Getting W520, need some advice

Hello,
I'm looking to get a W520 then use the main 500GB disk as storage in the bay and replace main disk with 128GB SSD disk.

spent few minutes reading here and noticed lots of people recommending the Intel 310 80GB disk so i'll add one more question to my questions as follows:

1- I own W500 Dock can i use it on the W520?
2- I own Bay drive for secondary drive on W500 would it work on the W520?
3- I do lots of processing so i'm ordering the Extreme 2920 processor but when it comes to ram does 8GB and 16GB really differs on ubuntu workstation running multiple virtual machines such as windows, redhat etc.. ?
4- getting the Intel 310 disk do i need a case for it to fit in? because i noticed on newegg website pictures shows without a case where on provantage website the pictures looks with a gray case , can anyone enlighten me which is which?

Thank you

 

1.- No, the Series II and Series III dock connectors are different.

2.- It would fit and work, I believe (not entirely sure, so don't quote me on this), but the bezels will be horribly off (9.5mm v 12.7mm, different edges, etc).

3.- Order it with less RAM and add it yourself, if it turns out you need it. That'll also save you money. My bet is that you won't need more than 8GB.

4.- ProVantage picture is wrong--the 310 series 80GB mSATA drive does not have an external casing (and wouldn't fit if you put it in a casing).

 

another small question:
5- does it really differ between Intel Core i7-2820QM Processor (2.30GHz, 8MB L3) and Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor (2.50GHz, 8MB L3, 1333MHz FSB) ? i mean will i really feel the difference in speed?

since they both match the cache

 

Thank you for the quick amazing reply

i didn't get you does the outer shape of the body differs between W500 and W520? you mean the bezel will stick out on the W520?

so how the disk will fit inside the W520? i remember i faced hard time getting my samsung disk into the W500 without the rubber holders and when i placed the rubber holders the disk was squeezed inside the older disk place.

Thanks again

 

after reading 14 pages thread which talks about CPUs, i believe i'll go with the 2720QM processor

what do you think? it seems doesn't worth the extra bucks for unnoticeable upgrade right?

 

anyone ?

 

The consensus is that there's not much difference between the CPU options, so you're generally going to be better off buying the 2720QM and spending the money you save elsewhere (e.g. on more RAM, an SSD, whatever). In case you didn't know, you *must* get a quad-core CPU in order to be able to upgrade to 16GB RAM.

Also, regarding your earlier question about how much RAM to get: RAM is cheap. It's something like $30-$35 on Newegg for 4GB. Compared to the cost of the laptop, that's practically nothing -- I actually used the points on my credit card for it, so it was *literally* nothing for me -- so I just went all the way to 16GB. I'm quite confident that I can find something to do with that memory. After all, one of our servers at work has 192GB and we still find ways to get into swap...

 

I personally believe it's not worth buying anything above the 2720QM. If the 2820QM was something like $50 or such, then maybe; definitely not the price they charge.

When I got mine, I ordered 16GB of RAM and an Intel 320 drive (was getting tired of waiting for the 310 to come back in stock); thanks to the discount I managed to get when I called Lenovo, the aftermarket parts didn't really cost me much (I haggled over the W520 and saved $500, the SSD was $300 and the RAM was ~$120 total) (Note that I only have 12GB RAM; one of the 2x4GB packages was DOA, and Slot2 was giving me more trouble than it was worth, so I simply returned 8GB of RAM; I'll spend the money on a HDD dock and a nice mouse instead).

 

"When I got mine, I ordered 16GB of RAM and an Intel 320 drive (was getting tired of waiting for the 310 to come back in stock);"

Perhaps for you this is signficant. For me, I prefer to pay for the high performance mode.

Renee

 

That's perfectly fine; to me, it wouldn't matter since any SSD would be better than the HDDs I've used before. I also wanted an extra 40GB of space over SATAIII speeds, and I didn't want to spend over $300 for a drive. I'll simply pop in a cheaper, faster, bigger drive in a few years. I've already spent $2000 or $2100 on this laptop, and I'd rather spend the money saved on a current SATAIII drive on college needs.