W530 For Light Gaming and School Work

[Pete B]

I've finding W530s fairly cheap on ebay and they more often have core i7 quad cores than the T version.
Are they a good choice for light gaming giving that the GPU is better optimized for CAD?
Does the GPU directly support Direct-X for gaming?
Anything else we should consider looking for something under $150 complete.

TIA

[theterminator93]

Sure, I think so. My W520 is up to the task. I don't play new titles but it's always handled the ones I have thrown at it well.

If you can get the model with the K2000M. Both GPUs support DirectX 11.

[KDM Mods]

Yea I have the w530 with the k2000m. I actually overclocked it with msi afterburner and it can play any game I want but usually on the lowest setting. It really matters what game you play. But yes for gaming it’s totally useable

[jursky]

What are you planning playing on that? Because I have W530 with K1000M and it basically sucks if you wanna play anything new, but that can be only expected, it is an older ThinkPad nowadays. But to say also something positive about this machine, let me tell you that I love it. :) I myself play only older games (up to 2004, like for example: Gothic, Icewind Dale, Half-Life 1/2, League of Legends (with shadows set to Low, everything else set to either Medium or even High), etc.) and these run just fine. Also I consider myself a lucky user, because I was able to get my hands on (from another user who had dead W520) a genuine AUO v.4 display (calibrating from time to time), so colors rocks, making even these old games looks great on it. But I don't know if I could recommend it for serious work/school business. W530 is pretty large machine, a true workstation. And also while the display might rock when it comes to movies and playing games, for work it is not that great, or at least I get tired very quickly when I look into an editor with solid background for too long. I happen to own also X240 with FHD IPS (400 nit) display and I don't have any problem like that with that machine. It's simply much better for work when compared to v.4. But as I said, when it comes to movies and games, v.4 just kills X240's IPS display (there's huge difference in color gamut). And with all of that I just wanted to say that you might be better off with something else - with something newer (more powerful), smaller and most importantly, with IPS display. Do not get TN panel in 2019. I use it after all only for watching movies and light gaming, for everything else I am using X.

[TPFanatic]

Make sure to get one with K2000M not the K1000M GPU, since you'll be playing games the better GPU will be significantly better.

[wujstefan]

I have recently bought a W530 myself. i7-3820qm, 24Gb of RAM, 512Gb SSD, k2000m and AUO v.4 display for less than $300. I have sold my dell M6700 to make place for this one (and still have a spare $250 from the deal!)

After calibration, the display is really good. K2000m is able to handle some serious overclock, working actually better than I'd expect. eGPU is also an option. A great deal in this system is the slice battery that lifts your system a bit (and allows using onlap during high load!) and pumps the system up to ridiculous 190Wh of power storage. This is a two-days work with CAD.

I only need to update the BIOS with UEFI fix. I have seen to many systems dying to it.

[mikemex]

I bought a second W530 recently with a few minor issues. Paid $120 for it. I think it's a lot of machine for the money. I upgraded it with an SSD and 32GB of RAM, otherwise it's stock (K1000, 3720QM, FHD). I'm using the stock keyboard (no classic keyboard mods) and a docking station.

After some experimentation with Skylake machines, i decided it wasn't the upgrade I was looking for and I'm just waiting for the AM5 platform to launch to build me a truly modern desktop. In the meanwhile, I've been using the W530 as my main machine and I can honestly say it satisfies my needs quite well. I don't game, though.

Core i7-3520M processor (frequency 2.9 GHz), which has four cores,

3520m is a dual core.

[heilong]

W530 with K1000m are much more common than ones with K2000m, you would probably have to pay a premium or wait a while to get the latter. Even then, it's a 10-year old Quadro GPU, which was quite a bit slower for gaming than the same generation Geforce GPU. You will be able to play somewhat older games on low quality settings, with a resolution <= 1080p.

Personally I wanted to play a game this year (Phoenix Point), so I bought an eGPU setup: EXP GDC Beast (ExpressCard version), ASUS Phoenix Geforce 1060, and a Dell DA-220 PSU. I was able to play on high settings on my 2560x1080 external monitor, with reasonable framerates, most of the time ~30 FPS (mind you, it's a turn-based game, not a fast-paced FPS game). The limiting factor here is the available bandwidth between the laptop and the eGPU. W530 can only use ExpressCard or mPCIe, both are limited to x1 PCIe lane. A GPU can use x16 lanes but, connected to a W530, has to do with only x1. This makes it rather pointless to try newer and more powerful GPUs, or so I've heard. Note: if you use an eGPU to play games on laptop's own screen, the performance will be further reduced, since part of the bandwidth will be used to transfer the rendered frames from the eGPU back to the laptop. So it's definitely better to connect an external screen to your eGPU.