CPU and Storage Performance
Given that we've taken a look at many many notebooks with 8th generation processors in them, we can get a picture of just how well these new components integrate into the X201 chassis.
Cinebench R15
Rendering in Cinebench is a great quick indicator of relative performance, and the picture looks bleak for the X210. With a multi-threaded score of 540, it's the slowest 8th generation CPU notebook that we've tested so far. Additionally, the single-threaded performance only falls behind the AMD Raven Ridge-equipped HP Envy x360.
Handbrake 1.0.7
Media encoding in Handbrake shows the X210 towards the bottom of the pack, with a performance gap of us under 20% from the performance leader—the XPS 13 9370.
PCMark 10
PCMark 10 Extended is a benchmarking suite that aims to emulate several different usage scenarios ranging from basic productivity to mixed workloads, as well as light gaming and to applications for creative professionals like photo and video editing.
Taking a look at PCMark10, the X210 scores similarly to other 8th generation CPU-equipped notebooks without discrete graphics, particularly doing well in the Essentials test, likely due to the fast storage in this notebook.
Overall, the CPU performance of the 51nb X210 isn't very impressive, and generally towards the bottom of the pack compared to notebooks with similar CPUs. However, the X210 allows for a great deal of tuning of things like CPU turbo frequencies, which we'll take a look at a bit later.
Storage Performance
In its default state, the X210 doesn't appear to support Active State Power Management (ASPM) for PCIe devices. This means that PCIe SSDs will see higher power draw than other systems, as it's not able to negotiate into the lower power state. Users on the Thinkpad.com forum have reported BIOS options which will enable ASPM, but I've had no luck with such toggles. This issue alone could be a compelling reason to stick with a SATA SSD on this X210, instead of an NVMe storage device.
that’s pretty cool! its
that’s pretty cool! its missing RGB lighting though…and wheres the fire wire?
Might just be my opinion here
Might just be my opinion here but I doubt most people doing this mod are interested in RGB lighting.
That’s pretty cool. I’ve been
That’s pretty cool. I’ve been carrying around my t510 (not quite as old, but still has most of the good stuff) and am really feeling the first gen core i5 at this point… It would be amazing to get a motherboard to upgrade the USB to USB3 and a modern cpu and ram (maybe even replace the charger with a USB type C port…. I tried something like similar by putting a raspberry pi in an old thinkpad chassis once, but I never managed to get the screen working so it was mostly just for fun.
Is it likely that heat and
Is it likely that heat and thermal issues are due to the Engineering Sample or is it more likely that a stock chip would still behave the same? The stock X201s could be configured with a 25W i7-640LM. I’d be guessing that the cooling solution in this custom laptop could properly dissipate heat generated by the i5-8250U because of it’s thicker design and more robust cooling.
I don’t think that’s the
I don't think that's the case, it would be problematic for the design process if the engineering sample chips handled very differently thermally than the retail parts.
However, I do echo your confusion about the seeming lack of cooling ability from the stock heatsink configuration.
I have an Acer laptop with an
I have an Acer laptop with an i5-8250U, which has a 1.8 base and 3.4 turbo speeds, and what I see with handbrake encoding is the exact same curve as the first one, only 100MHz lower.
That–and the TIM change–suggests to me it’s not the Lenovo that’s holding the CPU back here. (I see mention that undervolting produced a good-sized speed boost but I can’t see that chart, just a temperature chart–is the speed one missing?) In any event it makes me want to try out the XTU on my own machine.
Does the ES processor support
Does the ES processor support the meltdown/spectre patches?
That was brilliant.
That was brilliant. Pointless, but fascinating.
Thanks for the review Ken! I
Thanks for the review Ken! I was really waiting for this article ever since you mentioned something in a podcast. It’s a very interesting project. I still use almost daily my X200 configured with a 25W C2D P8600, 4GB DDR2 and an OCZ Agility3 that works like a train despite all the internet is saying. Thermally, the stock cooling solution is borderline for the 25W CPU; I have to re-paste the CPU HSF every few years as any degradation in the contact patch pushes temps high above 80C – yes I had it long enough to do it more than once.
Otherwise from a 90Wh battery it gets 5+ hours, same ballpark as you; it could the components (sans CPU) are not really low power: RAM, SSD (and its lack of LP state) and display.
My base X200 could be more usable if it had more RAM, which your mod achieves (and more). I’ll use your article as a reference point. I’m more inclined to go the “buy motherboard and mod your own laptop” route.
Cool story
I guess everything comes down
I guess everything comes down to it being an engineering sample? Mine reaches 3.39Ghz and it peaks around 80c. Really loving it.
Interesting to hear! Do you
Interesting to hear! Do you know if yours was in the first or the second batch? Maybe there's some deviation on the firmwares. Did you mod it yourself or order the machine from lcdfans?
I bought the second batch.
I bought the second batch. Yup, only the board and put everything else together. One thing that they mentioned is the stock cooler will require a piece of thin metal to make better contact with the processor.
Great story. It’s tragic that
Great story. It’s tragic that we cannot do this in the US. We have 330 million people, but the tinkering instinct seems to have fled. Even RadioShack is gone.
HAHA! I can update my T61p,
HAHA! I can update my T61p, the best notebook ever built.
Can confirm. They should have
Can confirm. They should have just kept producing updates to T61 series. No significant improvements have been made outside of performance/efficiency/weight advances. The T61 had the best usability and ergonomics of all.
Great article! (reading from
Great article! (reading from an X210 :P)
Can I ask where did you find the power manager program that makes a little green battery icon on the lower right corner on the screen?
I think battery life is less
I think battery life is less significant an issue given that the 9-cell can be swapped out, and that the NVME power-saving management (ASPM) has not yet been enabled in the BIOS. Apparently, this will come in a future firmware release.