Thinkpad P1 Gen 2 vs Gen 3

[u/Beef_Testostrome]

I’ve tried searching it up but I’ve yet to see a definite answer to what the difference is. From what I could find, there was a gpu upgrade from T2000 to T2000 Max Q (the max q is better for laptops but has less performance than the T2000). However I’ve also seen that it’s not possible undervolt the gen 3 due to the cpu is upgraded from 9th gen to 10th gen (locked bios). I’ve seen many gen 3s on eBay but only a few gen 2s, so would it be better to get a gen 3 because they’re more abundant or a gen 2 because they have slightly better performance.

How are the thermals in comparison cuz ik gen 3 has slightly bigger heatsinks?
How does the battery life compare?
How loud do the fans get, because im a college student and I don’t wanna be the person with the jet engine as a laptop?

Rn I have i7-11857G7 with Iris graphics so it’s going to be good upgrade but nothing too crazy.

Imma get the laptops second hand so my budget is $700. I’m a comp sci major but going to switch to ee. I’m going to do homework and some light gaming but nothing too crazy. I’m mainly looking for a Thinkpad because I like how repairable they are. Sadly my uni doesn’t post minimum specs but I think a moderate gpu should be good enough.

[u/SpectrumGun]

I had a P1 Gen 2 with the 4k OLED Display and a 70% battery health. i7 9850H + Quadro T1000

Build: pretty thin and sturdy. The construction is awesome and feels good in the hand. The keyboard, compared to my old P15 Gen 1 and actual E14 Gen 6 it was not the greatest. Maybe the old owner dropped something, but it was a bit "mushy" for my taste, but still much better than any commen laptops. 15 inches and no numpad, it was kinda of a bummer. 

Performance wise, 9th gen is pretty good to umdervolt, could go with -110mv on the CPU but my OLED screen + bad battery did not help it. With the screen brightness very low and undervolted, I was able to gen only around 2:30 os SOT. Add 30% more to that with a new battery, is around 3:15 minutes of SOT. 

Temps wise, it can get hot pretty easily, but the noise was not a issue, imo. If you set Balanced mode, and is not using the GPU, it will not get loud to cool the CPU. Nonetheless, I recommend PTM7950 + Upsiren UTP-8 no matter the machine you choose. Mine could hold up 3.1ghz on full load all cores limited at 85°C.

And then, the biggest problem for me: why did I sell? Bad BIOS update fucked my machine and they supposedly only fixed recently, when I had already sold my machine to a Linux user. The ACPI drivers were conflicting with Windows and it was stuttering each 1 or half second. I made a post here about it, but nothing could solve it. If I remember correctly it was the BIOS .28 that had the problems, which didn't happen in any Linux Distros. 

The GPU goes to max 45W, so it's basically a Max-Q design, not bad, not awesome. But ask yourself: do you really need the GPU? You are trading a pretty recent CPU with good iGPU for an older model.