:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=115294

It's a very high-end T520, and the seller has an excellent reputation on this forum. I've dealt with him on numerous occasions.

[painiac]

It's a very high-end T520, and the seller has an excellent reputation on this forum. I've dealt with him on numerous occasions.

That's a bit above my price range at the moment, though I definitely appreciate you pointing it out. I'll have to browse around the marketplace though.

ETA: although the more I think about it, spending that is probably the only reliable way to get what I'm looking for...

[SkiBunny]

IMO upgrading the panel is worth it on T520.

But I think upgrading from mobile Core i5 to a dual-core i7 is a waste of money because the extra cycles and cache make no real-world difference, except in very rare processor-bound circumstances. Thing is, both the i5 and i7 mobile processors support hyper-threading (unlike all desktop i5 processors), so there is very little performance gap between i5 and dual-core i7 mobile processors.

I think nVidia NVS 4200M is weak and little improvement over Intel HD3000. And don't forget that the existence of a GPU on an older machine creates a higher chance of a catastrophic failure.

If you had to pick one upgrade, I'm not sure whether dual-core i7 or NVS4200m is the better choice??
Perhaps better to pick a cheaper basic T520 and use the savings for an SSD instead.

Those are just my perceptions about these upgrades. But I welcome any other perspectives or enlightenment.

[mikemex]

But I think upgrading from mobile Core i5 to a dual-core i7 is a waste of money because the extra cycles and cache make no real-world difference, except in very rare processor-bound circumstances. Thing is, both the i5 and i7 mobile processors support hyper-threading (unlike all desktop i5 processors), so there is very little performance gap between i5 and dual-core i7 mobile processors.

Yeah, on a xx20 machine is a waste of money. That's the main reason I wanted to upgrade to the xx30 series: there are nice quad core CPUs you can pop in that really offer more performance since they have physically double cores and double cache on the same TDP. BUT I would have to live with that heresy they call "improved keyboard". So uhm, nope. I'm not that desperate.

I've been thinking, though, that if I can drop a classical keyboard in as I've read, I might give a T430 a chance.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_C ... _ThinkPads

I think nVidia NVS 4200M is weak and little improvement over Intel HD3000. And don't forget that the existence of a GPU on an older machine creates a higher chance of a catastrophic failure.

Intel graphics have decent power from the HD3000 on, mostly because the new cores are on the same die while the older were built into the northbridge. However, the main reason I think a discrete gpu is worth it is driver support as intel products were really never intended for anything but office work. Some applications won't run at all on intel graphics and many run with glitches. I tried loading a very old game recently (Zipper Interactive's Recoil) and it only runs on nVidia video cards. Intel really lacks the experience. They still don't have a unified driver architecture, for example, which means that every new GPU they come with has a new set of drivers. Old products do not benefit from the new features and new products don't benefit with old driver support. Problem is, many early games had broken DirectX support and only nVidia has code to get around it. Old ATI drivers were dropped long time ago and equivalent support is gone. nVidia is thus in my opinion is better than ATI on this aspect, which in turn is light years ahead of intel.

Conclusion: if graphics are remotely important to you, pick up the nVidia GPU. But yes, as SkiBunny says, discrete gpus are more likely to fail (mostly because cooling is almost always insufficient). If, and only if, long term stability is a concern, then intel would be better.

[Temetka]

I wouldn't bother with a CPU upgrade if it came with an i5.

The discrete GPU is a must. Even if you're just watching youtube video's. The drivers can off load it to the GPU thus saving work on the CPU. The HD3000 can handle youtube fine.

For now.

But down the road when the Intel GPU starts to really show it's weakness you are going to wish you had that "weak" Nvidia card in there. Sure it's not a gaming powerhouse but it's almost 2x as fast as the Intel solution. As mentioned though then Intel GPU can offer cooler temps and longer battery life. But really, just get 2 9 cel batteries and move on with life.

The only time I recommend integrated graphics is for people who live in Outlook, Powerpoint, Excel and Word. Otherwise they are getting the Nvidia card.

[painiac]

Thanks for the input, guys. I ended up buying that nice T520 mentioned above.

[Temetka]

Excellent!

May it serve you well.