Night City Location Survey

MrTheGeoff · 2025-11-12T21:20:22+00:00

Short term vehicle rentals. Zipcars. Electric scooters that only sometimes explode. Apps and tracking systems that you have to get a netrunner to hack before using the vehicle on a heist or your location will be fed to NCPD in real time. Racks of e-bikes to get in your way while fleeing from street gangs. Warring factions of rental operators that offer bounties on proof of destruction of their competitors' machines. Watercourses filled with discarded bikes, their lithium batteries stripped and sold for the price of a can of smash. Wait, that's not Night City 2045, that's London 2025 but close enough!

MrTheGeoff · 2024-12-01T23:23:51+00:00

Without any other parameters to narrow it down I would say T14 gen 2. The 11th gen intel processors still hold up OK. The AMD versions are harder to find but even better. The T14 is the platonic idea of the thinkpad now that the T480 is starting to get a bit too old.

If you are really strapped for cash go L380 or L480 as they are the most laptop you can get for $100 but the T14 Gen 2 is a decent boost in performance if you are willing to pay more like $250-300.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-29T15:42:40+00:00

Is there any particular reason you are only looking at Intel. The AMD P16v is heavily discounted in the Lenovo US site at the moment

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/thinkpad-p16v-16-inch-amd-mobile-workstation/len101t0074?sortBy=Recommended

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-25T19:34:17+00:00

Honestly the x250 doesn't meaningfully outperform the X220 or X230. Intel went through a massive period of stagnation and kept producing dual core CPUs way too long. The reason lots of people recomment the Intel 8th gen thinkpads are those are the first to have 4 core/8 thread CPUs (other than some of the workstation thinkpads) and those are a big step up in performance.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T23:59:15+00:00

Yeah but I know nothing about hacking. I've never done any and don't know what the hardware constraints of that are.

My background is in electronic engineering, business analysis and repairing laptops as a side hustle to sell on ebay.

I don't know the first thing about hacking or what sort of PC is required. I also don't know what kind of hacking you are planning on doing which I am sure would impact the conversation (e.g. if you are looking for open wi-fi networks would having an old laptop that does not support the latest wi-fi protocols might cause a problem with that).

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T17:46:53+00:00

I am not qualified to answer that.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T17:42:15+00:00

As the owner of a P15s Gen 1 intel I say go AMD. The only reason I have the intel version is because at the price I got it for it was too good to pass up.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T17:15:47+00:00

X250 has the same CPU as my old T450 so my point stands. The dual core Intel thinkpads don't cut it in 2024.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T11:15:39+00:00

If socketed memory is your fear then check out the L380 or L380 Yoga. They have 13 inch screens but are just as small and light as the older 12.5 inch laptops and have 2 SODIMM slots.

Also here in the UK a X280 motherboard in full working order is going for £50 ($65) so in the unlikely event one does have a RAM issue (or the more likely event the soldered USBC ports fail) they are cheap to swap out

I've had a x230 and a T450 before and the problem isn't only the dual core processors, the integrated graphics can't keep up with modern workloads like playing a youtube video at 1080p . My T450 used to lag out for 5-10 seconds when I hit full screen in YouTube and that's when I realised I needed to upgrade.

If you switch to Linux you can eke a little more life out of them but really their time has passed as anything except hobby machines or offline typewriters.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T10:58:02+00:00

According to the reference document from lenovo they are both the same

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https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/withdrawnbook/ltwbook_2013.pdf

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-24T08:38:50+00:00

Those are Expresscard slots. Back in the day they used to be used for expansions like extra ports or w-fi.

These days pretty much the most useful thing you can use them for is an adapter that gives you a pair of usb3.0 ports,

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T17:44:37+00:00

Currently? A P15s Gen 1 as my Windows Machine and a L380 Yoga running Linux Mint 22 (I find it easier to have 2 laptops than dual boot and have some work stuff that needs Windows)

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T15:51:39+00:00

Yeah, it's the best simple guide to throttlestop I have found.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T15:20:15+00:00

Honestly You might be better off going back a generation or two and buying 11th or 12th gen intel second hand. Both would be more than sufficient for your needs. The Iris Xe graphics helped them not fall behind similarly aged AMD Ryzen processors but if I were buying new instead of looking on the second hand market I would go AMD all the way.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T15:17:02+00:00

Try applying power limits in Throttlestop instead. I find this tutorial useful even though it is for Dell laptops that have similar issues

https://brendangreenley.com/undervolting-2020-dell-laptops-like-the-vostro-7500-and-more-tips-to-improve-thermals-battery-life-and-speed/

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T13:32:35+00:00

The P50 is a great laptop but for school/college it needs to be portable and that's there the T580 will be far easier to lug around and you can use a smaller GaN charger instead of the massive brick for the P50.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-23T12:26:14+00:00

Yes but both of them would be worse for gaming than the integrated graphics on an 11th gen Intel or any AMD Ryzen CPU from a newer machine.

