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With the previously mentioned tool PCMark Vantage will the overall performance of our system be tested. The benchmark divides the result in 7 individual ones, each of which give information about the performance of a specific component. Sony VGP-BPX19

The total score is 7653 points, which overall is average. The lowest score in our benchmark was the gaming and graphics processing one. Here the device is clearly limited by the GeForce GT620M, which is positioned in the lower middle class. Sony VGP-BPS20

Responsible for the notebook's good overall score is the result of the communication's test - with 10580 points it even reaches the five digit range. During this benchmark the CPU's and the hard drive's performance are tested, thus thanks to the processor and the hard drive a correspondingly good score is achieved. VGP-BPS20/S

During our test we could work smoothly with the S430. No real stuttering or disruption were observed. With 7653 points in the PCMark Vantage our test notebook considerably outperformed its rivals. This goes not only for the afore mentioned Acer TravelMate P643 (6556 points), but also for the HP ProBook 6465b (7349 points), the Dell Vostro 3450 (6225 points) and the TimelineX 8473TG (6209 points). VGP-BPS20/B

5Windows 7 Experience IndexProcessorCalculations per second7.1Memory (RAM)Memory operations per second5.9GraphicsDesktop performance for Windows Aero5Gaming graphics3D business and gaming graphics6.5Primary hard diskDisk data transfer rate5.9 VGP-BPL20

Storage Devices
By including a 16 GB caching SSD, Lenovo tries to significantly increase the hard drive and the overall performance of the system. When looking the benchmarks it all seem work fine: With HD Tune we measured an average writing speed of 105.3 MB/s, with this reaching 137.4 MB/s at the highest point. A normal hard drive can only reach 70 or 80 MB. VGP-BPS22

The installed Hitachi Travelstar Z7K500 has a sufficient size of 500 GB. Through the USB 3.0 or the Thunderbolt this space can be further increase using a fast external drive. The 7200 rotations per minute seem to deliver a good performance in the HD Tune benchmark, but also are responsible for an increased power consumption. VGP-BPL22

The above mentioned Caching is only available through the built-in Sandisk U100 SSD. It is 16 GB large and is factory-ready for caching. It is not recognized by Windows Explorer and can thus not be used as an additional hard drive, especially since with only 16 GB it would be filled extremely quickly. VGP-BPS22A

Caching SSDs speed up above all recurring processes. The SSD's sole benchmark with HD Tune (AS SSD did not recognise the device) shows an average transfer rate of 181.3 MB/s. This speed also shows that the SSD is no longer part of the latest generation and as such ranks in at the end of our table. VGP-BPS22/A

Overall we are satisfied with Lenovo's solution: The performance and the read and write speeds were significantly and noticeably increased through the use of the Caching SSD. However, this team does not come close to the performance of a single, full-fledged SSD. PCGA-BP2T

The cheaper configuration of the reviewed notebook comes with a Nvidia Geforce GT 620M in addition to the integrated in the processor Intel HD 4000. It shows up in GPU-Z as having 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM and especially in games comes to aid of the installed Core i5-3210M. PCGA-BP3T

Nvidia Optimus is responsible for the automated graphics switching, which has so far worked without any problems. Very rarely do user need to manually choose the correct graphics card either through the Windows interface or the driver. PCGA-BP2V

While in desktop, office or sometimes multimedia use, the energy saving HD 4000 does all the graphics operations. Only by graphics demanding applications (games for example) does the dedicated GT620M get automatically activated. PCGA-BP4V

This card had, in our test unit, the old GF108 chip. Because of the older architecture (40 nm instead of 28 nm) it consumes somewhat more energy and also emits more heat. What is positive here, is that Lenovo has used the 128-bit memory bus version - otherwise the already significantly over-sized 2 GB graphic memory would have been used even worse. PCGA-BP2R

During our test, we observed a throttling of the GPU down to 475 MHz instead of the officially claimed 625 to 715 MHz. This lower clock frequency might be the result of the older manufacturing process and the corresponding increase in heat emission. PCGA-BPZ51

During our gaming benchmarks the GT620M reached temperature of 89°C, while the room temperature was only 24°C. The memory frequency seemed unaffected by the throttling and ran under full load at 900 MHz according to the specifications. Sony PCGA-BPZ51A

The situation looked differently under our stress tests with Prime95 und Furmark. While the under-load situation with the CPU remained as previously described, the clock frequency of the GPU was further throttled and fell to 237.5 MHz. Sony PCGA-BPZ52

The lowered clock frequency was also evidend in our benchmarks: In 3DMark 11 the notebook achieved only the below-average 793 points. During battery operation things did not change - at least there was no further throttling of the graphics card. Sony PCGA-BP51

Without question there are better notebooks for gaming, for example the Lenovos Y580, but for the sake of being thorough we will have a look at S430's performance in a couple of modern games. Sony PCGA-BP51A

In view of the mixed results from our graphics benchmarks we were excited about the more realistic results in the gaming field. Surprisingly we could not observe any performance drops. Sony PCGA-BP51A/L

While some older games are playable even with the HD 4000, EA's Battlefield 3 practically requires a dedicated graphics card. Although the game was playable at medium settings, but was not enjoyable, we could still play it at 27 fps on lower settings with a stomach ache. Sony PCGA-BP52

"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" proved to be a bit less demanding: we could still enjoy the opening scene at medium settings as we were being taken as prisoners through the area, but lowering the setting increased the performance from 27.1 to 36.3 fps. Sony PCGA-BP52A

Particularly interesting was the benchmark of Anno 2070, where we could compare our results with the unthrottled GT 620M, namely in Acer Aspire V5. While at lowest presets our notebook reached 55.6 fps, others could reach as high as 81 fps. The case remained the same at medium settings, even though the difference was "only" 10 frames (38 vs. 28 fps). At high settings we did not notice any noteworthy difference in the frame rate. Sony PCGA-BP52A/L

Although the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge S430 was designed as a gaming notebook, one could play some of the modern games at lower to medium settings. A prerequisite in most cases however, is that the native 1600 x 900 resolution is not used - at this point the performance of the dedicate graphics is just not enough. The performance is therefore, considering the previously mentioned throttling, at the level of the Geforce GT 540M and is clearly seen throughout. Sony PCGA-BP52AUC