Does Your Ex-IBM Lenovo ThinkPad Core 2 Duo T7200 Processor have only 2MB of L2 Cache instead of 4MB?
Update (4-10-2007): Check this video clip (.avi file: 12MB) out, which I took at a PC store in Taipei: A Fujitsu LifeBook s6311 running Windows Vista business edition. The device manager reports the processor is a Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 running at 2.00 GHz, but if you go to the control panel and look under system, it says it’s T5600 running at 1.83 MHz. The salesperson claimed it had a T5600 CPU. So is this a Vista bug or what?
Update (4-8-2007): I found official brochures from Fujitsu and Asus, both specify LifeBook s6311 and Asus W5Fe as having the “non-existent” T7200 L2 cache of 2MB. More typos?
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I’ve been looking to buy a 12” laptop with a track point in Taiwan where I’m taking a vacation.(Laptop makers of the world take note: there are MANY MANY MANY people desperately looking for laptops with a track point!) After a lot of browsing and comparing my only options are HP Compaq nc4400 and Lenovo ThinkPad x60. Both laptops have a configuration with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor which, according to the official specs from Intel, runs at 2GHz with 4MB of level 2 cache. After days of asking around, it became apparent that currently HP could only offer the nc4400 model with T5600, which runs at 1,83GHz and has a 2MB L2 cache. I am not a clockspeed person, but it’d be nice to have a bigger L2 cache so I turned to ThinkPad. On downloading the specs from the Taiwanese Lenovo website, I noticed the T7200 processor on x60 has only 2MB of L2 cache. Thinking it might be a typo I called Lenovo. The support person confirmed that T7200 on x60 had indeed only 2MB of L2 cache and told me there were several models of T7200. I thanked her and called Intel technical support, who explained that PC makers sometimes order processors specifically tailored for their laptops, which might be the case here. He didn’t answer my question as to whether the T7200 on ThinkPad x60 was an overclocked T5600. Two days later when I contacted Lenovo to ask them if there are ThinkPads with T7200 having 4MB of L2 cache, the lady insisted that all x60 T7200 have 4MB of L2 cache. When I told her about the official specs on the ThinkPad website and my previous conversation with Lenovo, she said she’d have a look and call me back. After a couple of hours she rang back and told me it was a typo on their specs sheet. When asked if it was possible that some earlier models might have 2MB of L2 cache, she answered that T7200 on Thinkpad x60 has always had 4MB of L2 cache. I called Intel again, twice actually, just to be sure. This time, both support persons said all T7000 series processor have 4MB of L2 cache. If it has 2MB of L2 cache, it is not from Intel, or it’s not a T7200 processor.
Irked and confused, I googled around to see if there were more T7200s with 2MB of L2 cache. Voila! Some vendors do seem to sell Acer Aspire 5630, Asus G1 that run T7200 processor with 2MB L2 cache. I then checked the Lenovo websites in China, Germany and the UK. However none of them specify the L2 cache size for their T7200. When trying to access the Lenovo website in the States , I could only make it to the “View ThinkPad Notebooks” page. Clicking the “View X Series” button I got “You are not authorized to view this page. Your request is invalid.” Interestingly, while I was still in Germany a couple of weeks ago and tried to access the ThinkPad X Series in Taiwan my requests would always time out.
So what’s going on? Either this is all just an honest mistake (typos? clueless support personnel?) or someone is lying (Intel? Laptop makers? Sellers?)
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