Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Notebook

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Notebook

Since July we have been testing a Lenovo ThinkPad W510 notebook under Linux and have already published a variety of Linux benchmarks. This Lenovo notebook boasts an Intel Core i7 720QM CPU, 4GB of system memory, a 320GB SATA HDD, and NVIDIA Quadro FX880M graphics. In this review we are taking a closer look at the ThinkPad W510 notebook and have more Ubuntu Linux benchmarks comparing its performance to the ZaReason Verix and an older ThinkPad T61.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=15346

[Rob72]

Did you disable the XHCI driver (USB 3.0)? With it loaded suspend/resume will not work properly. Look at this commit for the solution Fedora chose for F14;

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/b...buildID=200409

* Wed Oct 13 2010 Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com> 2.6.35.6-43 - bump build. * Wed Oct 13 2010 Kyle McMartin <kyle@redhat.com> - Disable XHCI registration by default. Passing xhci.enable=1 to the kernel will enable it, as will echo "options xhci-hcd enable=1" >/etc/modprobe.d/xhci.conf This is necessary, because it is beginning to turn up on more and more boards, and prevents suspend if the device is probed (since it does not implement suspend handlers.) Simply removing the module alias would work (and require you to manually load the driver, like for floppy) however, there's a chance people would like to install onto usb3 drives, so let's provide them with an easy means to enable it (the grub cmdline.)

[Svartalf]

Basically the same thing as my current i7 laptop with a workstation class mobile GPU...with the same basic problem that my laptop had...Windows.

Biggest complaint I have with the Linux laptop vendor crowd right at the moment is that they don't seem to be fielding many 16" or 17" display machines- it's doable to do development on a 15.5" display since I've done it before, but in the end, the 16"'s passable and the 17/17.2/17.5 is where the size is right and you can still find bags, gear, etc. that'll work with the machine. 18"'s don't have bags, etc. (go figure- they make them for the gamer crowd, you'd think they'd have at least a few bags of some kind for them) and they're just a bit too...BIG...to be mobile.

[phred14]

I recently got one of these through a company laptop refresh. Mine is equipped pretty much like the reviewed model, except that I have the 500GB hard drive. I'm currently using it with a "company tweaked" FC13 install and have been mostly happy with it. Even Suspend and Hibernate work, though Hibernate so slow to restart that one might as well reboot. I'll be curious to see others' reactions to this piece of hardware.

One question... The CPU is a Core-i7 quad with 2-way SMT/HT. In /proc/cpuinfo it bills itself as 8 CPUs. I'm presuming my kernel is built with SMT-HT-aware scheduling so it knows it doesn't really have 8 CPUs. But I've seen some articles that suggest it performs better if you just shut SMT/HT off in BIOS and go with 4 true CPUs.

Anyone have any take on this issue?

[devius]

One question... The CPU is a Core-i7 quad with 2-way SMT/HT. In /proc/cpuinfo it bills itself as 8 CPUs. I'm presuming my kernel is built with SMT-HT-aware scheduling so it knows it doesn't really have 8 CPUs. But I've seen some articles that suggest it performs better if you just shut SMT/HT off in BIOS and go with 4 true CPUs.

Anyone have any take on this issue?

I've seen this issue with some specific applications and some HT cpus. If I remember correctly a core i3 cpu is faster at compressing files (real compressing, not synthetic benchmarks like the 7zip one) with HT off, but it's also faster at raytracing with HT on. I have the impression that this problem does not affect Atom cpus which greatly benefit from HT.

[karl]

Did you experienced this issue with the Thinkpad W510 ?
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=171222

Also I find it strange that for the PHP compile, 7-Zip and GnuPG tests the Thinkpad W510 (with HDD 320GB Hitachi HTS72503) is the same with ZaReason Verix (with HDD 80GB Intel SSDSA2MH08 SSD). I would had expected ZaReason Verix to show better results in those tests.

[devius]

Also I find it strange that for the PHP compile, 7-Zip and GnuPG tests the Thinkpad W510 (with HDD 320GB Hitachi HTS72503) is the same with ZaReason Verix (with HDD 80GB Intel SSDSA2MH08 SSD). I would had expected ZaReason Verix to show better results in those tests.

I don't know about the other tests, but at least 7zip doesn't even touch the HDD. It's just a synthetic test that runs off the cpu/ram alone and only tests theoreticall maximum performance out of the cpu/ram being tested.

[karl]

I don't know about the other tests, but at least 7zip doesn't even touch the HDD. It's just a synthetic test that runs off the cpu/ram alone and only tests theoreticall maximum performance out of the cpu/ram being tested.

I see. Thank you for pointing that out.
Still, it remains the PHP compile test which I think must read many files from HDD to do the compilation which means many random reads. And on random reads SSD should be king.

[TechMage89]

I'm trying to figure out how this machine compares to a Macbook Pro. Once I earn some money, I'm in the market for a well-built workhorse machine for doing everything from browsing the web to playing games to editing video to running CAD software.

After seing some poorly built Dells, Toshibaa, and HPs, I feel like the only really reliable laptop manufacturers are Lenovo and Apple.

Obviously, this has a business-class GPU, but I'm not really sure what kind of benefits that actually gets me (the difference between consumer-grad and busisness-grade GPUs seems rather intangible to me).

[TechMage89]

*(^&$**& edit limit.

Oh, also, I went to the IBM website and was sort of ticked that you can't get this machine without Windows, apparently. Nice Linux offerings, Lenovo.