Performance comparison between ThinkPad W701 with NVidia Quadro 2800M, ThinkPad X230 with Intel HD4000 and ThinkPad T520 with NVidia NVS 4200M

I am using my ThinkPad X230 for some months now and I am very satisfied with it, it works fine, its performance for my everyday tasks is very good and I like the portability of the machine and that that battery lasts very long.

Lately I got my hands on a ThinkPad T520 and I was playing around with it, it is a big and heavy machine, its CPU is one generation older than mine and it has a dedicated NVIDIA NVS 4200M GPU in tandem with its internal Intel HD 3000.

My wife owns a W701 for some years now and abandoned it in favor of a T530p, so I got the chance to reinstall the machine and test it. It is equipped with 12 GB RAM (2x2GB + 2x4GB) in 4 banks, NVidia Quadro 2800M gpu with 1 GB, a Intel core i7-720qm CPU with 4 cores/8 threads and a display resolution of 1920×1200, a very powerful machine for its age!

So I decided to do a comparison between both machines because I like to compare things and wanted to share my results with you. Unfortunately the Intel HD 3000 and the Quadro FX 8200M do not support DirectX 11 so I had to skip the DirectX 11 tests and in some tests like e.g. 3DMark I could not get things working.

First of all here are the technical details of all machines:

ThinkPad W701

• Intel Core i7–720QM CPU 1,6 – 2,8 GHz, 6 MB Cache, 4 cores / 8 threads
• 12 GB (2x2GB + 2x4GB) of Crucial PC3-10700 RAM in a dual channel configuration.
• Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit
• NVidia Quadro 2800M driver version: 9.18.13.4181 (NVidia version 341.81)

 

ThinkPad X230

• Intel Core i5-3320M CPU 2,6 – 3,3 GHz, 3MB cache, 2 cores / 4 threads
• 8 GB (4 + 4) of Crucial PC3-12800 RAM in a dual channel configuration.
• Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit
• Intel HD 4000 driver version: 10.18.10.4276

 

ThinkPad T520

• Intel Core i5-2410M CPU with 2,3 – 2,9 GHz, 3MB cache, 2 cores / 4 threads
• 10 GB (8 + 2) of  PC3-10700 RAM in a dual channel configuration.
• Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit
• Intel HD 3000 driver version: 9.17.10.4229
• NVidia NVS 4200M driver: 10.18.13.5362 (NVidia Version: 353.62)

 

Here is a photo of all three contestants next to each other (to the left the X230, in the middle the T520 and to the right the W701):

The results show that the Intel HD 4000 is very capable and in most cases faster than the discrete NVidia NVS 420M card! The least capable card is, as was to be expected, the Intel HD 3000.

To my surprise the dual core / 4 thread CPU of the X230 is more capable than the quad core / 8 thread CPU of the W701 which should be because of three CPU generations between both CPUs and the fact that the Core i7-720QM is lower clocked than the Core i5-3320M CPU (1,6- 2,8GHz versus 2,6 – 3,3 GHz)!  You can see this in the single and multi core results in Geekbench where the Core i5-3320M wins by a big margin. Also Cinebench shows that this CPU is the clear winner in single and multicore! The high single core results make this CPU a good candidate for playing console emulators like the Dolphin emulator.

Graphicswise the W701 wins with big distance to the other competitors, this old GPU is still very capable for gaming and for graphics intensive work.

Test	X230 Intel HD 4000	T520 NVidia NVS4200M	T520 Intel HD 3000	W701 NVidia FX 2800M
Geekbench 3.3.2 Single Core	2707	2131	2131	1642
Geekbench 3.3.2 Multi Core	5757	4603	4603	4404
Cinebench R15 OpenGL	19,14 fps	10,78 fps	–	31,8 fps
Cinebench R15 CPU	272 cb	225 cb	225 cb	231 cb
Cinebench R15 CPU Single Core	108 cb	77 cb	77 cb	66 cb
Unigine Heaven 4 (1366×768,high)	12,3 fps	8,6 fps	7,1 fps	22,8 fps
Unigine Heaven 4 (1920×180,high)	6,2 fps	4,3 fps	3,7 fps	12,6 fps
Unigine Valley 1.0 (1366×768,high)	10,3	9,9 fps	5,6 fps	17,6 fps
Unigine Valley 1.0 (1920×180,high)	6,4 fps	5,6 fps	3,3 fps	11,6 fps
Resident Evil 5 Test 1 (1368×768), AA off, DX10	40,2 fps	38 fps	23,9 fps	79,8
Resident Evil 5 Test 1 (1920×1080), AA off, DX10	24,1 fps	22,5 fps	14,4 fps	57,1 fps
Resident Evil 5 Test 2 (1368×768), AA off, DX10	34,9 fps	32,2 fps	17,2 fps	54,1 fps
Resident Evil 5 Test 2 (1920×1080), AA off, DX10	19 fps	19,9 fps	12,9 fps	47,2 fps
Final Fantasy XIV – 1368×768, DX11, Notebook(high)	1857	1380	–	–
Final Fantasy XIV – 1920×1080, DX11, Notebook(high)	816	740	–	– –
Final Fantasy XIV – 1368×768, DX10, Notebook(high)	1910	2035	1199	4934
Final Fantasy XIV – 1920×1080, DX10, Notebook(high)	1112	1216	687	3144
3DMark 11	715	688	–	–
3DMark – Fire Strike 1.1	552	403	–	–
3DMark – Sky Diver 1.0	2013	1460	–	–
3DMark – Cloud Gate 1.1	4426	2910	–	–
3DMark – Ice Storm 1.2	49678	27459	–	–
Half Life 2 – Lost Coast (1368×768, DX9)	193,2 fps	138,4 fps	75 fps	218,6 fps
Half Life 2 – Lost Coast (1920×1080, DX9)	83,3 fps	83,8 fps	41,5 fps	197,5 fps
Tomb Raider(1366×768)	37,3 fps	33,3 fps	22,8 fps	85,8 fps
Tomb Raider(1920×1080)	20,9 fps	18,0 fps	11,2 fps	48,8 fps
Stalker DX10, 1368×768, high preset – day	27,0 fps	27,0 fps	16	70
Stalker DX10, 1368×768, high preset – night	28,0 fps	23,0 fps	15	66
Stalker DX10, 1368×768, high preset – rain	30,0 fps	25,0 fps	17	73
Stalker DX10, 1368×768, high preset – sun shafts	14,0 fps	14 0 fps	7	33
Stalker DX10, 1920×1080, high preset – day	17 fps	16 fps	10	46
Stalker DX10, 1920×1080, high preset – night	16 fps	13 fps	8	41
Stalker DX10, 1920×1080, high preset – rain	17 fps	14 fps	9	43
Stalker DX10, 1920×1080, high preset – sun shafts	8 fps	7 fps	3	19
Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – day	26,0 fps	27,0 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – night	27,0 fps	26,0 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – rain	31,0 fps	28,0 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1368×768, high preset – sun shafts	13,0 fps	12, 0 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1920×1080, high preset – day	15 fps	16 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1920×1080, high preset – night	15 fps	14 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1920×1080, high preset – rain	16 fps	15 fps	–
Stalker DX11, 1920×1080, high preset – sun shafts	7 fps	7 fps	–
Street Fighter 4, 4xAA – 1368×768	5089	5872	4322	8339
Street Fighter 4, 4xAA, 1920×1080	3932	4541	3579	6309

 

 

Here are the settings for the different benchmarks: