T61 Vs. t60P (for CAD)

[RonRonRon232]

Hi all, i'm trying to descide betwin these two, which right now, due to IBM sales sort of cost the same.
I intend to use them for lots of 2D and 3D CAD, lots of photoshoping, but absolutly no games.

Can't tell which one of these would be better for the job...

Please help ! :)

[gator]

What models are you looking at?

[RonRonRon232]

t60P Vs. t61 (not P)
so bacsically i'm asking if the lower gfx card is made up for by the 800 bus speed and the turbo mem ?

[NathanA]

t60P Vs. t61 (not P). so bacsically i'm asking if the lower gfx card is made up for by the 800 bus speed and the turbo mem ?

Well, I'm no CAD designer, but I would think that you would want as good a graphics subsystem as possible for that kind of work.

What graphics controller is in the T61 that you're looking at? Surely not the Intel X3100?

-- Nathan

[Troels]

Do you know the model numbers of the T60p and T61 you're considering? They all have a XXXX-YYY type of code, where XXXX is a number, and YYY can be a number or a letter.

I'll bet on the T60p though - graphics memory with a high bandwidth is what you want - especially at higher resolutions.

[RonRonRon232]

I'm looking at theTt61 with an nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M with 128mb RAM
Vs. a T60P with an ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 (Radeon X1700) with 256MB GDDR3

these machines run for around 1500$ US right now ofcourse for this price the older T60P comes more loaded, but then, it lacks the newer featuers of the T61...

As i understand the NVS has 140M is lower range performance then the V5250 (PLEASE correct me if i'm wrong), but i'm woundering weather that will be compencated by the T61's Turbo mem and higher buss speed.

[RonRonRon232]

- no specific models in mind, just crusing Ebay ;0)

[Pascal_TTH]

I'm looking at theTt61 with an nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M with 128mb RAM
Vs. a T60P with an ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 (Radeon X1700) with 256MB GDDR3

these machines run for around 1500$ US right now ofcourse for this price the older T60P comes more loaded, but then, it lacks the newer featuers of the T61...

As i understand the NVS has 140M is lower range performance then the V5250 (PLEASE correct me if i'm wrong), but i'm woundering weather that will be compencated by the T61's Turbo mem and higher buss speed.

Quadro NVS 140m performs just a bit less then the FireGL V5200/5250. It's about 10% less.
Higher bus speed is pretty useless but Intel Dynamic Acceleration is a nice feature. TurboMem can be usefull if you use Windows Vista.

[RonRonRon232]

So, since i'm not planning to switch to Vista until it's way past it's 2nd service pack, basically i have nothing to gain (performance wise) from the t61's SantaRosa features, uhh right?

[Pascal_TTH]

According to your last answer : no. But how long do you plan to keep your laptop ?
T61 adavantages (some models) : Quadro supporting DirectX 10, Turbo Mem, Wifi 802.11n and Indel Dynamic Acceleration, some new form factors, Windows Vista.

T60p : FireGL V5200 is still good, Core 2 Duo is also fine, Windows XP installed, battery life about 4 1/2 hours, most 802.11G

I buy my T60p a few months ago because Santa Rosa and all the T61p stuff are *useless* for my use. I also do not want Windows Vista so I don't care about turbo mem. Last, I got a very nice price for my T60p.

[RonRonRon232]

I'm planing to keep it for 4 years, doing real time 3d work (mostly directX) lots of rendering and working with large bitmaps.

another thing i wanted to ask is wether turbo mem will become redundent with the introduction of SSD hard drives?
(a future upgrade i'm planning)

:)

[smoothoperator]

you are better off buying the T61P, the T60P can render quite slowly with acad. I don't use the 3-D modelling side of ACAD but even with just a complex layered .DWG you can tell the video card is going at max throttle and its still slow.

[NathanA]

you are better off buying the T61P, the T60P can render quite slowly with acad [...] you can tell the video card is going at max throttle and its still slow.

Except that the OP was asking about a T61 vs. T60p, not a T61p vs. T60p.

-- Nathan

[Troels]

Of course (that, is most likely as no one has tried it with the T61p), but he was choosing between the FGL with 256 MB with at 256 Bit (or 128?) memory interface, or a 140M with 128 MB and 64 Bit memory interface.
It sure doesn't sound like it can "throttle" (or what the more proper term is) as much as the FGL.

[XIII]

you are better off buying the T61P, the T60P can render quite slowly with acad. I don't use the 3-D modelling side of ACAD but even with just a complex layered .DWG you can tell the video card is going at max throttle and its still slow.

Sorry but that is just plain BS. Some engineers in my group still do AutoCAD and on a T42p hardware at very high details. You simply underestimated how capable current graphic hardwares are.