Need a Thinkpad recommendation - 2009 Era

[KwikFab]

Good Evening group, and thanks for having me.

Could I just do my intro here? I'll make it quick - think I was 12 years old and I played Diablo 1 for the very first time on you guessed it, a Thinkpad! Been hooked ever since.

Just got myself a mint IBM Thinkpad T42 (ATI 7500 series, XP Pro, etc) which I will keep for old school gaming but that brings me to ask the question here -

I come from the era where my first real gaming PC's consisted of E8400 Wolfdale's clocked to the moon, 7800 GTS in SLI, putting together a beast of a PC to run Crysis (everyone that could run it bragged about it) and more.

I've got some old PC parts and rather than build a retro PC from my extra 8400 and 9800GTX, I wanted to ask here what the best Thinkpad for gaming would be in this era? It would be on Vista right?

Talking Counterstrike 1.6, Half Life II, Doom 3, those sorts of games. I want a Thinkpad that''ll run all of those without hiccup without teetering over to my home PC with RTX card.

I have done searches and know to stay away from the FX570M, I'm just not up to speed on what models come with what cards for the 'best of the best' to fit my needs.

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum!

Gaming-wise, if you have space for a proper desktop, and you already have some of those spare parts - no Thinkpad from that era is going to match an E8400 + 9800GTX.

Period correct would be T400/T500/W500 series. As you can see, their top-end is pretty low compared to your hypothetical desktop:
https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:W500

Another option - very popular among enthusiasts here - is to have a Frankenpad consisting of a T60/p 15" shell, SXGA+/UXGA IPS screen (LED-modded), a T61 Penryn board (yes, it will have an FX570M, but there might still be a small supply of "date-safe" past 08/08 units around), and the absolutely highest end CPU a T61 would take (there may even be quad-core variants). However with all the parts and customization it would likely cost you more than a modern used machine. Hard to justify that.

Operating-system wise - go for Windows 7, without a doubt. Vista has been abandoned by Microsoft and other vendors so long ago that it is struggling with basic support of modern applications. Windows 7 on the other hand has had tons of more software compatibility patches, and can even run the modern web fairly well. In terms of being compatible with older games - it is just the same as Vista (the OS kernels are very similar after all).

[KwikFab]

Appreciate you taking the time to reply.

We do have an extra bedroom (a spare for now) that we plan to convert to an office in a few years; I figured going the laptop route would be the most convenient way to achieve this for the time being and I wasn't sure of all the gpu options Thinkpad offered that'd cover that realm.

I should rephrase, the laptop does not have to be from 2009 but rather, handle such games from that time-frame. nVidia had gpu's like the 7900M available a variety of ASUS and XPS models but didn't know if those trickled down to any Thinkpad variants. I just wanted to stay away from Windows 10/11 as I have a modern PC to handle AAA titles and more. Plus, have you seen the cost of an old OS key/disc? They command as much as they did when first released!

Even though these weren't made for gaming, I guess I just wanted an excuse to buy another

Thank you again!

[dr_st]

In that case, you may want to look into some later Thinkpad workstations. W530, W541, P50. Are you particular to the classic 7-row keyboard layout?

[KwikFab]

In that case, you may want to look into some later Thinkpad workstations. W530, W541, P50. Are you particular to the classic 7-row keyboard layout?

My only experience is with the Thinkpad's prior to 2000 so I'm not partial to any particular layout

So of the above mentioned, I'll look around to see what fits the bill

Also it seems there are many threads in my searches that are over 15 years old; I looked to see if there were any 'stickies' or pinned guides but there are none

Best way to source IBM T42's latest drivers? Sorry if this deviates from my original question - my T42 is up and running and having a hard time finding any drivers (has a fresh XP Pro wipe)

[RealBlackStuff]

Have you ever checked the Drivers link at the top of each Forum webpage?

[theterminator93]

Most of the games I play are late 90s to late 2000s. An example of one I've been known to play every so often is C&C3, ca. 2007. I run it on my W7 W520 with Quadro 2000M and i7 2860QM. At FHD with max detail, there is no noticeable lag or choppy FPS. This is the last generation that shipped with the classic 7-row keyboard and Windows 7 is perfect on this generation. When the game came out I would run it on my T61p with the FX570m; while it did work I had to dial the resolution down and it was still choppy, so I preferred playing it on my desktop which had a 3 GHz Athlon X2 and a GeForce 7900 GT.

