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English => Reviews => Topic started by: Redaktion on January 19, 2023, 20:04:01

Title: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Redaktion on January 19, 2023, 20:04:01
Lenovo refuses to offer its X1 models with AMD CPUs - perhaps there is an exclusive contract with Intel. The next best model with the AMD Ryzen 6000 is the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3. Even though it is positioned below the X1 Carbon in Lenovo's lineup, it is better in many ways.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14s-G3-AMD-laptop-review-Quiet-and-efficient-workhorse-with-Ryzen-power.682906.0.html
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Gobrel on January 19, 2023, 22:53:13
Why is the memory bandwith so low?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: LL on January 20, 2023, 01:05:28
1800 euro and not even a 1Tb SSD...
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: K Souvenir on January 20, 2023, 04:09:16
I pay grand total 2000$ Canadian dollar in November 2022 for 2TB NVME and others max out specs, is the closest X64 competitor to the Apple Macbook Air M2 in price performance ratio, you will not regret it, is really that good this ThinkPad.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Sinocelt on January 20, 2023, 12:04:29
The 6850U? Now? Does it mean we'll have to wait one year for a 7040U version?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: kuro68k on January 20, 2023, 13:03:21
I've been waiting for Lenovo to make a good Ryzen workstation with USB4/TB and a couple of NVMe slots. Some RAM sockets would be nice too.

I think I'll have to wait for the next generation. For some reason all their current ones just don't offer the features I need (more storage, 64GB RAM). Port selection is quite weak too, and USB PD charging is poor (no 65W support it seems).
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on January 21, 2023, 12:54:34
Quote from: Gobrel on January 19, 2023, 22:53:13Why is the memory bandwith so low?
AMD mem controllers lose from 1.5 to 2 times by throughput to Intel mem controllers in laptop series.

But bad news - In Intel found a wild jamb in the built-in 2.5Gb/s Ethernet ports - they are hardware buggy in Alder Lake H(and desktop series). And even for Raptor Lake, so it's simply impossible to buy current boards and laptops with them in the first batch without this bug. No stable 2.5Gbps cable network. This is the verdict if this bug is too frequent in batches of laptops. Manufacturers will urgently need to solder third-party 2.5Gbps Ethernet controllers to fix the problem and recall the first batches of laptops with Raptor Lake.

Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on January 21, 2023, 12:59:03
A business series without a 5Gb/s network controller in 2023 is already nonsense and obviously a fig solution. Without such a controller, you cannot connect at full speed to an office or home NAS. In theory, 5Gb/s RJ45 controllers should have been in even the cheapest laptops for 5 years already, as well as usb 3.0+ ports...
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: RobertJasiek on January 21, 2023, 13:13:13
"bad news - In Intel found a wild jamb in the built-in 2.5Gb/s Ethernet ports - they are hardware buggy in Alder Lake H(and desktop series). And even for Raptor Lake, so it's simply impossible to buy current boards and laptops with them in the first batch without this bug. No stable 2.5Gbps cable network"

Can you please provide more information or links?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on January 21, 2023, 16:02:16
Intel i225-V «Foxville»:
videocardz.com/newz/intel-i225-foxville-2-5gbe-nics-face-inter-packet-gap-issue

Intel i226-V/Raptor Lake:
videocardz.com/newz/intel-i225-foxville-2-5gbe-nics-face-inter-packet-gap-issue

community.intel.com/t5/Ethernet-Products/Intel-R-Ethernet-Contoller-I226-V-connection-drop/m-p/1439558

microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ethernet-and-wifi-adapter-freeze/a48072bd-f57e-462c-8c6b-c8b2b44cbe21

reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/zpgtya/z790_hero_mb_intelr_ethernet_controller_i226v/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/zpgy7j/i226v_ethernet_controller_has_the_exact_same/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/z2uw26/i226v_keeps_disconnecting/
reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/104v7z5/rog_strix_z790f_gaming_wifi_nic_i226_disconnects/
reddit.com/r/intel/comments/zw20e5/intel_i226v_is_utter_garbage/
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Indiana on January 25, 2023, 21:34:12
Does it say anywhere the exact dimensions of the image on the display? Didn't see it in psref.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: engineer on January 27, 2023, 08:05:00
A business series without a 5Gb/s network controller in 2023 is already nonsense and obviously a fig solution. Without such a controller, you cannot connect at full speed to an office or home NAS. In theory, 5Gb/s RJ45 controllers should have been in even the cheapest laptops for 5 years already, as well as usb 3.0+ ports...

Completely nonsense. 5Gb controller costs much more than 2,5Gb controller, same goes for switches and the most important, cabling. You can run 2,5Gb without issues on Cat5e for reasonable distances, like your home. 5Gb is not going to work. High bandwidth may be nice for high definition videos, but even then, you are likely to use local storage, fibre channel or something exotic, not ethernet. 1Gbe is more than adequate for loading Excel spreadsheets, word-documents and cad-files!

High speed controllers and associated switches also use more energy than one GbE devices. And I can tell you, most home-NAS devices still have only one GbE port(s). If you want 2,5GbE, it's going to be more advanced and expensove device, not basic home-NAS. And once again there are good reasons: cost, cabling requirements and no real need.

T14s is perfectly capable laptop with 1 GbE port, and there's no need for 2,5 GbE in business laptop, nor there's need for one in engineering workstation.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on January 27, 2023, 19:54:02
Quote from: engineer on January 27, 2023, 08:05:00Completely nonsense. 5Gb controller costs much more than 2,5Gb controller, same goes for switches and the most important, cabling. You can run 2,5Gb without issues on Cat5e for reasonable distances, like your home. 5Gb is not going to work. High bandwidth may be nice for high definition videos, but even then, you are likely to use local storage, fibre channel or something exotic, not ethernet. 1Gbe is more than adequate for loading Excel spreadsheets, word-documents and cad-files!

High speed controllers and associated switches also use more energy than one GbE devices. And I can tell you, most home-NAS devices still have only one GbE port(s). If you want 2,5GbE, it's going to be more advanced and expensove device, not basic home-NAS. And once again there are good reasons: cost, cabling requirements and no real need.
You write complete nonsense. Many people already have a NAS at home, where they store photos / videos / movies / music /archives / large backups SSDs and etc. in RAID mode. These are NAS placed as far as possible from the residential area, because modern capacious HDDs are very noisy (many platters/7200rpm). The minimum link speed for them is already needed at 5Gbps, because in RAID it has long surpassed 2.5Gbps and even single HDDs are already close to the 2.5Gbps limit.

Therefore, 2.5Gbps was outdated initially, not yet appearing. We need an analogue of USB3.0 over the network, only at a distance of up to 100m at home. As well as the optical link HDMI2.1/DP2.0/eGPU pci-e 4.0 x16 has been needed for a long time and for many years, because copper cables have not been enough for all this for a long time.

It is clear that it is time to switch to optics links for all.

Monitors, TVs, NAS, especially eGPUs, because they are very noisy and have nothing to do in the living room - their place is in a subdued utility room.

Need one powerful optical link for 1Tbps+ from PC/laptops, at least. Already yesterday...

Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: buscon on February 06, 2023, 21:23:52
hi,

I got two T14s G3, both have the same specs but with two different cpus, one with i7 1260p, one with AMD 7 6850U.

I was expecting to like AMD better, but so far I was disappointed by the results. I run some informal tests:

hi,

I got the same laptop, a T14s G3, with the same specs but with two different cpus, one with i7 1260p, one with AMD 7 6850U.

I was expecting to like AMD better, but so far I was disappointed by the results. I run some informal tests:



I did not run other tests (suggestions are welcome), but based on different reviews, and especially the reviews of Notebookcheck, AMD should have performed better and save more battery.
Any possible explanation?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on February 07, 2023, 14:18:11
Lenovo officially claim about better battery time with Zen3+ in Legion 7 series vs Alder Lake H. +25-30%. With same hardware and battery, but Lenovo not tested it with 4k video, only with fhd video. AMD SoC load igpu with hardware playback of 4k video on YouTube is about 2-2.5 times higher according to my observations. Not surprisingly, the consumption is greater. But in normal tasks, AMD wins in battery life and the speed of the laptop at the same TDP is much higher. Miracles don't happen. The SoC with the best process technology outperforms the SoC with the worst.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: buscon on February 07, 2023, 15:29:44
Quote from: NikoB on February 07, 2023, 14:18:11Lenovo officially claim about better battery time with Zen3+ in Legion 7 series vs Alder Lake H. +25-30%. With same hardware and battery, but Lenovo not tested it with 4k video, only with fhd video. AMD SoC load igpu with hardware playback of 4k video on YouTube is about 2-2.5 times higher according to my observations. Not surprisingly, the consumption is greater. But in normal tasks, AMD wins in battery life and the speed of the laptop at the same TDP is much higher. Miracles don't happen. The SoC with the best process technology outperforms the SoC with the worst.

thanks for your comment.
This is why I tested it with Ableton Live, that is the software that I am going to use the most.
But even with that, there is 15% cpu difference between Intel and AMD, with Intel being the winner.
I am only suprised because all the reviews seem to say the opposite. Probably it also depends on what kind of use you do of your machine.

any idea how to test every day usage?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on February 08, 2023, 12:50:42
Quote from: buscon on February 07, 2023, 15:29:44any idea how to test every day usage?
At now usually under the "normal" use means "surfing".
Specialized software can give an advantage to a particular platform, depending on its specific load. When running from a PSU, obviously, Intel is now always faster, but at the cost of more heat and noise. Buyer choose what is more important to him..

The rise in notebook consumption to monstrous proportions clearly speaks of a real technological impasse with silicon.

They simply will no longer be able to increase speed due to the growth of TDP, which means further or a drop in speed if the authorities limit laptops in terms of consumption (and everything is going to this) or it will grow very, very slowly and only when changing radical leaps in technical processes there will be visible jumps, but each new technical process is harder and more expensive for them. The physical world imposes merciless restrictions...
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Daniele Rugginenti on May 10, 2023, 01:31:24
I bought a new one T14G2 from lenovo website, based on this article.
Just connected, still POWERED OFF, it wents to 40 celsius degrees, charging!

Contacted the support, asked for money back, sent it back after 3 hours, they answered after 10 days:
'The laptop has no problem. Can't money back because the box is not more sealed, was already opened'.

Was my dream sinnce the IBM 386sx I had in 1994 to get another one, it becames a nigthmare.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Neenyah on May 10, 2023, 02:50:43
Lol, why is 50°C a problem? That is even too cool tbh.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: RobertJasiek on May 10, 2023, 07:40:53
Quote from: Daniele Rugginenti on May 10, 2023, 01:31:24Just connected, still POWERED OFF, it wents to 40 celsius degrees, charging!

Contacted the support, asked for money back, sent it back after 3 hours, they answered after 10 days:
'The laptop has no problem. Can't money back because the box is not more sealed, was already opened'.

In which country do you live and from which country have you ordered?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Neenyah on May 10, 2023, 11:11:59
Wait, 40°C, not 50 (I was almost sleeping when I wrote my previous comment).

Ok, even more interesting - why is that a problem for a charger that's charging a yet-to-power-on laptop?

I don't get it. Normal temperature as long as the batter is below 90% (then it slows down and with that it also cools down).
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on May 19, 2023, 13:53:37
notebookchat.com/index.php?msg=535339
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Gg on September 01, 2023, 20:41:35
Psref just release t14s amd gen4, waiting for NC's review!!!
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Ed Fang on September 13, 2023, 17:44:27
Do not purchase this laptop if you want to use it with eGPU.
The USB4 port will overheat.
It works for about 10-20 mins after a while the USB4 overheats causing the eGPU to reconnect.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on September 14, 2023, 19:37:28
Quote from: Ed Fang on September 13, 2023, 17:44:27Do not purchase this laptop if you want to use it with eGPU.
The USB4 port will overheat.
It works for about 10-20 mins after a while the USB4 overheats causing the eGPU to reconnect.
Where do you get the information that this is an architectural problem for the entire series, and not a defect in your copy?
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: Bizarro_NikoB on December 23, 2023, 07:54:40
Quote from: Ed Fang on September 13, 2023, 17:44:27Do not purchase this laptop if you want to use it with eGPU.
The USB4 port will overheat.
It works for about 10-20 mins after a while the USB4 overheats causing the eGPU to reconnect.


Sounds like you have a defective product mate. I have a t14s Gen 3 AMD and run it everyday with an egpu no problem. Never disconnects or overheats. The laptop is very rock solid for me and usb4 works flawlessly for hours on end - no disconnects.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: bailtree on March 10, 2024, 04:51:45
I have tested the noise level when this laptop is running a 3DMark stress test and it reaches about 36.5dB at around 15cm.
Title: Re: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 AMD laptop review: Quiet and efficient workhorse with Ryzen power
Post by: NikoB on March 11, 2024, 16:50:19
Unfortunately, you cannot compare the results from the review with your own for a simple reason - your results were taken on different equipment and in different conditions, with another laptop copy, whose coolers may indeed be louder than others - after all, Lenovo does not officially indicate the series noise level limit, right? No formalization of test conditions - no reliable results. The results of rare copies of laptop this model provide no indication of what the next buyer will have in their hands...

Just like with HDD noise, you never know how noisy the next instance will be, because... HDD manufacturers indicate only _typical_ noise, not maximum. Do you understand the difference?

And laptop manufacturers have never even indicated typical noise under 100% load on the CPU/GPU, and even more so when only the CPU is loaded or 10-30-50-75% load of cores. They don't think it's important.

Where buyers pay very much attention to this (for example, in projector's market), the noise level is indicated. But even there, projector manufacturers lay out legal straws for themselves - they do not indicate either typical or maximum noise. Just noise. And what is it? Spherical horse in a vacuum...