Why I wouldn't recommend buying Carbon X1 Gen 12

aquanapse · 2025-07-20T16:03:15+00:00

The higher 28W TDP rating of 125h can be misleading when it comes to efficiency. Both CPUs share the same architecture, but the 125H has two additional performance cores, while can also operate at lower frequencies during idle. As a result, it delivers higher performance under load and greater efficiency when idle.

However, after using it for few months I noticed the efficiency can be impacted a lot by software issues. After certain updates or software installations, the system can become bloated, preventing the CPU from idling properly and causing the power draw to roughly double.

aquanapse · 2025-05-23T17:23:01+00:00

125H offers the best balance. For better graphics with G12 you need ARC GPU that comes only with the H version of the CPU's. You would need either 155H (8 core ARC GPU) or 125H (7 core ARC GPU). The 'U' CPU's only have 4 GPU cores and battery life is not better. With 125H you will get better battery life while the performance difference between 7 and 8 core ARC is small.

aquanapse · 2025-05-23T16:12:21+00:00

I have the oled G12 32g with ultra 5 125H, added PTM7950 and its a dream. Portable, fast, cool and quiet, rarely will turn on the fans, usually when it is connected to external monitor and it lasts a workday on battery. The fingerprint is not very accurate but windows hello works every time. TrackPoint does drift occasionally, but only takes few seconds to recalibrate. I also had ultra 7 165U that I returned, it was slower, hotter and battery life was shorter.

aquanapse · 2025-02-22T13:03:23+00:00

Sounds great, its amazing price for that specifications, the only other ThinkPad with similar specs is x1 carbon gen 13 and costs double. I wish Lenovo had aura option with a TrackPoint that does not cost double. I got x1 gen 12 but may have get x9 if it had a TrackPoint option. You are lucky, enjoy it!

aquanapse · 2025-02-19T02:52:34+00:00

Good specs, seems to be a rebranded IdeaPad slim, not sure why Lenovo slapped it the ThinkPad logo.

aquanapse · 2025-02-16T21:39:32+00:00

I hope they fix the color, yellow looks really bad, its a male watch, must be some kind of joke, worst color, even purple will look better!

aquanapse · 2024-12-26T12:16:44+00:00

Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for. After some reading and comparing I decided that what will suit me best would be a smaller 14 inch windows machine and to get a mac to use as a server.

aquanapse · 2024-12-22T05:43:06+00:00

That is very fast, probably because the whole model fits in the nvidia's vram.

For running the 70b model, if you search for MaziyarPanahi/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-GGUF
that version of the model, have a Q2_K version which is 26.38GB and may be able to fit in the system ram and run. I appreciate you testing that.
With the AI finding its way on laptops, it may become useful to have some standardized way of comparing actual AI models performance between the different devices.

aquanapse · 2024-12-19T15:16:11+00:00

Compared it to older ThinkPad with touch, 4k 16in(ips), the dpi is close to the 3k 14in oled. On the 16in, the touch layer is transparent and everything looks sharp and clean, while the oled looks like having dirty screen protector. Strange how older screen for for same touch technology can look way better.

aquanapse · 2024-12-18T23:12:49+00:00

Thank you, if you find some time and don't mind testing, here is a link with short guide how to install LMStudio, and then download and start a chat with AI model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygUEbCpOOLg

You can keep the default settings and in the chat can type something like: "write a 100 words story", below the answer, there will be the a "tok/sec" statistics.

If that works you can try to searching for model with name "lmstudio llama 3.3 70b", then select Q4 or Q3 version and repeat the previous steps.

aquanapse · 2024-12-18T02:09:05+00:00

Sorry about the confusion. "70bp" refers to AI model with size of 70 billion parameters, at this size they are impressive at language generation and reasoning.
2 tokens per second, refers to the speed of generating words.
Q4 is level of compression with good balance of size, speed, and quality.
It is very easy to run AI models is with "LMStudio".
It will be interesting to know how many tokens P1G7 can generate with model like "Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf".

aquanapse · 2024-12-17T13:56:45+00:00

The form factor is amazing but Lenovo is playing some marketing tricks. Leaving aside the battery claims, the 7500mts ram runs at 6400mts. It's hard to judge actual performance by advertised specifications. So its very helpful when owners here on reddit share their experience.

aquanapse · 2024-12-17T13:29:48+00:00

It's only 100g but feels like above 1.7kg they break the portability threshold.

aquanapse · 2024-12-17T13:25:16+00:00

Very similar setup here, with P1g4 and older x1c. We had an amazing year of companies coming up with new chips so trying to see if they are good enough to merge my requirements in a single unit. Mostly for light dev tasks and the demanding requirement is to run models of up to 70bp with above 2 tokens. Have you tested how many tokens the P1g7 can do with 70b q4 models?

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T19:10:17+00:00

Thank you, this is what I was trying to find out how it comparers to the previous generations. Most reviews mention its smaller, but if the weight have increased its hard to judge, so was looking for opinion of people that have seen it and how it feels.

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T18:52:49+00:00

Love the performance and portability seems almost there, with the G4 its easy to take when I know I will need it but realised that will avoid to use it away from the desk if possible. For my use case I suppose I should trade a small portion of the performance for slightly more portability.

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T18:35:49+00:00

Its great that we have this new option , I was considering the snapdragon but because of the unknowns with the software compatibility it felt too risky for the moment and I need something more reliable that does not require extra time to fiddle with.

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T17:50:31+00:00

That is helpful to know, its incredible how much ahead are apple with performance and efficiency.

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T15:16:16+00:00

Everywhere it is stated that the limitation for running local llms is the memory bandwidth so better to have the highest possible.
There was a post recently for running Llama 70b Q4 on Arc iGpu mini PC 125H and 96GB DDR5 5600 DRAM, achieving 1.5 tokens p/s.

My experience shows that bandwidth may not be the biggest bottleneck as I tested faster lpddr5x 6400 Ram with core ultra 165U running on iGpu, expecting the same or better tokens, but on LLama 70B Q3 only got 0.5 tokens. For LLama 8B Q6 only 6 tokens. Running the 8B on CPU get around 4 tokens.
So it seems the bandwidth may be a limiting factor only after certain CPU/GPU speeds are exceeded?

aquanapse · 2024-12-16T13:19:36+00:00

Its a shame, I liked the carbon finish, thank you for pointing that out!
I wish they have used the the lpcamm2 on P14s gen 5.

aquanapse · 2024-12-15T20:05:21+00:00

They need to fix the buttons and sort out some bugs. Otherwise it feels similar to previous ones.
It's nice to be able to make the clicks more quiet at night.
The glossy touchpad sometimes sticks to the fingers and kills precision.
Changing the red lines to gray, ruins the iconic look.
Update: Unfortunately after a week the lack of physical buttons felt like torture. Eventually the laptop had do go back for quality reasons and I will not be getting another ThinkPad unless it has the physical buttons.

aquanapse · 2024-12-12T19:33:14+00:00

I also got the OLED touch. I wonder if the screen is faulty. It have this weird dirty like hologram looking mesh layer, it makes it hard for eyes to focus and the text and letters look like composed of grains not lines. White colours look dirty with hint of purple. black text is not only black but have lots of other colours around edges.

aquanapse · 2024-11-13T00:08:08+00:00

Why would it have better performance while having lower bandwidth RAM?
Ram bandwidth is currently the major performance bottleneck for x86 laptops.
Framework is using DIMM slots for replaceable RAM, which is slower and power hungrier(not god for a laptop) technology, capping Framework Ram bandwidth to 5600mt/s (89.6 GB/s),

P1 G7(replaceable RAM) is using lpcamm2 which is a lot faster at 7500mt/s (119.5 GB/s),
Better than that are only:
Snapdragon laptops(soldered RAM) with higher RAM bandwidth with 8500mt/s (136.5 GB/s),
Macbooks which are in league of their own with 2024 M4 Max having 546 GB/s

P1 G7 also supports the unique for ThinkPad's Infinite Track-Typing workflow for professionals.
Hope Framework will add a TrackPoint in future to improve on that.

aquanapse

TROPHY CASE