Quote from: Worgarthe on Today at 00:31:26Yes it would, and it's cheaper too (as opposed to getting an absolute top specs laptop with its insane price tag; talking in general here about laptops, not about the P1 G8 which tops at 8 GB VRAM).

I have an RTX 5070 Ti (16 GB) working perfectly fine with both of my ThinkPads (X1 Carbon and P16). There's a bit of bottleneck if you're chasing super-high fps (for example, if you can get, say, 350 in a desktop you won't really reach more than 300 here), but if you cap that to 60-165 fps there really is no difference in gaming experience and you save significant money in the process too (while getting more raw GPU power). That's a 780-ish € GPU, and it will completely stomp both the Blackwells here in this P1 (PRO 1000 and PRO 2000), even with the mentioned Thunderbolt bottleneck (which is marginal outside of games and very high fps).

The tradeoff is not being able to play ultra graphics on the go because some (homeless?) people apparently do that all day long, they simply travel and play continuously without doing anything else (apart from crying how 8 GB VRAM is insufficient for games), and those same people struggle to open their in-game settings to put textures to high instead of ultra to significantly lower their VRAM usage, but other than that - no complaints, all works flawlessly when I get home - I put my laptop(s) on a table, plug in a single cable and that's it. The eGPU gets activated automatically, and I can play immediately.

Thanks for this info! I have a P1 Gen 2 and I can't remember when I played a game on it, ever. If I am going to game, it will be at my desk, so I could just use a eGPU. I actually wanted the P1 Gen 8 without a dGPU but the 45% off was only on prebuilt machines with the dGPU. I'll buy an eGPU if I ever decide I have time for games :)

Quote from: 2k for 8GB VRAM gg on Yesterday at 10:08:06Running local LLMs / AI has been a thing for a few years now, using llama.cpp and its webUI is all you need. A LLM can be fully loaded into the GPU's VRAM or, if the LLM can't fit, parts of it can be offloaded to system RAM. This laptop has 32 GB RAM + 8 GB VRAM. Small and better capable, big open-weights LLMs exist and the more RAM+VRAM your PC has, the better. Every GB helps. So, from 8 GB to 12 GB to 16 GB VRAM would already be a good to very good improvement.

Genuinely curious - do you do anything else in your life apart from running local LLMs? Well, aside from spamming the same bs under quite literally every single existing review around here...

Quote from: veraverav on Yesterday at 19:24:06Would plugging in an eGPU resolve this bottleneck for someone that absolutely has to game?

Yes it would, and it's cheaper too (as opposed to getting an absolute top specs laptop with its insane price tag; talking in general here about laptops, not about the P1 G8 which tops at 8 GB VRAM).

I have an RTX 5070 Ti (16 GB) working perfectly fine with both of my ThinkPads (X1 Carbon and P16). There's a bit of bottleneck if you're chasing super-high fps (for example, if you can get, say, 350 in a desktop you won't really reach more than 300 here), but if you cap that to 60-165 fps there really is no difference in gaming experience and you save significant money in the process too (while getting more raw GPU power). That's a 780-ish € GPU, and it will completely stomp both the Blackwells here in this P1 (PRO 1000 and PRO 2000), even with the mentioned Thunderbolt bottleneck (which is marginal outside of games and very high fps).

The tradeoff is not being able to play ultra graphics on the go because some (homeless?) people apparently do that all day long, they simply travel and play continuously without doing anything else (apart from crying how 8 GB VRAM is insufficient for games), and those same people struggle to open their in-game settings to put textures to high instead of ultra to significantly lower their VRAM usage, but other than that - no complaints, all works flawlessly when I get home - I put my laptop(s) on a table, plug in a single cable and that's it. The eGPU gets activated automatically, and I can play immediately.

Quote from: 2k for 8GB VRAM gg on Yesterday at 10:08:06

Quote8 GB VRAM

2000 for only 8 GB VRAM? Nice trolling.
Even games have a problem with only 8 GB VRAM: youtube.com/watch?v=ric7yb1VaoA: "Gaming Laptops are in Trouble - VRAM Testing w/ ‪@Hardwareunboxed‬"
Most big games are made for consoles first in mind and the PS5 has 16 GB VRAM, minus 4 GB for the OS, and games expect your GPU to have at least 12 GB VRAM.
Running local LLMs / AI has been a thing for a few years now, using llama.cpp and its webUI is all you need. A LLM can be fully loaded into the GPU's VRAM or, if the LLM can't fit, parts of it can be offloaded to system RAM. This laptop has 32 GB RAM + 8 GB VRAM. Small and better capable, big open-weights LLMs exist and the more RAM+VRAM your PC has, the better. Every GB helps. So, from 8 GB to 12 GB to 16 GB VRAM would already be a good to very good improvement.

But its not really meant to be a gaming laptop. Would plugging in an eGPU resolve this bottleneck for someone that absolutely has to game?

Quote

Quotematte tandem OLED can appear slightly grainy up close

How to destroy the beautiful popping colors and the sharp text of an (glossy) OLED? Take grinding paper/stone and rub it on the screen, then you get the screen in this laptop.

In a glossy OLED those beautiful popping colors and sharp text get utterly obliterated by reflections of any light source or window behind you, and you end up constantly fidgeting with the laptop position or trying to find a dark corner to sit in. I understand glossy screens for a desktop computer where you can control the ambient lighting, but not in a laptop.

Also, whenever the screen is dark, e.g. a dark theme of your code editor or a dark movie scene, you're constantly staring at your own face. Are you really that pretty?

It's precisely the matte tandem OLED that is the main attraction of this Thinkpad for me, and I'll happily take minimal grain to avoid strong reflections.

"AIDA64 RAM benchmark scores are notably very good" when is notebookcheck going to do the PC industry a favour and stop qualifying. Any Strix Halo system will have RAM nearly twice as fast, not to mention Macs. That is a huge deal for many typical workstation operations.

Quote8 GB VRAM

2000 for only 8 GB VRAM? Nice trolling.
Even games have a problem with only 8 GB VRAM: youtube.com/watch?v=ric7yb1VaoA: "Gaming Laptops are in Trouble - VRAM Testing w/ ‪@Hardwareunboxed‬"
Most big games are made for consoles first in mind and the PS5 has 16 GB VRAM, minus 4 GB for the OS, and games expect your GPU to have at least 12 GB VRAM.
Running local LLMs / AI has been a thing for a few years now, using llama.cpp and its webUI is all you need. A LLM can be fully loaded into the GPU's VRAM or, if the LLM can't fit, parts of it can be offloaded to system RAM. This laptop has 32 GB RAM + 8 GB VRAM. Small and better capable, big open-weights LLMs exist and the more RAM+VRAM your PC has, the better. Every GB helps. So, from 8 GB to 12 GB to 16 GB VRAM would already be a good to very good improvement.

Quotematte tandem OLED can appear slightly grainy up close

How to destroy the beautiful popping colors and the sharp text of an (glossy) OLED? Take grinding paper/stone and rub it on the screen, then you get the screen in this laptop.

Quoteone-year base warranty instead of three years

Wow

Quoteno ECC RAM

This is a big one. Since this is a workstation, at least having the option?
Theoretically, providing real ECC is cheap (ASUS supports real ECC in mainstream AM5 motherboards (other brands may support it unofficially) and most AMD CPUs support real ECC too), so this looks like an artificial market segmentation.

QuoteLPCAMM2

This is modern, at what MT/s is this running?
Looking at AIDA64' 96582 MB/s, it's running at roughly 7500 MT/s.

For running local LLMs, can the RAM be extended to 64 GB or more? If this is a workstation, support for up to 128 GB RAM would be expected, especially with all the for-RAM-optimized  MoE LLMs.

5.5 hrs battery life? Seems very low compared to reviews from consumers using this model.

Also, its a P1 Gen 8 not a P1 16 Gen 8.

cant believe you sh1theads, FINALLY a matte oled screen after years of fcking mirrors and you put it under cons.