Has AMD made every ThinkPad before 2017 obsolete?

[User32]

I asked some sellers on my local marketplace what they could give me for my P50 when I trade it in for another laptop, and the highest offer I got was €400 with the dock and two chargers.

Surely a high end P50 (6820HQ/M2000M/32GB RAM) is worth more than that? Ryzen effect in action? Kinda pisses me off that a laptop I paid quite a bit of money for 2 years ago is now completely worthless.

 

[iYassin]

In my experience, trade-in offers are barely ever worth it considering what you can get when you sell it yourself. Same holds true for these trade-in portals such as Rebuy, Flip4New and so on. The advantage (thus, what you "pay" for) is that you don't have to deal with anything anymore.

In this forum we don't discuss what a certain used machine is worth (since you have to list a price for every offer in the marketplace). But certainly your machine is worth way more than 400€.

 

[tapf!]

I don't think that Ryzen is the reason behind that, more like that its a 2015 model and thus resellers aren't so interested anymore.

If you look at P50 that sold on ebay, you likely will be able to sell it for 500-600 EUR: https://www.ebay.nl/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=ThinkPad+P50&_sacat=0

Greetings,

Fabian

 

[ThinkX]

My suggestion: Offer it here in the forums for the price you would like to get and see how it goes.

 

[Da_Andy]

Well, that is the way how it works. Many of us don't buy new machines for this reason anymore. You lose too much in a short period of time but for older machines the price is kind of stable even it's bad at the moment for buyers. I'm following a little bit the prices on eBay, there are too many ppl who are willing to pay for a broken machine almost a price for a working one before the corona-crisis hit us. It's crazy to see it but I'm not so surprised at all.

And also consider that your local market seller will sell your device for a higher price. If they gonna give you 400 they will for sure ask for 600 but they have also the risk with a seller warranty. Not sure if it's same in Holland but in Germany they have to give a limited warranty of 12 months to the new buyer.

 

[ThinkX]

@Da_Andy: This warranty is demanded by the EU, thus, I have no doubt our friends in the Netherlands have to play by the same rules.

 

[ibmthink]

It is not just Ryzen, it is also the fact that Intel's ULV CPUs are Quad-Core since 2018 as well. In terms of performance, almost all the older models are obsolete. Workstations like P50 and P51 are not obsolete yet – but their CPU performance is also nothing special anymore. In the past, you had to buy these if you wanted a great CPU performance. That factor is gone, so they certainly lost value.

 

[iYassin]

It is not just Ryzen, it is also the fact that Intel's ULV CPUs are Quad-Core since 2018 as well. In terms of performance, almost all the older models are obsolete.

If you're looking into short load periods like Photoshop filters, that's true for sure, but ULV CPUs are usually found in Ultrabook type devices and thus not sufficiently cooled if you have Workstation-type long-term load. If you render a 30 minute 4K video on a P50 or a P51 versus a current gen X1 Carbon, the P series will still clearly win.

 

[ibmthink]

The problem is that while they are faster under load, the difference is small enough to still devalue them. Cause if you really need maximum load performance, newer models like P52 and P53 with their hexa-core CPUs are better. And if you just need good everyday performance, a thinner, lighter ultrabook is much more attractive. P50 and P51 kinda fall in an awkward middle area between both.

Even the load advantage is disappearing, as hexa-core and octa-core CPUs are starting to appear in ultrabooks.

 

[iYassin]

That's true, if you have the money, you rather go for a P53 directly since they made the jump to 6-core.
Regarding Ultrabooks, I would really like to see a X1 Yoga with a 6-core CPU capable of not throttling down on >10 min full load (and also packing a >75% Adobe RGB screen) to replace my quite heavy T470p at some point, but I think that will probably still need a few iterations we're definitely on the right way though.

 

[User32]

That's true, if you have the money, you rather go for a P53 directly since they made the jump to 6-core.
Regarding Ultrabooks, I would really like to see a X1 Yoga with a 6-core CPU capable of not throttling down on >10 min full load (and also packing a >75% Adobe RGB screen) to replace my quite heavy T470p at some point, but I think that will probably still need a few iterations we're definitely on the right way though.

X1Y with a ULV hexacore is going to be hard, physics will get in the way. Unless Intel or AMD somehow find a way to break the laws of physics (or find a ground breaking way to make transistors/CPUs) it's going to be hard to stuff 6 cores at any sane clock speed at ~15W TDP in such a thin chassis, and having no throttling too.

 

[ibmthink]

The X1 Yoga Gen 5 has already been announced with the Core i7-10710U. With six cores, it should be able to beat the T470p, P51 or P50 easily. Even if the clock-rates are lower, the extra cores just make it faster.

Just look at this Cinebench comparison:


The i7-10710U in the XPS 13 does have some major ups and downs in its performance level, but overall, it is faster on average than the four core Xeon in the ThinkPad P51 and the 7700HQ in the T470p, even in long-term load.

and having no throttling too.

It doesn't matter if there is throttling or not – the only thing that matters is the performance you get out of the CPU.

 

[User32]

The X1 Yoga Gen 5 has already been announced with the Core i7-10710U. With six cores, it should be able to beat the T470p, P51 or P50 easily. Even if the clock-rates are lower, the extra cores just make it faster.

Just look at this Cinebench comparison:
Anhang anzeigen 153803

The i7-10710U in the XPS 13 does have some major ups and downs in its performance level, but overall, it is faster on average than the four core Xeon in the ThinkPad P51 and the 7700HQ in the T470p, even in long-term load.


It doesn't matter if there is throttling or not – the only thing that matters is the performance you get out of the CPU.

>that jojoing score of that XPS

LOL, and you're saying thermal throttling isn't a issue as long performance is good. I hate to give props to the anti-BGA people on NBR but they're onto something with their socketed gaming notebooks and supposedly better cooling. Cool that it's faster than a Kaby Lake Xeon/i7, but what's the point if I get ridiculously inconsistent performance? I'll take consistent performance above a bouncy ball of a system any day.

Oh, and i'm done with Intel and their hot as hell CPUs for now. Whoever brings out a machine with a octacore CPU, good cooling and a (i)GPU that supports AV1 decode gets my money. Good keyboard would be a nice plus too.

@topic: So it's a combination of the Ryzen Effect and Intel giving ULV CPUs 50 to 75% more cores. Got it.