New ThinkPad: Vista or XP?
I’m buying a new Thinkpad T61 soon and I really don’t know what I should get; Vista or XP? Also, if I do get vista, which version should i get (previously I was running xp pro, so I’d like to be able to customize my system to the same extent as I could using xp pro)?
Should I get Vista even if I’m just getting integrated graphics? From this thread: half of the posters seem to be saying that Vista will not run quickly unless you have a dedicated graphics card. Its especially important that the computer will load quickly as I’m currently a student and I need to be able to load quickly/shut down quickly before/after classes.
Vista. Do some research and you will find its a good OS. I have it running on my 3 computers, and the one at work. Vista Ultimate by the way.
integrated works fine
Ok, thanks for the help, I’ll get Vista Ultimate.
My next question is whether or not its worth it to upgrade from the standard Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1 ghz 3mb l2) to the T9300 (2.5 ghz 6mb l2)? Its about an extra $110 (canadian)…
It’s really not. I guarantee you, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the two if they were side by side and you were simply doing your day to day tasks
i won’t go for it then.
thanks for the help
I like Vista, use it on my home workstation with no complaints, but absolutely hated it on both of my T61p. I could never get it to run stable, sleep mode would cause it to lock up, letting the monitor turn off after 10 minutes idle would cause it to lock up, etc etc. It was unstable regardless of whether the Vista install was from Lenovo’s recovery DVD or my own clean install. I have XP on both laptops now, and they are perfectly stable.
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Ok, thanks for the help, I’ll get Vista Ultimate.
My next question is whether or not its worth it to upgrade from the standard Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1 ghz 3mb l2) to the T9300 (2.5 ghz 6mb l2)? Its about an extra $110 (canadian)… |
that’s quite the difference. i’d do it for $110 bucks, but i guess it depends on what you’re going to be doing with your computer.
i’ve got vista home premium on my laptop and i rarely, if ever, shut it down. i just close it and it goes to sleep. so far vista sleep has been very reliable and it boots up pretty quickly. i haven’t even had a problem when it goes all the way to hibernation.
is it possible to get a discrete card in that laptop? i’d put money in that over a faster CPU.
Again thanks for the help.
Yes, it is possible to get a dedicated card, and its only a $75 difference (you can get an nvidia quadro nvs 140m 128mb). However, I don’t use it for any gaming whatsoever, only for internet, maybe a couple movies here and there, music, and documents, so I’m not sure if its worth it. Same thing goes for the upgrade in the processor. What do you think?
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Again thanks for the help.
Yes, it is possible to get a dedicated card, and its only a $75 difference (you can get an nvidia quadro nvs 140m 128mb). However, I don’t use it for any gaming whatsoever, only for internet, maybe a couple movies here and there, music, and documents, so I’m not sure if its worth it. Same thing goes for the upgrade in the processor. What do you think? |
well, discrete graphics help for more than just gaming (and the quadro cards aren’t gaming cards anyway). it can help with vista performance too and you’ll probably notice better help with a discrete card than a slightly faster proc.
ya, if you don’t do gaming don’t worry about dedicated graphics. and as trouphaz says the quadro isn’t for gaming, you’ll be very disappointed if you buy a quadro with the intentions of gaming
Alright, I’ll get the graphics card.
Thanks again for the help.
I’d get XP anyway. I’ve used Vista on a test machine at work, and I’ve made my peace with it, but it still doesn’t offer any features whatsoever that I have any interest in — and most of the controls are rearranged, and the only reason I can come up with is that it’s specifically to make it harder to configure. Whether that’s to keep Joe Idiot from "customizing" his work machine or to make system admins have to take new training courses, I have no idea, but it’s annoying as shit.
I’d rather have those few extra CPU cycles and no Aero Glass than a shiny new OS that annoys me and gives me nothing in return.
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