Buying decision: ThinkPad T14 gen1 (AMD) or ThinkPad T15p gen 1 (Intel)

MarkYork · July 1, 2021

Ok, so this is the deal. I bought a ThinkPad T14 gen 1 with an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U back in November of 2020. When I made the purchase the setup made sense for my workflow: I eventually run virtualized operating systems, compile code, a bunch of web browser tabs, sometimes video encoding. The core count is ideal for me. It came with 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB Samsung NVME drive. I changed the NVME drive with a 1TB Samsung 970 Pro drive and added a 32 GB 3200 MT/s RAM stick. I was very happy for awhile, until I started having problems, first with the display, then there was a keyboard issue, then a motherboard problem, then speakers stopped working and now one of the USB ports is failing. Fortunately I payed for the most complete warranty available for this unit, which covered the replacement of all failing parts. Since I had a lot of problems, I claimed for a unit replacement, but there is a severe scarcity of units; there are no other T14 available units, so they are offering me a ThinkPad T15p gen 1 with an Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores, 12 threads), a GeForce GTX 1050 with 3 GB or VRAM, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB NVME disk, or the possibility of replacing all failing parts until my unit is completely fixed. I know they are completly different types of devices, and I really really like the size and portability of the T14, but I am tempted with the extra GPU power of the other unit. I’ve read the review in notebookcheck.com for the T15p and they say that the casing feels cheap compared to other ThinkPads (which, presumably, they are referring to the T14). So I don’t know if it would be better for me to keep my unit and accept the parts replacement instead of moving to the bulkier and noisier T15p. I am worried that the quality of this unit is not as “good” as my current T14.

I appeal to the community knowledge and thoughts about what it would be better for me.

I’m looking forward to reading your opinions.

Best regards,

Mark

MarkYork · July 1, 2021

There is one more thing that I am starting to consider as well: thermal throttling. The T14 unit I have will thermal throttle after just a few second of Pirme95 stress test on all cores to a low core speed: 2.6 GHz. Given that the T15p has a thicker casing, will the core i7 be able to stretch it's leg and use more power?