T/W530 would be my 2nd choice personally, though I have a rather strong preference towards the classic keyboard design. If you have no problems with the 6-row keyboards it may be a better choice than a W520. While CPU performance is only marginally improved the GPUs are much better. They retain most of the "classic" TP design elements aside from the keyboard; the W540/541 is IMHO not a great choice. That generation stripped a lot of the TP design elements that had been brand staples to that time; their only merit is the more efficient/faster CPUs/GPUs and the fact that they were the last of the contiguous lineage to include an ODD. (P70/71 offered an ODD option from 2016-2018.)

[KwikFab]

Have you ever checked the Drivers link at the top of each Forum webpage?

Funny; it was only after I posted that I went on a few google searches and it yielded the 'drivers' page

It wasn't until after being directed here that I noticed it was on this very forum; this forum's layout is just different than I'm used to. I have guides/sticky's on various but have never seen them linked up top. Pretty cool I think.

[KwikFab]

Most of the games I play are late 90s to late 2000s. An example of one I've been known to play every so often is C&C3, ca. 2007. I run it on my W7 W520 with Quadro 2000M and i7 2860QM. At FHD with max detail, there is no noticeable lag or choppy FPS. This is the last generation that shipped with the classic 7-row keyboard and Windows 7 is perfect on this generation. When the game came out I would run it on my T61p with the FX570m; while it did work I had to dial the resolution down and it was still choppy, so I preferred playing it on my desktop which had a 3 GHz Athlon X2 and a GeForce 7900 GT.

T/W530 would be my 2nd choice personally, though I have a rather strong preference towards the classic keyboard design. If you have no problems with the 6-row keyboards it may be a better choice than a W520. While CPU performance is only marginally improved the GPUs are much better. They retain most of the "classic" TP design elements aside from the keyboard; the W540/541 is IMHO not a great choice. That generation stripped a lot of the TP design elements that had been brand staples to that time; their only merit is the more efficient/faster CPUs/GPUs and the fact that they were the last of the contiguous lineage to include an ODD. (P70/71 offered an ODD option from 2016-2018.)

Thank you! Very useful information I was looking for!

After getting the T42 up to snuff I've been on Diablo II so definitely want to get my old collection going again.

Appreciate the recommendation.

[TPFanatic]

P70 are starting to come down to reasonable prices (~$200), their base GPU the m600m beats anything in the prior workstation models (correction: I am wrong! benchmarks show the m600m as half the speed of the K2100M or K2000M found in W540/W530) and being based on MXM there is potential for replacement with the officially supported upgrades (m3000m, m4000m, m5000m) and there's vague anecdotes around the internet suggesting non-stock MXMs might work. Alternatively Thunderbolt or expresscard based EGPU to connect a desktop GPU is possible (Thunderbolt needs Win 10). P70 are insanely modular. But for old gaming none of this matters because again the m600m is already superior to anything in the w541 or older.

P70 and P50 are last thinkpads with OEM win 7 support.

A base P71 is pretty much the same as a base P70 but resellers still want too much money for them. If I was shopping nowadays I'd just get a P70.

[KwikFab]

Did the Fermi gpu's used in these laptops suffer the same overheating issues as their desktop variants?

I've found if I wanted a Quadro gpu, I'd be better off looking at a K1000M for the Kepler architecture.

Nothing local and the ebay listings have several 1000M's at $240 and below, whereas the K1000m are closer to $300.

The more I look into these laptops, I find myself actually being partial to the 7-row keyboard layout; I'm glad this was mentioned as I didn't notice the difference right away.

P70's seem to be slim pickings if I went that route, and going with a desktop GPU would be a waste of money as I already have a powerful desktop with RTX card.

But this has greatly narrowed my choices to the W530, or W520 if the Fermi architecture wasn't horrible in these things.

[KwikFab]

Just wanted to come back and update this; I've decided to install Linux on my T42 and I purchased for myself a W530.

It has the Pantone Color Calibration thing, 3740Q cpu, and K1000M as I was able to snag the cheapest Kepler equipped Thinkpad under $130; all the others were the 1000M whereas the K2000m models were easily $190 and more.

Will need to grab myself some ram and an SSD and I should be golden.

Thanks again everyone!