T61p 14.1" graphics Q's

[MrT]

Hey all, I just got a T60p and really like the 14" 4:3 form factor! It runs WoW at native resolution quite well at minimal settings, how much better would the 14.1" 4:3 T61p perform? As I understand it, the nVidia fx570m in that model is only 64-bit but will it still run a lot faster than the FireGL 5250 at native resolution?

[QWERTY Andreas]

The NVS140M GPU is roughly about the same performance as a FireGL V5250.

The FX570M, on the other hand, more than double performance!

Processorwise the T61 motherboard is vastly superior..

[RealBlackStuff]

Don't forget to ONLY use motherboards that were built in or after August 2008!
The Date on the laptop's bottom-label should be 08/08 (year 2008/month 08=August) or newer.

The only reliable source to sell such motherboards is our forum member Professor TuuS: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=109112

[theterminator93]

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't believe any T61p (or T61 4:3, for that matter) 4:3 was ever made with a safe build date as the 4:3 lineup was discontinued before defect free chips were released. That would mean only refurbished motherboards would have defect free GPUs.

[MrT]

The NVS140M GPU is roughly about the same performance as a FireGL V5250.

The FX570M, on the other hand, more than double performance!

From what I've gathered, the 140M & 570M are equivalent to a Geforce 8400 & 8600GT while FireGL V5250=ATI x1700, so performance-wise would it be accurate to say 8600GT>x1700>8400? My concern though are the 64-bit versions of the nVidia cards in the 4:3 models and what impact that would have at SXGA+ resolutions?

[MrT]

Don't forget to ONLY use motherboards that were built in or after August 2008!
The Date on the laptop's bottom-label should be 08/08 (year 2008/month 08=August) or newer.

The only reliable source to sell such motherboards is our forum member Professor TuuS: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=109112

I thought this too but I just bought a T61 Type 6459-CTO with the NVS 140m off ebay that has a date of 08/09 on the bottom but it seems to exhibit all the symptoms of the nvidia bug, blue squiggly lines in the BIOS screen, garbled screen after that But fortunately I was able to get a partial refund and it had a lot of salvageable parts

[TuuS]

The 08/08 was the last general production month with the updated gpu, and 08/09 and a few 08/10 special order units also got the new gpu, however only in widescreen models and if the board was ever replaced it was likely changed with an older gpu as warranty replacement boards from lenovo with new gpu chips are extremely rare.

It's also true that for years the fans of the 4:3 aspect ration had no choice but to find a board that was still running strong and simply be prepared to replace it if it fails, but in recent years we've learned that although lenovo was too cheap to make new production boards to service their customers, IBM was not and it appears they supplied some of their corporate customers with new and/or refurbished boards to address the problem before the laptops failed and we've been seeing these boards come into liquidation still in their factory sealed boxes when the fleets of T61 laptops were liquidated. We've gone over every pallet we've found with a fine tooth comb and grabbed every new NOS board we found and we still have a number of the 4:3 aspect boards with nVidia nvs140m and are offering them at the lowest price ever of $129 each plus shipping. They are factory sealed, most manufactured in 2011-2012 with gpu chips mostly from 2010. Most of the boards that came in were refurbished and have the orange "serviceable used part" sticker on the box and we did end up with a few of them by accident which I'd be willing to let go cheap, but the vast majority of the refurb boards were auctioned to brokers and as a word of caution, it's not that hard to remove the orange stickers, but I can assure you any board that comes from me will be brand new production and factory sealed and naturally I stand behind these boards with a free 30day replacement if one fails and having been selling these for a few years now I can tell you none of these have come back which has made me feel so confident that I enacted a new temporary (meaning as long as sufficient supply exists), if anyone of these boards fails from natural causes within a full year, I'll cover half the cost of the replacement including shipping, and this is in addition to the basic 30 day replacement policy, not instead of. I'm also making this retroactive to anyone who has purchased them before this policy went into effect. I doubt one of these boards would fail, but if it does, you won't have to bare the cost alone.

In comparison to the T60 series graphic options, in my opinion nVidia wins hands down. Now if you compare the best ATI option to the base nVidia option using ten year old drivers and operating systems they may be close, but none of the ATI graphics have drivers for operating systems beyond Vista and although many have gottent he vista drivers to work with windows seven and perhaps newer versions, they are still circa 2006 drivers where the "official" nvidia drivers from lenovo are 2012 and nVidia is constantly updating both beta and stable drivers often every month or so and has never abandoned older models, so in my mind if you're looking for powerful graphics in windows, there is no question, just forget the ATI, their cards are ok for general use with vista drivers, but on the T60 you are so limited by ram and SSD speed that if you want performance you'd be far better to swap out the board for a T61. For those using Linux, nVidia also makes drivers for linux but ATI support is iffy and if I'm not mistaken is all unofficial.

