T61 (Merom) release, specs?

[nick-m]

I'm not waiting; just ordered a T60p 2623DDU. By the time Core Duo 2 ships with everything, someone will announce something else that'll be out in a matter of months...will you wait for that something other too?

I guess it depends on your needs; a T2500 with 2GB RAM is more then enough for me at this stage. If the work you do requires something very CPU intensive and money is no issue, maybe it's worth to wait for that little gain. I'm on a budget and the CPU is enough for my photoshop work.

[vinny77]

I want the merom due to 64 bit compatibility.


On BSD it is amazing.

[mattbiernat]

I'm not waiting; just ordered a T60p 2623DDU. By the time Core Duo 2 ships with everything, someone will announce something else that'll be out in a matter of months...will you wait for that something other too?

I guess it depends on your needs; a T2500 with 2GB RAM is more then enough for me at this stage. If the work you do requires something very CPU intensive and money is no issue, maybe it's worth to wait for that little gain. I'm on a budget and the CPU is enough for my photoshop work.

well i guess it depends how long u planning to use the laptop. If u plan to sell your t60 in a year or so then buying 32bit is a good idea. and if you are planning to use that laptop for few years down the road then 64bit seems reasonable to wait for especially since it should come out in a month or so.

[jjesusfreak01]

I want the merom due to 64 bit compatibility.


On BSD it is amazing.

Paul Thurrott is still claiming that Windows Vista x64 is a compatability joke. I wouldnt install it even if I could. x86 all the way!

[rkalla]

I've Run Windows XP Pro 64-bit and Ubuntu 64-bit for 1.5 years and 3 months respectively and the number of idiosyncratic (sp?) little issues that popup are across the board and annoying as sin. On Linux it was compatability and available of binary drivers and codecs. On Windows it's installer behaviors, system utility's saying you are on an incompatible version of Windows, games not installing or not running because the f-ing copy protection hackware on the disks didn't recognize the OS... the list goes on.

I am absolutely convinced that 64-bit will be a red-headed step child until every chip manufacturer is shipping only 64-bit CPUs, which I don't see happening for 3-4 more years (I mean exclusively, not mainly. I'm talking about a time when you can't buy new 32-bit chips anymore).

So I'll stick with my 32-bit platforms until the industry decides that 64-bit needs more support than a chip from Intel and a sticker from Microsoft (keep in mind a lot of the software that wouldn't run right on 64-bit windows was from Microsoft, and the installer especially. Some games required the newest version 10 of the Windows Installer, but there was never a release of it for Windows 64-bit, it's still at version 9... so games like Indigo Prophecy and some newer titles you either threw away, or bust our your CAB decompression software, get a support tech from the company with a sympathetic ear and get to building a manually uncompressed registery-imported version of the game... that's what I had to do, what a [censored] waste of time).

[fbrdphreak]

I am absolutely convinced that 64-bit will be a red-headed step child until every chip manufacturer is shipping only 64-bit CPUs, which I don't see happening for 3-4 more years (I mean exclusively, not mainly. I'm talking about a time when you can't buy new 32-bit chips anymore).

Well, the only current processors on the market right now that don't have it are Celeron M chips. And I'd imagine Intel may transition those to 64-bit wen Santa Rosa hits. Pentium 4 (D)'s have been 64-bit for a while, Core 2 Duo is, Athlon 64 for several years of course, Turion 64 duh, Sempron 64 for a little while, aside from the bottom of the line Celeron M's everything is 64-bit.

The real wait is in the software, not the hardware. The hardware industry is ready for 64-bit, but considering software programming is already horribly inefficient and behind the curve, we're waiting on that more than anything. Just look at computer games

[kryptech]

I don't think it's software that is fueling the issue. And if it is, the only real thing that 64-bit is being held back by is the small portion of assembly code in programs, and maybe some compiler work. All the visual basic programmers won't really be noticing much of a change. And even at lower languages (read C), 64 bit software is not a really large issue.

Ahem, sorry if that was veering off the topic of discussion; just wanted to throw a viewpoint out.

