How Important is RAM, mSATA, and Nvs 4200M upgrades for T420

Hi,

I just got a Lenovo T420 model number 4178-6VU (i5-2520M, 4GB, Nvs 4200M, 500GB 7200rpm). I upgrade the RAM to 8GB and I install a 40gb Intel 310 mSATA. I did some benchmarkes and hope that they will be helpful for those deciding what to upgrade. (probably most people know it already.)

Conclusion of what I found:
1) 4GB RAM helps a lot at least in the WEI
2) mSATA improves the hard disk performance by at least 30% against 7200 rpm disk. (according to WEI)
3) Improvement due to NVS 4200M, if any, is negligible (~10%)

1) RAM (comparing base unit and base unit + 4gb RAM; Optimus On; Windows Experience INdex)
Base Base+4GB
Processor 7.1 7.1
Memory 5.9 7.5
Graphics 4.7 5.9
Gaming Graphics 6.5 6.5
Primary Harddisk 5.9 5.9

Interesting, install the additional 4GB RAM also improves the graphics performance

2) mSATA (NVS 4200M only, Base+4GB RAM; WEI)
Base+4GB Base+4GB+mSATA
Processor 7.1 7.1
Memory 7.5 7.5
Graphics 5.1 5.1
Gaming Graphics 6.5 6.5
Primary Harddisk 5.9 7.6

The boot time (from I swipe my finger to windows ready) also reduces from 55s to 35s.

3) NVS 4200M (Base+4GB+mSATA; choose which graphics using BIOS)
WEI
Integrated NVS 4200M
Processor 7.1 7.1
Memory 7.5 7.5
Graphics 5.9 5.1
Gaming Graphics 6.3 6.5
Primary Harddisk 7.6 7.6

With integrated graphics, the WEI score for graphics is actually higher than with NVS 4200M. However, I think that might be a mistake. Two cards are comparable.

3DMark06:
Integrated: 4905
Dedicated: 5461
Optimus: 5570

Hope this study helps you to decide what to buy...

Yee Kan

 

WEI is not a reliable benchmark whatsoever--the only time it's useful is to reveal "obvious" configuration errors, for example, an SSD only giving you a Disk Score of 5.9 when other users are getting 7.7. There's far too much variability (ie: integrated graphics getting a higher score than discrete) to truly reflect real performance.

 

People should buy what's best for their needs really, I wanted 8GB RAM on my T420 as I wanted to run a variety of virtual machines on mine along with my primary OS without slowing down to a crawl during multitasking. Though I would find it hard to recommend 8GB RAM to those who just use office documents, email and PDFs on their T420 all the time as 4GB RAM is plentiful in the current climate even though it reports a better WEI score.

Same principle goes to the Graphics card as well, as I don't game or do 3D modelling work it doesn't really matter how much the Nvidia GPU scores better than the Intel GPU card to me as the default Intel graphics is fine for my daily work.

 

Haha, yup, definitely. I totally agree that those benchmarks do not mean a lot in real life, and only we ourselves can judge how important are any of those upgrades are for me. The reason I put this up is for those who don't have a laptop to try and are deciding which to upgrade with limited budgets. Hopefully, those numbers can help them to some extense knowing what to and what not to buy. For example, if the minimal performance improvement due to the graphic card is confirmed, I don't see why we need to spend an extra $200 for it. It is hard to justify, even if you play games (3DMark06 is a quite accurate measure of how well the games play with the graphic cards?)

 

Note also that a mechanical hard drive cannot score more than 5.9 in Windows 7 WEI. It's just a lousy benchmark for anything. My desktop machine has a WD Velociratptor 600GB 10,000 rpm drive for boot, and 5.9 is as fast as it will rate.

WEI tells you whether your machine is strong enough to run Windows well, or whether it will struggle. It also shows (to an extent) what you can do to shore up weaknesses in your system. It's useless for benching, especially for fast systems.

Benches like PCMark are a bit better, but real-world benchmarks are the best, using real apps from business, to professional graphics, to video encoding/decoding.

Finally, WEI is useless for comparing graphics cards. Even 3DMark, canned as it is, does a better job. It doesn't stress either the Intel HD 3000 or the 4200M, nor does it allow for a comparison of what rendering features each supports and how well the current drivers implement them. It's good enough to measure whether a GPU can run Aero competently, but not a lot more.