e.gain adapter board There are 2 adapter boards for X230: from nitrocaster and e.gain (阿甘) Nitrocaster's adapter board allows you to install modern, 1080p eDP displays. Adapter board from e.gain also allows you to install modern screens, but this board supports 2K displays and adds mSATA slot for SSDs, that you can install under palm rest. This mSATA slot works on SATA III speed.
CPUs are soldered on and you can't replace them without BGA rework. Motherboard uses BA1023 (Ivy Bridge) CPUs. There are list of official CPUs + motherboards that was released by Lenovo:
| CPU | Cores / Threads | Frequency | Turbo frequency | L3 cache | TDP | Features | Other info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i7-3520m | 2 cores / 4 threads | 2.9 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 4 MB | 35W | AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT | Fastest stock CPU & overclockable |
| i5-3360m | 2 cores / 4 threads | 2.8 GHz | 3.5 GHz | 3 MB | 35W | AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT | Fastest i5 CPU |
| i5-3340m | 2 cores / 4 threads | 2.7 GHz | 3.4 GHz | 3 MB | 35W | AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT | - |
| i5-3320m | 2 cores / 4 threads | 2.6 GHz | 3.3 GHz | 3 MB | 35W | AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT | - |
You can desolder CPUs from motherboard and place any BA1023 (Ivy Bridge) CPU in it:
| CPU | Cores / Threads | Frequency | Turbo frequency | L3 cache | TDP | Features | Other info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i7-3615QE | 4 cores / 8 threads | ||||||
| i7-3612QE | 4 cores / 8 threads | ||||||
| i7-3540m | 2 cores / 4 threads | ||||||
| i7-3687u | 2 cores / 4 threads | ||||||
| i7-3689y | 2 cores / 4 threads |