T430s Questions

[xXATHERIALXx]

So I'm considering buying a Lenovo T430s and i had a few questions i couldn't quite find answers for. 

The T430s I found is equipped with a I5 3320m and NVS 5200m graphics.

Question 1. I've read the GPU suffers from thermal throttling to the point were Intel HD is faster, is that true? and if so would replacing Thermal paste/Pads fix this or would even adding a copper shim help?

Question 2. still related to heat while gaming I've also seen some people saying the machine gets physically uncomfortable from heat, is it actually that bad for heating?

Question 3. my current laptop (HP 9470m) turns the fans off completely while idle, does the Thinkpad turn fans off at idle and if not how load are the fans?

Question 4. While Gaming how loud will the fans be?

Question 5. How good is battery life? I would be purchasing a new lenovo battery. how long would i get just doing word docs with a new battery? and how long would i get gaming? Would it be worth getting the ultra bay batter?

Any help would be appreciated 

[Gung Pow Chicken]

Current T430 owner and let me start  by saying these things are beat! They can be easily configured with either an i7-3840QM or i7-3940XM which are both super powerful CPUs and up until 9th gen there was hardly a 8% performance increase. They can also use either the stock panel or a 1600x900 pane. Neither are bad IMO, but if your lucky you could find the 1080p conversion kit. If you get either of those CPUs you will also have to upgrade the HFS which will include the GPUs cooling which helps reduce throttling. I've gamed on my T430 plenty of times, D3, Borderlands, TF2, Bioshock 1,2,3 and BLOPZ2. They can also be configured with 3 storage drives although one is mSATAand runs at SATA2 but I use mine as the boot drive and haven't had a single issue. With the 9 cell I would get between 5-7 hours medium load.