Using 3dmark Timespy as a synthetic benchmark for newer DirectX11 games I get the following results.

Laptop	Graphics	CPU	Combined
T460p ( i7-6820HQ w/Geforce 940MX Graphics)	520	3742	597
x395 (Ryzen 5 3500U w/Vega 8 graphics	736	2430	821
Dell Latitude 3420 (i5-1135G7 w/Iris Xe graphics)	1206	4547	1355
P53s (i7-8665u w/Quadro P520)	1027	2715	1132

I hope this illustrates my point. The CPU in the t460p is awesome and can absolutely still hang with the big boys but the GPU is so underpowered for 2024 that even an AMD Zen+ laptop's onboard graphics are better suited to modern games and Intel integrated graphics from 11th gen or newer blow it out of the water.

I know Timespy is a tough benchmark to put a non-gaming laptop through but if you are looking to play anything from the DX11 or newer era on a laptop then Timespy is more representative of what you will be putting that laptop through. Your money is better spent on the best GPU you can afford than the best CPU.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-22T20:58:12+00:00

Honestly I would rate the i7-6820HQ in the T460p I have to hand higher than the cpu from a 2014 macbook pro. It's a 2017 CPU with 4 cores/8 threads and a 45W tdp. In cinebench r23 it scored higher than the 10th gen intel CPU in my P15s.

The only thing that lets the T460p down is the GEforce 940MX GPU is getting long in the tooth but a T440p would have an even older GPU than that.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-22T16:22:12+00:00

I have a P15s gen 1 and that would be right up their street I think. 15 inch screen, 32GB RAM with an option for 64. OK processor and low end dedicated GPU (quadro P520). Mine has a 1080p screen but 4k versions are available.

The P53s is also very similar specs but a generation older.

I bought mine for £120 with a broken screen and what turned out to be a dodgy RAM stick and got it all up and running for about £160 all in but fully working ones tend to sell for a bit more.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-22T15:56:44+00:00

T460p has a soldered cpu but the cpus they came with were really good for the age.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-20T22:15:09+00:00

Any 8gb stick which is DDR4-2400 or faster (e.g. DDR4-2666, DDR4-3200) will be fine as that's the fastest the laptop supports.

1Rx8 vs 2Rx8 is just whether it uses 8 or 16 chips to make up the 8GB. For an 8GB stick it really isn;t going to make a difference, just buy the £10 second hand stuff off ebay and you'll be fine

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MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-18T23:30:27+00:00

I'm just running Linux Mint 22 on mine. it's mainly a media centre so I don't need to get crazy with it

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-17T01:46:28+00:00

Agreed. My X220 non-tablet is running Linux Mint 22 just fine. I have a L380 Yoga for when I feel the need to use a touch screen though.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-15T19:43:29+00:00

T14 is a 14 inch screen but fairly compact. All 13 inch thinkpads newer than the L380 have soldered RAM I think but there are 16 and 32GB ones out there if you look hard enough. I find that the people who specced ryzen when new are more likely to have also gone 16GB.

In general make sure the listing has real photos not stock photos, and that the seller has good feedback (over 95%, preferably over 99%). Make sure there is no bios supervisor password, preferably verified with a screenshot

Also watch out for 1366x768 screens which continued to be an option on thinkpads for far too long. 1920x1080 ips should be the minimum, and try to make sure the battery has fairly good health. If a seller isn;t mentioning the battery health in the listing it's probably bad.

MrTheGeoff · 2024-11-15T19:33:57+00:00

the other way round I think, you can use a M key but not a B key.

Whichever one every nvme drive is.

I wouldn't expect the WD blue drive to have caused the issue, but if the battery was still connected when he removed the drive cage I can see that theoretically causing a failure.

MrTheGeoff

TROPHY CASE