T61p vs w500 for an architect

[manecas]

This is my first post so first of all I would like to congratulate all of you who contribute to this excelent site.

Looking to replace my laptop I had settled for the T61p when I saw this new replacement.

I am an architect and I mainly use me laptop for AutoCAD and light photoshop work, so I don´t need a gaming oriented graphic card.

Please help me choose between the old and the new model.

Is the new graphic card better for my needs?
Should I choose a SSD or a 7200rpm hard drive?
Is the WUXGA screen too much for AutoCAD?


I would also like to ask what features will I loose if I make the downgrade from Vista to XP, and if this is a smart move for an architectural work oriented laptop.

Thank you

[Oldguy]

As an AutoCAD user might I venture a reply to your 3rd Question RE: WUXGA

I do use AutoCAD 2004 on an antiquated Thinkpad A21, and for 2D it runs quite well. I have customized the toolbars to ‘condense’ them as the A21 is a mere 1024 x 768 screen resolution. AutoCAD, particularly AutoCAD 2009 and it Ribbon interface, the use of palettes (Properties, ToolPalette, and now the Layer Manager is a floating palette-type window) uses (some might say Hogs) more and more screen real estate

You can’t have enough pixels (high enough resolution) – now that’s a general statement. At work I am bless with two monitors each at 1600 x 1200 – AutoCAD and toolbars on one monitor, other assorted AutoCAD Palettes on the other.

The real question here is not if WUXGA is too much for AutoCAD – it is not. The question is WUXGA too much for a 15.4 in screen, or a 15.4 screen AND Bi-focals? The answer is suspect is a subjective one. Though not having one myself, I have seen 1920 x 1600 on a 15.4 display and was quite surprised how readable it was.

Is the WUXGA screen to much for AutoCAD. No. Never. More is better. Ahh, is it too much for 15.4 diagonal inches? If your asking, it maybe best to seen if you can find a few example at some conputerstores. No doubt about 1920 x 1600 would be better on a 17” display, but your eyes might find a 15’er just A-OK

As for graphic cards – for AutoCAD – AutoCAD 2008/2009 – checkout Autodesk’s Graphics Hardware List:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/hc ... ID=9240618

I think you will find both cards to be acceptable.
Also check out Cadalyst Mag latest review, which includes a T61p:
http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/a ... ?id=526882

[arlab]

Should I choose a SSD or a 7200rpm hard drive?

SSD is A LOT faster than 7200rpm. Unfortunately, nowadays, they still have little space (64 GB maximum). While you can get 200 GB for a 7200rpm..

If you think 64 GB is enough, go for the SSD, but if you need more (for me 200 GB isn't enough) go for the 7200 rpm.

[manecas]

Thank you for your response.

As for the display I am 90% convinced. In my city (Oporto, Portugal) it is virtualy impossible to find a Lenovo to test the screen, so it will be a leap of faith...

As for the graphic card I am not sure... You mentioned I would find them both acceptable... I thought they were the best there is for a CAD user looking for a 15" laptop. If I am wrong please correct me, as I am only looking for a AutoCAD oriented laptop.

I visited the autodesk page you recomended me and they haven't listed the new ATI featured in the w500, but it figure it should be more or less the same as the previous 5600 model. The page didn't show a lot of information and placed both the cards as recomended.

Can you tell me if it is possible to change the graphic card in the t61p? (this way I would certainly buy this model and in the future replace the graphic card if it is not good enough).


Thank you again for your help.

[arlab]

Also, the main differences between the T61p and the W500 are the fact that W500 has:

• 512MB discrete Open GL graphics (T61p "only" has 256MB).
  Integrated 1.3 MegaPixel camera (T61p doesn't have one).
  Wider Touchpad for improved ergonomics.
  DDR3 1066MHz High Speed Memory (T61p RAM modules are slower: 667MHz DDR2)
  Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T9600 - 2.8GHz, 6MB L2, 1066MHz FSB (the T61p only goes until 2.6 GHz)
  
  DisplayPort technology (a new digital display interface standard - nothing essential for now, I think)
  WiMAX (a new wireless protocol, not essential also)

[manecas]

But, even with those differences in the graphic card and DDR3 vs DDR2, some forums talk about little diference between the t61p and the w500 (ando some say the nvidia quadro fx570m is better than this new ATI).

So my million dollar question is:

Will it pay off to wait for the w500 for my needs or is it a smarter buy the t61p (in my country there will probably be a 750 dollar diference between equivalent units)?

And can you tell me if the graphic card is changeable? and the DDR2 to DDR3?

