Is Coreboot required to install Ivy Bridge CPU in T520 with dedicated graphics?

[dcfbf]

My friend recently got a T520 with the Nvidia DGPU in it and he wants to upgrade the cpu.
I have a dead W530 with a working i7 3740qm.

It seems all coreboot does for the T520 is bring support for the newer integrated graphics.
He doesn't need this support since he has the DGPU and the cpu pins should be the same between generations.

If he only uses the dgpu, can Ivybridge work on T520 without coreboot?
If it doesn't, I won't need to disassemble the W530 and he'll just use sandy bridge.


Side note: he doesn't want to coreboot because it needs the chip flasher that he doesn't want to buy.

[axur-delmeria]

IIRC Coreboot is needed for Ivy Bridge on a T420/T520/W520, period.

IMO if your friend uses Windows, then Coreboot is not a good idea due to an incomplete ACPI implementation. I dunno if that's been fixed.