[fbrdphreak]

Well, if hardware is already here, then software is the issue. Maybe not the people writing in high level languages, but the people who write the compilers for the high level languages. The compilers will need to be updated to properly utilize the new registers. Considering how inefficient and bloated current software packages are, a whole new look at software designing is needed IMO. But another discussion for another day

[kryptech]

Well, that may be going a little far. But certainly some design should be at least studied. If people really started looking at a change as radical as you talked about, people would probably start doing things like changing the instruction set architecture. But that probably is not practical. And IIRC, The GNU Compiler Collection already is very compatible. There was not much change to be done. But sure, there are some bits of assembly that could be optimized for 64 bit. However, good software design would make this change minimal (such as in the linux kernel).

[techie]

I find it very frustrating that Lenovo doesnt have a Dual 2 Core laptop.

I wont want it because I need 64bit on the desktop, men when I buy a laptop today, I will use it to test the next generation of server software. It will be 64bit and I want to emulate it in VMware Server before I go out an install it for real. The current 32bit Dual Core prevent that.

If Dual 2 Core is a drop-in replacement Lenovo should release it. If it takes too long I'll buy another brand.

[kryptech]

Still, some of the benchmarks I saw only had a 2-11% difference when using a core 2 duo. Now sure, 11% is very considerable, but not enough for me to spend another $300. Any word on when the Meroms will drop in price?

[kwramm]

I don't think a Merom upgrade is necessary with a t60p, unless you do VERY CPU intensive tasks, but then you should really consider a desktop anyway. The Core Duo is pretty fast already and what makes the Thinkpad slow is, unfortunately, the harddisk.

Apps that use it a lot are running a tad slower than on my old P4 3.06 desktop. The difference isn't great but it's there.

So I guess a Core 2 Duo update might not give you much speed increase in day to day use.

[fbrdphreak]

and what makes the Thinkpad slow is, unfortunately, the harddisk.

They already use the fastest drives in the industry...7200RPM

[whakojacko]

Well, this obviously depends on the screen. Currently I'm studying and my study-mate's laptop is a Dell 6400, 15.4" widescreen. He has got a resolution of 1280x1024, and I have a T60p, 15" screen and a resolution of 1600x1200

No, I was comparing regular and wide versions of the same type. You are comparing wide XGA with regular UXGA, which is not fair. You should instead compare the UXGA (1600x1200) with the WUXGA (1920x1200), and obviously the latter has a lot more pixels.

fine, but the WUXGA is almost always going to have a physically longer diagonal. Arent we supposed to be comparing screens with the same diagonal?

[tmwstw]

I have informed from Lenovo (Thailand) that thinkpad T60/T60p will be shipped with Merom without model change in the next month (October) and the model change should be around Q1/2007 (with new chipset, I guess).

[kwramm]

and what makes the Thinkpad slow is, unfortunately, the harddisk.

They already use the fastest drives in the industry...7200RPM

I'm aware of that
but it's still slower than a decent desktop drive. Nothing you can do about that though. I remember reading that it has something to do with the form factor and how many platters they can squeeze in the drive.
Anyhow, I think it's the drive that is most often the bottleneck, not the CPU.

[fbrdphreak]

They already use the fastest drives in the industry...7200RPM

I'm aware of that
but it's still slower than a decent desktop drive. Nothing you can do about that though. I remember reading that it has something to do with the form factor and how many platters they can squeeze in the drive.
Anyhow, I think it's the drive that is most often the bottleneck, not the CPU.

Unless you're doing something hugely disk intensive, no its not. The only time you're disk limited is when you're paging to the HDD a lot; with at least 1GB RAM you can safely assume the HDD is not your bottleneck. Will a system with a desktop HDD boot faster and copy/load large files faster? Yes. But run a CPU-intensive program and given the same CPU/RAM the two systems are equal.

[snife]

I'm aware of that
but it's still slower than a decent desktop drive. Nothing you can do about that though. I remember reading that it has something to do with the form factor and how many platters they can squeeze in the drive.
Anyhow, I think it's the drive that is most often the bottleneck, not the CPU.

Unless you're doing something hugely disk intensive, no its not. The only time you're disk limited is when you're paging to the HDD a lot; with at least 1GB RAM you can safely assume the HDD is not your bottleneck. Will a system with a desktop HDD boot faster and copy/load large files faster? Yes. But run a CPU-intensive program and given the same CPU/RAM the two systems are equal.

Not only for paging but programs that are reading/writing to the hdd intensively - the hdd is my bottleneck - when downloading from newsgroups, while running a partity repair and maybe trying to unrar something big which are things I do almost everyday, it grinds to a halt and it is mainly the hdd thats at fault. I know some people say i shouldn't use a notebook for newsgroup downloads but I only use notebooks.