Thank you

[Marin85]

If you´re looking for a workstation notebook, you may want to google for HP 8710w. It has 17'' WUXGA display and nVidia Quadro FX3600M, which is by now the most powerful grafix adapter for applications like AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds Max and so on (you can check some specs of the grafix here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVIDIA_Quadro). But I have no idea as to build and screen quality of this notebook.
I would wait for the W series instead of going for T61p. I believe W50 is going to be a great improvement over T61p hardwarewise. And if rumors are correct, the W series will be available with hardware support for RAID. So, having two 200 GB 7200 rpm drives working in hardware RAID 0 or 10 (yet not sure if supported) would deliver 400 GB (resp. 200 GB of mirrored in RAID 10) and really outstanding performance that (my speculation) would beat even a SSD Maybe, some forum members could shed some more light on this.
AFAIK, the ATI Mobility FireGL 5600 performs slightly better than Quadro FX570M in CAD and 3D applications, so I expect the FireGL 5700 to perform even better.

As to your other two questions: you can always upgrade RAM in ThinkPads as far as supported of course (and it doesn´t void your warranty), so changing DDR2 RAM to DDR3 RAM won´t be any problem. I believe the grafic card won´t be changeable as it wasn´t in any ThinkPad by now (the gpu is soldered to the motherboard). However, there are some attempts of ASUS for a notebook that allows changing grafic cards, but I don´t think this feature applies to the W series.

Just my 2 cents.

Marin

[daphatgrant]

Given the cheap price of the T61P compared to what the going price for the W500 will be it looks like I am going to get a T61P. A well equipped T500 is going to be around $2000 so I imagine a well equipped W500 will be around $2500 and when you can get an almost maxed out T61P for over $1000 less with almost the same performance then I am going to go that route. I should have bought that a while ago I guess instead of waiting for the W500 as the only major performance difference to me seem to be the LED screen, DDR3, lower power consumption CPU, and standard "N" support. So for the most part the battery will last longer. Am I understanding this correctly?

[erik]

So, having two 200 GB 7200 rpm drives working in hardware RAID 0 or 10 (yet not sure if supported) would deliver 400 GB (resp. 200 GB of mirrored in RAID 10) and really outstanding performance that (my speculation) would beat even a SSD Maybe, some forum members could shed some more light on this.

RAID 0 is fast but if one drive fails then both drives are rendered useless.   there's no redundancy and no recovery options.

RAID 1 offers native drive write speeds but increased read speeds because data can be accessed in part across two drives.

RAID 10 adds RAID 1 to RAID 0 and makes an identical backup of the RAID 0 array.   if one drive fails, the array will remain working and the failed drive can be recovered.   RAID 10 requires a minimum of 4 physical drives.

if the W500 offers RAID then it will either be RAID 0 or 1.   there's no way to do RAID 10 with only two drives.   however, i haven't read anything about the W500 supporting hardware RAID.

i hope that helps explain the differences.

[Marin85]

True, I stand corrected I forgot that at least 4 HDs are needed to set up RAID 10 or 01
As to W series supporting RAID I read somewhere here that they would come with Quad-Core mobile (which is actually supposed to be released in the last quarter of the year...) and would offer some sort of hardware support for RAID. After reading the specs here and the release datum speculations I don´t believe it anymore
I should find that post...

Cheers

Marin

[manecas]

I'll be making the buy in the next month, and I would like it to be clearer than it is.
For the time being, I am inclined to think that the extracost of the w500 isn't worth it because it does not deliver significant performance increases from a maxed out t61p. (with a bit of demagoguery I could almost say it is a fraud).

(the one I am probably going to buy has the core2 t9300, 2gb, 160gb 7200rpm, dvd +rw, and 15.4" wuxga, bluetooth, xp pro and 3 years warranty, all for 1500 euros = 2400 dollars - remember I am in Portugal and things are more expensive here)

The w500 with a similar configuration will probably be priced over 2000 euros, and I don't see any reason to wait for it... can you?

As it will be my primary workstation, I would like you to help me with my decision (more than you have already done ), as it will have to last as long as my hp omnibook xe 4500 (that I am still using).

Thank you again

Manel

[Marin85]

Hey, buddy, sry if I brought more confusion than clarity in your thread. If so, it wasn´t my intention
Now, you see, I guess we can´t help you in the way you probably would like us to since the W series aren´t out yet, so actually nobody can tell you for sure how it would perform in general or comparatively (against T61p). In that sense, nobody can tell you right now that the W series won´t have some major hardware problem, e.g. overheating or God knows what else (I hope rather not since I would like to have this baby in my arms ). Put simply, we cannot predict future But there are a few things that are known for sure:
1. If you do AutoCAD, you´ll need more memory (especially if you want to go with Vista), and I slightly doubt that you´ll be satisfied with only 2 GB of it, but I´m not an architect and I don´t know your working habits - there are people who are satisfied with 1 GB of RAM (and actually that is a plenty of system memory but that´s another topic), but there are people who would install 8 GB of RAM in a ThinkPad.
2. Since the W series is going to be the next high-end workstation ThinkPad of Lenovo, you can be sure that it is going to have a premium price as you pointed out by yourself and especially in Europe it´s going to be overpriced anyway (as you pointed out by yourself as well). On the other hand the prices of T61p will keep on dropping because new models are going to be released, so the performance increase from T61p to W500 with pretty similar cpu (that´s not like going from Pentium to Core 2 Duo or from Core 2 Duo to Quad Core) and mid-ranged gpu probably won´r justify the price difference. But that´s how it´s going in the hardware business.
3. Now a few things to think on on your own:
- you won´t find much info on ATI Mobility FireGL 5700, so google for ATI Mobility FireGL 5600. The first one would perform better than the latter.
- ATI in ThinkPads is known for its stability and business apps performance (like AutoCAD, ArchiCAD etc). There are very few exceptions of a Thinkpads with nVidia gpu (and T61p is one of them) and I would say hey ThinkPads are the heck not gaming machines, but that´s just my personal opinion...
- The W series is going to be the first ThinkPad with 512 MB dedicated video memory.
- While Santa Rose (800 Mhz FSB) doesn´t support RAM over 667 MHz, the new chipset Montevina has 1066 MHz FSB and will support RAM up to 1066 MHz and here really we can talk about a significant step forward. The increase in memory bandwidth is essential for graphic intensive applications (not only games, but also May, 3dsMax etc). My own experience with desktop workstations tells me that the RAM performance can make a difference and sometimes this difference is quite remarkable (depending on what you use of course).
- Also don´t forget that both cards are going to use Hypermemory (ATI) /TurboCache (nVidia) technology and will lock some of your system memory if and when needed and in the amount needed (especially with Vista).
- If you´re considered about screen quality, you might want to wait for the W series release. You´ll be then still able to buy a T61p, but I don´t know your timing.
- And last, but not least, if I was you, I would consider such a machine not only as a workstation for AutoCAD since it´s an investment for more than 1500 €, so one day you may also want to use it for other things as well

And to answer your questions from your first post:
1. Yes, the new graphics would be better for your needs (how significant that difference would be is hard to say since we are actually not aware of your needs and your understanding for performance, that´s all pretty subjective).
2. You´ll be better off with a 7200 rpm. The Hitachi 7K200 200 GB are now getting in Europe even cheaper than in USA, so I would pick such one (except you want it right from Lenovo). The greater capacity means in that case greater density which would increase HDD performance as well a bit.
3. WUXGA will be good for AutoCAD. I often hear from friends architects they wish they had the screen resolution I have

Again, if you are looking for a high-end graphic card for Maya, AutoCAD, 3ds MAX in a laptop, take a look at that HP that I posted above about. It has nVidia Quadro FX 3600 M with 512 VRAM and is a real monster in this category.

Hope this helps a little bit more

Marin

[manecas]

First of all I would like to state that I only have to thank you all for the help you have been giving me these past posts.

I am not an expert in hardware characteristics (architecture and its representation is enough trouble...) so I have to trust your opinions to choose the best tool for my job. As this is a very expensive tool I have to be as sure as possible of the pros and cons of the eventual choice, so (again) I thank you.

I understand, now that I have made some aditional reading, that the characteristics of the w500 are not fully disclosed, and that the performance of its GPU is somewhat a mistery - some say it is clearly worse than the Nvidia Quadro fx570m, others say it is a bit superior than the nvidia quadro fx1600m - and in the middle, I get confused...

So I think I will wait some time to see how the GPU and CPU perform in the tests once they are released...

Some questions I would like you to help me understand for now:

1- if the CPU and RAM in the w500 run at 1066mhz, the operations that autocad performs (at least 2dwise that I think use mainly the CPU and the RAM) will be 30-40% faster than in the t61p (that has CPU at 800mhz and RAM at 667 mhz)?

2- I read that the new autocads (after 08 I think) do not use Open GL technology (instead they use Direct 3d) rendering a GPU like the nvidia quadro useless for this tipe of programs (or at least wouldn't be justifiable...). Is this true? Do you know if it is also true for 3d studio and Photoshop (recent versions)?

3- Is windows XP better for autocad? and 3d studio? and photoshop? does the turbomemory (usable only in VISTA as far as I know...) enhance the performance of those softwares?

(Marin85, I have looked at the HP but it is 17" and I prefer a 15" - thank you)

[manecas]

I was clearing some doubts with the support staff at SPARCO and I was pointed to this link:

http://www.sparco.com/cgi-bin/wfind2?spn=A33T062

where you can see the new w500 with a price tag well beneath what I was expecting. This is a close to the top (best CPU, good HD, ...) configuration and it lists for 1826 dollars (similar to what a t61p costs in the Lenovo site).

The support staff said they won't be available for shipment before the 17th or 18th of August, and that they do not have any aditional information from Lenovo (the shipment date was an estimate from lenovo).

With this good surprise I have made my decision and will be eagerly waiting for the new w500.

Thank you all for your help in the process.

Best wishes

Manuel Montenegro

[manecas]

Manuel Montenegr : Question
I would like to know if it is possible to fit your product "TOPSELLER T61P T9300 2.5G 2GB 160GB 15.4-WSXGA+ DVDR AGN BFP XPP" with a portuguese keyboard (I would prefer from the maker NMB) before sending it to me

Manuel Montenegr : hello

Rob : Good morning.

Manuel Montenegr : have you seen my question?

Rob : I don't think that we'll be able to do that Manuel.

Manuel Montenegr : about the "TOPSELLER T61P T9300 2.5G 2GB 160GB 15.4-WSXGA+ DVDR AGN BFP XPP"

Manuel Montenegr : I would like to know if it is possible to fit it with a portuguese keyboard before sending it to me, and if it is, how much would it cost.

Manuel Montenegr : and I would also like to know if you carry the WUXGA screen instead of the WSXGA+, and if so, ho much is the extracost

Rob : We won't be able to modify the casing/keyboard . I'll check on the screen.

Rob : Here's is a list of the Lenovo models with WUXGA screens:

Rob : http://www.sparco.com/cgi-bin/search?ke ... x=0&go.y=0

Manuel Montenegr : I saw that but it comes with the worse CPU, not with the t9300

Manuel Montenegr : when I looked at that link I saw that you are already selling the lenovo w500. Is it already available? my info was that it would only be out in the 5th of august...

Manuel Montenegr : Do you have it in stock?

Rob : It looks like it will be the middle of August. The dates that I see are 17 & 18 August.

Manuel Montenegr : And the price will be 1826? for a system clearly superior than the t61p we were talking about? it already has the WUXGA, a better CPU and a better GPU...

Rob : Correct, the price is $1826.

Manuel Montenegr : and there is no more info on alternat e CPU's and prices?

Manuel Montenegr : Do you know if this w500 already comes with the Montevina Intel CPU

Manuel Montenegr : And you are sure it will be available for shipment in the 17/18 august?

Rob : Unfortunately I don't have info on it. I'm showing that Lenovo released this model on July 10th. It was just added to our website last week.

Rob : The dates of 17 and 18 August are estimated dates, provided by Lenovo.

Manuel Montenegr : Ok. Thank you very much. You have been very helpful. Best wishes

Rob : Have a good day.

[manecas]

I would very much apreciate if someone could answer my previous questions, even if my mind is aparently made up.

"1- if the CPU and RAM in the w500 run at 1066mhz, the operations that autocad performs (at least 2dwise that I think use mainly the CPU and the RAM) will be 30-40% faster than in the t61p (that has CPU at 800mhz and RAM at 667 mhz)?

2- I read that the new autocads (after 08 I think) do not use Open GL technology (instead they use Direct 3d) rendering a GPU like the nvidia quadro useless for this tipe of programs (or at least wouldn't be justifiable...). Is this true? Do you know if it is also true for 3d studio and Photoshop (recent versions)?

3- Is windows XP better for autocad? and 3d studio? and photoshop? does the turbomemory (usable only in VISTA as far as I know...) enhance the performance of those softwares?"

I also found a a thread that made me worry a lot:

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... 448#U35448

I was choosing Lenovo for their apparent superior quality, as it should be a business oriented company, but in this particular problem, they seamed to be unable to respond in due time, as it took them (from what I understood) 4 months to find a sollution...

Can anyone tell me if this is what I am to expect from their customer support? If this is the case I will take a closer look to the price difference between Lenovo and ASUS, SONY or other cheaper brands...

