Just got my W530 [ Edited ]

[webo]

So my W530 finally came in today!  I recorded a quick unboxing vid that I'll piece together later but let me know if you have questions.  One thing to note is that it has mini-displayport (not full-sized like I expected)

Here's a quick unboxing vid: http://youtu.be/iQ4Ry9xIpyY

Here are the Geekbench results (with 4GB of RAM): http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/767447

Here are the Geekbench results (after adding 16 more GB of RAM): http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/769185

Here's a link to the GPU-Z screenshot (I've got the K1000M:

I'll post the PCMark results a little later too

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

nice machine. Love it.

[huberth]

Your geekbench score is excellent!  (Higher than a W520 with i7-2960XM CPU)

[NINE]

hi webo,

Those are really sweet readings.. Have you tested any 3D games or software on it yet? How about the over all feel and usage?

Do let us know :-)

[webo]

I think I may have still had some power throttling somewhere since the PCMark 7 test was giving me lower scores than an i7-2720 (around a 2k point difference)  There seem to be a lot of power management options and I did set Max Performance but it still left things like "Lenovo Turbo Mode" disabled.

This is my first Thinkpad so I'm not familiar with all the utilities but I do feel like there are a few too many than I would prefer.  It is running a little more sluggish than I expected but the CPU looks like it's barely doing anything so I'll dig into those settings when I get a chance tonight.  Might just be the 4 GB of RAM though

I'll be dropping in an SSD and 16 GB of RAM later today (it only has 4 GB for the time being) so once I get around to that, it'll really fly.

Haven't tested out any games since I don't really play any but I'll do some more 3dMark testing later and post up the results.

The quality of the machine is really nice.  The chiclet keyboard feels really comfortable to use and I'm using the backlit feature as we speak.  There are actually three backlit modes; low brightness, high brightness, and high brightness with a Thinklight at the top of the screen.

It runs really cool, I haven't experienced any warm areas on the computer except maybe the vents.  It's definitely a HUGE change from my old Dell XPS M1330 which you could fry an egg on.

More to come later!

[AATroop]

Lol, I got mine with only 4gb of RAM and a standard HD. Planning on upgrading to a Samsung 830 and adding Corsair RAM. Great minds think alike. 

[Chatbox]

Fancy doing some burn-in tests and see if thermal stability is further improved on the W530? (compare to going from W510 to W520).

[webo]

I'll try and fit in some Prime95 tonight.

I added the 16 GB of RAM (for a total of 20 GB) and my Geekbench score went from 9,600 to almost 10,500! (link is in my first post)

Definitely get the RAM folks.  I still have a 5400 rpm hard drive in here right now and I'll be swapping in an SSD and re-imaging hopefully tonight as well (looks like I got my hands full tonight)

FYI - I slid it against my cloth couch cushion a little to see if i could reproduce some of the shutdowns people had been experiencing with the W520 and nothing happened.  Maybe the sudden shutdown issues have been mysteriously resolved? I'll try it again tonight.

[JDay]

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webo wrote:

I'll try and fit in some Prime95 tonight.

I added the 16 GB of RAM (for a total of 20 GB) and my Geekbench score went from 9,600 to almost 10,500! (link is in my first post)

Definitely get the RAM folks.  I still have a 5400 rpm hard drive in here right now and I'll be swapping in an SSD and re-imaging hopefully tonight as well (looks like I got my hands full tonight)

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Pull out the factory installed RAM and benchmark it again. I would not be surprised if the score goes up even higher, especially if you bought fater RAM than the stock modules since they would be underclocked to the speed of the stock modules. 16GB is a lot of RAM on it's own. I have that much in my workstation and have never needed more, and I run quite a few virtual machines at the same time on that.

[webo]

It came with DDR3-12800 (which is what the Corsair RAM I got runs at) so I don't expect to see any significant speed gains.

I'll look at the timings later to see if they're from the same family of sticks