When comparing the integrated graphic models, the T61 was the first integrated graphics that had real 3D graphic support. The T60 had what I believe is extremely basic ability to display graphics, but the T61 had a real x3100 gpu within the boards controller chip. It's firmware was fully compliant with openGL2.0 +, and there are some extremely good Linux drivers for this gpu. There are also some 3rd party windows drivers that have helped people use these laptops for gaming and I think the intel x3100 is the first integrated gpu that could really do 3D gaming on a laptop, and it was also one of the last. The T400/500 series also used an integrated gpu in the controller chip, but most games won't run on that chip and it was quickly aborted by intel and today they have switched to only cpu based integrated graphics, but when it comes to performance there is no advantage to moving the gpu into the cpu, it's just putting more heat into the chip with no real upside except for the fact that they can make computers smaller, so if you want a handheld or sub-notebook then an i5 or i7 chip with integrated graphics might be a good idea, but certainly not for a full sized notebook.

So in summary my opinion is if you are a fan of the classic 4:3 thinkpads, then the way to go is with either an intel or NOS nVidia board in either a 14 or 15" T60, or they can also be used in 15" R60 or R61, although the latter is pretty rare.

[TuuS]

From what I've gathered, the 140M & 570M are equivalent to a Geforce 8400 & 8600GT while FireGL V5250=ATI x1700, so performance-wise would it be accurate to say 8600GT>x1700>8400? My concern though are the 64-bit versions of the nVidia cards in the 4:3 models and what impact that would have at SXGA+ resolutions?

Much of your questions were answered in my previous post, but as far as resolutions go, any of these cards will handle internal or external resolutions of SXGA+, UXGA, or QXGA without any problems.


ps. It's also the opinion of many that the NVS140m chip was deliberately underclocked in order to make it more stable for business apps that don't tolerate errors, unlike games where small graphic artifacts aren't a problem. This is evidenced by the fact that multiple sources have found these chips can be easily overclocked upto a whopping 70% without adverse effects... not that I recommend overclocking, but if you are seriously into gaming you could softmod them to behave like a Gforce and overclock to get significant more performance, however any serious gamer will tell you that laptops aren't for gaming and even if you dump a few grand into the latest gaming laptop, it will be obsolete in a year and still won't come close to a custom built gaming rig which can be modded with liquid cooling, multiple gpu chips, insane amounts of ram, etc, but for a powerful classic thinkpad that can handle some gaming these nvidia chips are still offering good performance.

[TuuS]

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't believe any T61p (or T61 4:3, for that matter) 4:3 was ever made with a safe build date as the 4:3 lineup was discontinued before defect free chips were released. That would mean only refurbished motherboards would have defect free GPUs.

As I addressed above the odds of getting a good gpu in a refurbished board aren't good, but the new NOS ibm boards all have the new GPU. These were only an urban myth just a few short years ago, but you are correct, the 4:3 models were discontinued before August. I had spent many years looking for some and the closest I ever came was a unit I picked up from a lenovo employee who had it special ordered in July 2008 and it appears to have been built with an NOS board. It's probably the rarest 14" T61p ever built and is now in my personal collection.

[DK6400Brian]

My March 2008, T61p, nVidia FX570M, 15.4" WUXGA, is still working without any major hardware issues.

[TuuS]

My March 2008, T61p, nVidia FX570M, 15.4" WUXGA, is still working without any major hardware issues.

And it may last many more years, but I'd recommend minimizing the number of heat cycles as the transition from room temp to operating temp and back can cause microfractures within the chip and result in failure. Many made before august are still working, and those made after february 2008 seem to fail less than the earlier ones, but it wasn't until august that the boards were all replaced with new ones based off of new gpu chips done quietly as to not cause panic.

[DK6400Brian]

And it may last many more years, but I'd recommend minimizing the number of heat cycles as the transition from room temp to operating temp and back can cause microfractures within the chip and result in failure. Many made before august are still working, and those made after february 2008 seem to fail less than the earlier ones, but it wasn't until august that the boards were all replaced with new ones based off of new gpu chips done quietly as to not cause panic.

I know my friend. The GPU subject has been exhaustingly discussed. My machine is constantly running 24/7, so it must be on the safe side.

[thinkpadcollection]

Just keep in mind with nvidia in 61 series is heatsink shares same fan housing/heatsink for both CPU and GPU. Typically the CPU is the one that gets anything of heatsink assembly toasty even a GPU will feel the heat increase in cycles.
I wish lenovo/IBM designed thermal isolated GPU and CPU heatsink using one fan.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection