A performance comparison of all new ThinkPad notebooks

[Yohanes]

Still waiting for Yoga X380 PL1 and PL2.

[ayanamist]

Seems that both T480 and P52s are victims of power limit. T480 suffers from around 80℃ while P52s suffers from around 70℃ which is the lowest temperature of all laptops.
Looking very forward to these two laptops' performance after power unlocked.

[Bob]

I very much like this article.  Thinkpads routinely get rave reviews, so it's nice to see side-by-side comparisons within the family.  Also, throttling is becoming a greater issue of concern to laptop shoppers who do their research, mainly because the problem is getting highlighted by reviewers. The processor throttling issue is not new.  Most small laptops show significant throttling when matched with a core i7 processor.  It was very apparent last year as well with intel's dual-core, 7th-gen chips.  If I remember correctly, the T470s with an i5 processor, reviewed by this website, outperformed last year's thinkpad models sporting i7 processors in Cinebench.  Ultimately, a Core i7 in a Thinkpad typically means slightly reduced battery life, increased heat, longer fan noise, and an extra $200 for no significant performance gain.  It doesn't seem worth it.

[tipoo]

What are the key rollovers/KRO on each one? Aka n-key rollover? On my T470S if I type fast enough it'll miss keys if three were pressed in a too-rapid succession, which is an issue I've not had in previous macbooks/dells/everything else. Seems the n-key rollover is a cheap 2/3 on this model. What about the X1?

Google thinkpad n-key rollover for many others with this issue, I'm shocked at lack of mention in reviews.

[Milan]

Is it possible to tweak limits in BIOS of the Thinkpads (or on Linux)?

[Jon_C]

Hi, I wish to see the comparison of X1 carbon i5-8250U and the i7-8550U. As mentioned above, the i7 version is limited to the max of 29 w and the i5-8250U can only run at full capacity with 30 w. Assuming the X1 carbon i5-8250U hold the same 29/23 w setting, does it mean that X1 carbon i5-8250U and the i7-8550U model have really little difference  in most of the work situaitons?

[Jacek]

I wanted to buy the T480s with i7 processor, but now I'm wondering if it's better to buy with i5? The price doesn't matter, I care about performance, but I would like my laptop to be quiet. The laptop will be used for programming (Visual Studio, PhpStorm, huge MySQL databases, Virtual Box with Linux, etc.). What would you choose in my place?

[Miroslav]

Where can I download the log viewer you use?

[jarechu]

It will be very nice to compare X1C6 i5-8250U but specially i5-8350U (I don´t mind extra 7$ from i5-8550U for v-Pro feature). i5-8250U is not available for X1C6 with 16GB RAM, but i5-8350U is. I need a small package to run long period multithreated applications at full load (chess engines). If I can get about the same performance with an i5-8350U vs i7-8550U but with less heating an power consumption during this usage it will be worth the extra 7$. I don't think I'll notice any practical difference in single threated applications in every average use.

[IL PC user]

This is why some users are disappointed with low powered chips. In some cases I have seen users try and game or do other tasks that really require a constant performance draw from these chips and even in some cases these low powered chips simply don't have the capacity to do such demands. Either because of throttling, or because they are not designed to do so. The thinner designs have created notebooks built for low power, portability, and basic tasks. If performance is a primary need, you have to skip these lower powered chips.

[firsthuman]

Just checked my X380 with i5-8250U and it seems that the power is limited to 6.5W (way below 15W!). The package was never above 59 °C. This is massively dissappointing!

[bruhiunno]

I know this is years and years old, but my Thinkpad x380 yoga goes all the way up to 20 watts. With that being said, I found this article looking for ways to increase that XD

With a very slight undervolt and using the Yoga in "tent" configuration, it can sustain the full 20 watts with a prochot set to 93 - around 2.7GHz indefinitely, which isn't too shabby!