[fbrdphreak]

Unless you're doing something hugely disk intensive, no its not. The only time you're disk limited is when you're paging to the HDD a lot; with at least 1GB RAM you can safely assume the HDD is not your bottleneck. Will a system with a desktop HDD boot faster and copy/load large files faster? Yes. But run a CPU-intensive program and given the same CPU/RAM the two systems are equal.

Not only for paging but programs that are reading/writing to the hdd intensively - the hdd is my bottleneck - when downloading from newsgroups, while running a partity repair and maybe trying to unrar something big which are things I do almost everyday, it grinds to a halt and it is mainly the hdd thats at fault. I know some people say i shouldn't use a notebook for newsgroup downloads but I only use notebooks.

Honestly I'd say your problem isn't the HDD itself, it is the fact that you're trying to do multiple disk operations at once. WHile with a 3.5" drive you certainly get better performance, you're still going to be gridlocked for I/O access. Multiple I/O requests generally slow everything down because HDD controllers are not good at parallel processing; NCQ is starting to help that but programs have to be designed to support it.

[CarrerCrytharis]

I received this e-mail when I asked about a Core 2 Duo-based Thinkpad:

Hello, regarding your inquiry, currently there are no plans at this time
to release a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad as those processors
were only released by Intel in July. We have a Thinkpad later on in the
year or early in next year, with Core 2 Duo.

What do you suppose I should make of this? I have heard people talking about an early October release. What is the source for this information?

I ask because I want to get a T60, but if the Core 2 Duo model is about to come out, then I'd be willing to wait about a month. (I plan to use the machine for 3 to 4 years at least, so I want it to be future proof.) On the other hand, I'd rather not wait more than about, say, 2 months before getting the Thinkpad.

So I guess what I want to ask is, what are the chances a T61 will come out in October?

[fbrdphreak]

Core 2 Duo Thinkpads will be out in early October. Lenovo told me so.

[/thread]

[mattbiernat]

Core 2 Duo Thinkpads will be out in early October. Lenovo told me so.

last time i called lenovo (2days ago) they told the that the cheapest thinkpad T60 with 128mb video card is for $2400 and that i cannot afford it.
now if i trusted lenovo as much as you do i would have bought that thinkpad from him. but unfortuently for the sales rep i don't have much faith in whatever lenovo tells me. and so the cheapest thinkpad goes for about $1200 with the specifications that i have given to lenovo.
the point of my story:
1. don't trust lenovo sales rep
2. verify with different sources whatever you believe is false or true.

[fbrdphreak]

No, not a Lenovo sales rep. Lenovo corporate. I'm good friends with a lot of people in that company and they know me by first name

See all these:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/list.php?firm_id=5
Those are mine

EDIT
P.S. See my location? That's where Lenovo corporate headquarters is located. I've been there a few times

[mattbiernat]

Now that sounds reasonable.

[Ender17]

Core 2 Duo Thinkpads will be out in early October. Lenovo told me so.

[/thread]

will there be a model change?
will the current T60p support the new CPUs?

[fbrdphreak]

Core 2 Duo Thinkpads will be out in early October. Lenovo told me so.

[/thread]

will there be a model change?
will the current T60p support the new CPUs?

Well there will be a widescreen T-series, but information I'm hearing suggests there won't be new models (like T61's). That part is still up in the air tho

[snife]

There will be new models. Core 2 Duo will be T61

Edit: I may have been wrong. They might still be T60s; which imho would be a stupid decision given new processors, cpus and gpus as well as the added form factor, they have updated the numberings on previous models for much much less.

[mattbiernat]

There will be new models. Core 2 Duo will be T61

now what are your soruces snife?

[maximus_]

Just release the thing already

[kwramm]

Honestly I'd say your problem isn't the HDD itself, it is the fact that you're trying to do multiple disk operations at once. WHile with a 3.5" drive you certainly get better performance, you're still going to be gridlocked for I/O access. Multiple I/O requests generally slow everything down because HDD controllers are not good at parallel processing; NCQ is starting to help that but programs have to be designed to support it.

fair enough. but judging from this answer, the core 2 duo still won't make your system a lot faster when you work with apps that require a lot of disk access.
If you're using your TP for multimedia stuff I can imagine your workflow won't be much faster than it is now because of a CPU update. Rendering and encoding however may take a very slight boost.