Hi, want to buy some used hardware to run with Linux (Gnome DE ON Mint, Debian OR ElementaryOS). Mainly Office use, transcoding, but also for casual gaming Half-life 2 and maybe some more modern games.
Are Thinkpads with integrated GPUs sufficient for that? Any nice alternatives which are sturdy and can be upgraded?
TIA!
EDIT: thank you for all the helpful input. Will check AMD options!
Which ThinkPad? It can either run things wonderfully or not at all depending on the specs…
Stay away from the Thinkpad T580 with the Geforce MX150. It’s horribly throttled and can’t even run Quake 3 properly although it should actually be capable of running Doom 2016.
Might be the same with the T480.
Depends on the GPU and how current you want to get with the titles, but yeah, should be fine. Just search around with the specific model name to double check it’s Linux compatibility.
I’ve been enjoying my Thinkpad E16 that I got brand new from Best Buy. https://startrek.website/post/13283869
I don’t know about other games, but it wasn’t too terrible playing Civ 6.
Depends on the specs and the games. Possibly/probably.
I have an X220 with an i5-2520M, I don’t use it for gaming but I have briefly played Half-Life 2 with it and it was comfortably playable.
So I would say mid-2000s titles and before will be fine. It really depends on the age the Thinkpad you want is, and the age of the games you want to play.
AMD cpu yes, intel no. Some AMD cpus have a good enough integrated GPU for light gaming
I’ve got a 2015 T540p with integrated graphics. It’s fine for low-spec gaming. I only run Linux-native games and haven’t managed to get any Windows games running in compatibility mode yet. Here are the games that have “just worked” for me so far.
Dwarf Fortress
Cataclysm: Dark Day Ahead
Darkest Dungeon
Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2
Caves of Qud
Unity of Command
Stardew Valley
Planescape: Torment
Shovel Knight
If that’s the kind of retro gaming that floats your boat, an old Thinkpad is just fine.
I can reliably play wii on an x230. I am pretty sure you can go ahead and play unless it is ps2 or xbox og or anything newer (wii/gamecube excluded)
Modern games are not going to run well. Look for a Thinkpad with a Thunderbolt 3 port (make sure it actually has 4 PCIe lanes, some only have 2) and use an eGPU. Retro games will run fine on integrated graphics though.
Will do, thanks!
I’d say if you get a Ryzen, yeah. I have a P14s gen4 AMD that I use for my primary machine, and game on successfully. But I also have an old T14s gen1 AMD that work let me keep when I got refreshed. Right now I have Windows on it, to play some games that don’t work well in Proton, but it works fine in Linux as well.
If you can swing it, the T14s gen3 with a Ryzen 7 6850u was a truly excellent machine, it’s what I have for work right now. But we won’t see it coming off lease for another couple years, so it’s a bit early for good prices on the used market.
How’s battery life on your T14s G1? Currently looking into getting one myself, and hope for at least 8 hours on battery on Linux (no gaming, just light dev stuff with web browsing)
Honestly, I never really use it untethered enough to give you a good answer. But I can say that notebookcheck’s battery tests are pretty good, and they test enough laptops to compare well across a large number of models and generations.
I can tell E14 is not a good PC for gaming. Buy one with a good GPU
If you have good Internet then GeForce Now or maybe another game streaming service may be adequate for outlier games. I play a bunch of older games decently on my T450 with no graphics card, but if a modern game pops up I can still stream it. That way I don’t have to spend another few hundred bucks on a better laptop just for the occasional game.
Yes it’s fine stay away from the discrete gpus there’s not adequate cooling for their extended use.
I use a T440p and it works amazing for lightweight gaming (tested so far: Fallout NV, BTD6, Minecraft, and Enter the Gungeon)