[Oldguy]

AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 support both OpenGL and Direct X - See my post and link above to AutoCAD Graphics hardware. AS good ot better results are being had with DirectX (i.e. "gamer cards" as was OpenGL)
In the W500/ T61, simply check with of the teo has card/driver combination "certified" by Autodesk - that is if AutoCAD is a major application to be used

All that said, look at other apps. For example, while AutoCAD will be at home with Direct X, SketchUp, for instance, is still optimized for OpenGL. In this instance, desk the video card support OpenGL and Direct X under what ever OS is used?

[Icefang]

I doubt you will see that big of jump in performace due to the increase in ram speed. I would guess maybe 10 percent increase at most. The bus speed increase will help the transfer speed of data from memory to cpu, but most of the time will still be spent in the cpu doing operations on data which is cached locally in the cpu. The increase in memory bus speed will help, but it will be an incremental help, not a dramatic change.

In terms of XP, the advantage of XP is just its stability. There are still alot of issues and random hangs with Vista even with all the service patches. If you need a 64bit OS though in order to run bigger apps, then you have to run the 64bit version of Vista, since XP is limited to 32 bits. I personally wouldnt run 32bit Vista over XP because of stability concerns. I currently have two T61P's, once has 4 gig of memory and runs 64bit Vista while the older one has 2 gigs of memory and runs XP.

In terms Lenovo support, I have been extremely satisified with it, but I can only speak for people living in the US. I have had some hardware issues and needed to mail in laptops, and in all cases they have been very quick about mailing out a box, fixing the problem and mailing the laptop back to me. In fact I trust them so much that when my son needed a laptop for college I got him a thinkpad cause I knew he would beat the crap out it and he needed something with a good warranty. So far the support for all 3 of our thinkpads has been very good, and much better than I have had with any other brand.

I really wish that the new Thinkpads had a higher end graphics chip but that is my only complaint going forward. I will just wait for some reviews to determine if the W500, is a graphics step up from the previous T61P, at this point I am not sure that it is.

[erik]

If you need a 64bit OS though in order to run bigger apps, then you have to run the 64bit version of Vista, since XP is limited to 32 bits.

both XP and server 2003 come in 64-bit.   he could easily run XP 64 instead of vista 64, assuming he buys XP 64 separately and can find all of the necessary 64-bit drivers.

[Marin85]

I´d rather disagree with Icefang about OS stability. I haven´t experienced so far not a single "random hang" of Vista while it usually takes me about 3-4 days after a fresh XP install to manage one. And even if explorer.exe stops responding due to some reason (which would be in most cases some piece of software installed or the user trying to "tweak" Vista a bit over the top), it recovers without need to close your apps. If I remember correct, this story looked different with XP... Anyway, I don´t want to start here any OS discussions, but when you make a statement like "the advantage of XP (over Vista) is just its stability", I would like to know what your statement is based on, because frankly I have the very opposite experience. It´s true that Vista may still have some glitches, but it´s definitely not its "instability". And no, I don´t think Vista is a great OS (a great OS would be IBM OS, but that was long time ago...).

Just another of my 2 cents

Marin

[Marin85]

@manecas: hey, buddy, something that came to my mind last night reading this thread. Regarding OS selection, I would say there is no definitive answer as to which OS, XP or Vista, would be most suitable for you. I would suggest you to try them both out if you have some spare time and see which one would be more comfortable to you in a long run. But whatever OS you chose, I would recommend you to go for the x64 edition since AutoCAD as your main application has native 64 bit support. The 64 bit architecture would provide more performance, and the performance differences to the x86 platform would be at some points quite significant. That said, consider the fact that XP x64 may not work out of the box, i.e. you´ll have to find the proper drivers and some features may not work (for me the onscreen display didn´t work, but I have another ThinkPad than you intend to buy). If you´re interested in XP x64 though, you can find in this forum some threads about it and getting drivers for it.

[arlab]

Manuel Montenegr : Question
I would like to know if it is possible to fit your product "TOPSELLER T61P T9300 2.5G 2GB 160GB 15.4-WSXGA+ DVDR AGN BFP XPP" with a Portuguese keyboard (I would prefer from the maker NMB)

Don't you mind with the fact that the laptop doesn't come with a Portuguese keyboard. It's extremely easy to replace the keyboard in Thinkpads.

You can buy a Portuguese keyboard here. But, unfortunately, you can't choose the type of keyboard (I got a Chicony).
Also, I'm sure a portuguese Lenovo shop will carry some Portuguese keyboards.

Anyway, just make sure you buy a Thinkpad from the US and buy the Portuguese keyboard separately. You'll save A LOT of money (I also live in Portugal, and I did the same thing).