Thinkpads Forum

It was time to upgrade mum's computer from her old T440s with a dual core i5 and 8GB of ram.. i just upgraded her to this T14sG1 with Ryzen7 pro and 16GB ram.. it's more powerful than she's ever going to need but was cheaper than the equivalent Ryzen 5 pro.. i also installed it with Linux Mint instead of Windows 11 because i hate Windows 11 and she's able to do everything just fine.. i think this might be her last computer or she might get one more in 10 years if she is still able to use a computer

Sweet little machine. May it serve your mum well, and wishing her all the best.

Thanks! I'm amazed at what you can buy now vs what was available in even 2016

Whitieiii wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2025 3:01 am

Thanks! I'm amazed at what you can buy now vs what was available in even 2016

Thank AMD for betting the company on Ryzen and spooking Intel into making quad-cores in a 15 watt power envelope. Before that, Intel was content in just coasting and feeding us dual-cores until 2017.

Right.. that's only reason im thinking about upgrading my x260 is for getting a quad core cpu with the lowest power consumption and biggest battery possible.. maybe i might upgrade to an X280 at some point? I'm not really interested in an x390 because it's so close to a t14 in weight and screen size i might just buy that one with a 15w tdp Cpu or something similar but not sure.. i sure will miss the ThinkPad dual battery system but usb c charging will enable more charging from power banks

how about a USB C to "Slim Tip" charging adapter?

Option 1: https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Adapter ... B0947RD4H2
Option 2: https://www.amazon.com/JacobsParts-Thin ... X86P?gQT=2
Options et al: https://www.google.com/search?q=thinkpa ... re+charger

The subreddit exaggerates the importance of quad core. I've been messing around with T60 and the Core 2 era all over again. Battery bridge is a severely underrated feature and if you like it, you shouldn't forsake it just to gain some more logical threads when the most basic of necessary programs (Office Suite and Basic Browsing) will work just fine on even 1C1T. I say if the X260 works fine, and you love it, don't replace it - but if you want an X280 too, go ahead and get that as addendum, they're cheap enough - in fact I predict thrifting laptops is gonna boom if POTUS's 1000% Tariffs escalate the price of the garbage you would otherwise buy at the Department Store.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 12, 2025 3:03 am

Battery bridge is a severely underrated feature and if you like it, you shouldn't forsake it just to gain some more logical threads when the most basic of necessary programs (Office Suite and Basic Browsing) will work just fine on even 1C1T.

In the 14" size factor a T480 will give you both a battery bridge and a quad-core CPU, but if one prefers the 12" form factor, then, yeah, I see the problem. 1C1T only works for basic tasks, if you don't multitask. However, multitasking is so embedded in the workloads for most folks, that 1C1T becomes an unrealistic restriction.

even a 1C1T pipeline can handle multitasking, I did fine on my T42p back in 2015, at which point that machine was already 11 years old. I made digital stopmotion-style animations on the T42p, I'd have CAD software, "GIMP 2.8", "Windows Movie Maker", Firefox, and my music player all running at the same time and I made MOVIES.

- the problems arise when the programs are badly optimized like Cyberpunk 2077, every single program demands 100% CPU, every single program demands 100% network access, every single program is conducting telemetry, and every single program is checking for updates is checking for updates at the same time. This is the blue collar's burden imposed on PCs and their users by lazy devbosses and the Business of Data.

Now too many of the rules we hold ourselves to are arbitrary and set arbitrary restrictions on the nature and scope of the things we interact with. The Subreddit for example went from adoring T420 to T440p to T480 to now anything but the T480.

It is what it is. The principle of capitalism requires at least some level of nonessential consumerism to fuel growth, which translates to increased prosperity. Very few positions in the software development world justify meticulous optimization, as modern hardware is capable enough, and time is better spent elsewhere, adding features of value. Thus us folks with 10 and 20 year old hardware are left behind. Of course, there are still extreme examples, like Cyberpunk 2077, which was so bad, that that the devs patched it significantly and apologized.

The biggest problem is not even programs, but the web itself that has gotten so heavy with tons of client-side scripts required to achieve full functionality. Maybe the browsers are also not very optimized for it, but the same exact browser core which 10 years ago might have been 'flying' on 1C1T is struggling today with multiple tabs open even on 2C4T. YouTube decoding is another resource hog. If we mostly browse phpBB forums and other such sites, we will never feel the need to upgrade even from a T42 as you say, but for most people, including elderly parents, this is simply not enough anymore.

ironically my t60 effectively does a better job streaming from Paramount/Netflix/and chill than my p71 because somehow Firefox on my p71 triggers some anti-DRM filter whereas firefox on my t60 doesn't im not going to start reinstalling things on the p71 to make the web work. this is fair tradeoff to keep the p71 how i like it, as it is.

youtube is absolutely a slog but there is also the option to just not use it, which has become my favorite option as of late when things refuse to work.

Yea the X280 doesn't have dual battery and the T480/T14 is just a little bit too big After thinking about it.. the X280 with i7 4 core 8th gen and usb power bank should be good option.. the X390 would just be a bigger screen essentially with tje sams chassis as the X280? I'm still impressed with getting a solid 6+ hrs on the X260 but now nothing is working in it's favor with it being only dual core...

Any real power difference running an i5 vs i7 X280?

on x280, they're honestly going to be the same.

According to benchmarks, there is a 0.5% performance difference between the i7-8550U and i5-8250U... https://technical.city/en/cpu/Core-i7-8 ... e-i5-8250U interestingly, benchmarks favor the i5.

realpolitik, all i7 options in X280 are 8th gen quads, whereas some i5 options are 7th gen duals. the only legitimate reasons to get an X280 over X270 is that X280 has Thunderbolt and the Quad option, which older X don't have - if you didn't care, you'd stick with the older X. so i would prefer an X280 with an 8th gen quad... but truly, just buy whatever you want.

Whitieiii wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2025 3:01 am

Thanks! I'm amazed at what you can buy now vs what was available in even 2016

Tell me about it. I bought a fully functional, top of the line X280 for about $100.

It's got to be the best $100 spent ever.

recently won me a mint R60 for $30.