Hello Ulrich,

I use my RME equipment (Madiface etc...) in combination with a Lenovo T520 with on-board graphics (HD3000 if I remember correctly, which is an earlier revision, as it is the previous model). This setup works very well, and the fan noise is extremely low. There were some complaints early on about the fan noise but apparently the fan behavior was changed via a bios update. I have found the fan noise to be extremely low and unobtrusive, only starting up during heavy use, and it only lasts for a little while to remove excess heat buildup, before shutting down again pretty quickly. Another way to reduce noise may be to adopt SSDs rather than mechanical drives.

As regards the video cards/drivers, some users have experienced issues with the discrete graphics drivers causing occasional DPC spikes and the potential for audio dropouts, but I have no direct experience with this. I find the Intel graphics drivers robust and problem free. I think a discrete graphics setup is completely over the top for an audio production/music recording laptop, as this graphics capacity is never utilized and potentially creates more problems and heat than is necessary for audio work. (Unless you also want to use this laptop for gaming! or video work).

Another great benefit with these newer Lenovo laptops is the combined WWAN/mSata port under the keyboard. I use a 128GB mSata drive as my os/boot drive, keeping the original 350GB HDD to store data, and have also replaced the optical drive with another drive bay. This allows for a very quiet, 3 drive setup. (If you really want blistering speed, you could also replace the original mechanical HDD for an SDD). This would result in an mSata os/boot drive and 2 more high capacity SSDs, all residing in the one laptop. This is an amazingly flexible setup, and all of these devices can run at SataIII speeds (6GB/s) if your drives are rated at this speed.

I purchased my laptop quite cheaply 2nd hand, so I could not specify a graphics card, however I would try to make sure your screen resolution is higher than the minimum 1366x768. My setup uses this lowly resolution spec which makes it a pain to use with many audio programs (and Totalmix!). Avoid this and make sure to get a high resolution screen regardless of whether you use the inbuilt Intel graphics or a discrete card. Also, you might want to look at the W530 model, as I believe this may have more RAM slots than the T models. (This was the case with the previous generation T520/W520 models.)

Hope this info helps.

Cheers,
George