Laptop Upgrade Opinions

[IInuyasha74]

Hello Everyone,

I am considering to upgrade my Samsung laptop CPU. I've only had it for about 3 months now and so far it has been a decent little system.

CPU: i5-3210M 2.5Ghz
GPU: Nvidia GT 620M 1GB
HDD: Upgraded from 1TB 5,400RPM drive with 8MB cache to a Seagate 5,400 RPM SSHD 1TB/8GB SSD/64MB cache
RAM: Upgraded from 6GB 11-11-11-28-2T 1600Mhz 1.5v to 8GB 9-9-9-24-1T 1333 1.5v. Soon I am getting G.Skill 8GB 9-9-9-24-1T 1600MHz 1.35v RAM instead

So here are the things I am thinking about doing to the laptop. I originally got it for $350 which I thought was a really good deal for it. I had wanted a bigger system but didn't have a lot of cache available and have since came into some unexpected money that has allowed for some upgrades. There were two big areas with this system I wasn't completely satisfied with. First, the general performance. At times on webpages there would be some minor lag and the system might even freeze for a few seconds while loading, I have attributed this to the HDD, or at least a bad installation of Windows. Second is graphics performance because of the graphics only being 64-bit as opposed to 128-bit.

What I am considering now is CPU and a change of RAM. I don't expect the same performance as I have with my i7-3770k, but it still feels a little less snappy than I would like. Do you think the CPU upgrade would fix this?

Would the CPU upgrade help gaming performance much? I will either upgrade to an i5 2.8Ghz Ivy Bridge, or a quad core i7 2.3Ghz Ivy Bridge. I'm not sure which.

As to which CPU, if I should upgrade which would you advise? I can actually get the i7 for cheaper, but because of the lower clock speed I am not sure it will help my general performance. I am also concerned about the higher TDP. Would it be a big help in gaming?

The RAM I ordered I believe to be lost in mail, because its late so I will be contacting Newegg about it. I am considering to ask for store credit towards purchasing a 16GB kit with the same other specs but not sure if its worth the extra cash either.

Thanks for any incites.

 

[airplanegeek]

ummm, i dont think you will be able to take the cpu out of the laptop. and besides that your power supply and mobo might not be able to handle the power requirements. the graphics card is weak anyways and a 64bit or 128bit memory bus wont make a big difference. you also have to make sure that your system can handle 1600MHz, if not it will default down to 1333. im also pretty sure that it is not a bad installation of windows

 

[IInuyasha74]

ummm, i dont think you will be able to take the cpu out of the laptop. and besides that your power supply and mobo might not be able to handle the power requirements. the graphics card is weak anyways and a 64bit or 128bit memory bus wont make a big difference. you also have to make sure that your system can handle 1600MHz, if not it will default down to 1333. im also pretty sure that it is not a bad installation of windows

Yes the CPU is removable. Its on a G2 socket. Also I've already checked and seen that the laptop sells in various different models with different RAM, HDD, and GPU settings. I haven't seen one with this exact i7, but I have seen another with an i7 so it should be able to handle it. Good ideas though.

The GPU is a little weak but not super weak. With the 64-bit bus I can play all games on low settings if nothing else. I can play Bioshock Infinity on Medium settings, well mostly. This chipset is the equal of the Nvidia 540M, and desktop 430, and 620 with only a slightly lower clock. Its not the best for gaming, but they have used them with 128-bit bus and they get much better performance.

It came originally with 1600Mhz so I am not too worried about that. I'm more worried if I try to go for 16GB though. Its only rated for 8GB, but the CPU which has the memory controller is rated up to 32GB so I am not sure if I should risk it.

Yea I am not really sure if it was Windows either. I had some malware issues with it, but I fixed those and it still did it. The old HDD is just way slow.

Thanks for your post, you brought up a lot of the big issues that can go wrong with doing upgrades on a laptop. I have already looked at them, but I didn't mention, so its best to get it out of the way now.

Oh and one more thing, this is mostly a school computer. I play games on it at times, and I will be leaving the country for a month soon and will be only gaming on this system while gone. I have been breaking it in with some games to make sure I don't need to change anything with this in mind. I know the GPU is a little weak, and cannot be changed but I am seeking any means that can booster its performance by even a few FPS.

 

[airplanegeek]

the cpu might be soldered on, and actually the 540M is more like the 630M then the 620M. what you can do to boost a bit of fps is to overclock the gpu, it isn't hard, just make sure its stable and doesnt overheat

 

[IInuyasha74]

the cpu might be soldered on, and actually the 540M is more like the 630M then the 620M. what you can do to boost a bit of fps is to overclock the gpu, it isn't hard, just make sure its stable and doesnt overheat

Its not. I have already had it apart once because I wanted to change the thermal paste, which helped quite a bit.

As for the GPU.
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-620M.72198.0.html
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-630M.63761.0.html
It is either the exact same chip as the 540M with the same shader count with a 7% lower clock, or its a die shrink optimized core with the same number of shaders, minor architecture enhancements, and lower power draw. In this case I have the more energy efficient model. The only differences is that some companies choose to only put a single 64-bit memory interface as opposed to putting two of them. Nvidia has used this chip in numerous chipsets since they first made it. It was originally an Nvidia GT 430. Anyways, with the 128-bit version its almost identical to the 540M and 630M.

Can't overclock. I'm not stranger to overclocking, but Nvidia locks their mobile cores so that you cannot change their core speed. Only by risky bios hacks can you get it to change and its not worth it. I did overclock the vRAM slightly, but that started to cause problems, very very bad problems so I undid it.

 

[airplanegeek]

really? on my 540M i overclocked without any problems
and for your cpu upgrade just make sure your power supply is enough to handle it my i5-2430M and 540M needs a 90w adapter. an i7 would need 130w or more

 

[IInuyasha74]

really? on my 540M i overclocked without any problems
and for your cpu upgrade just make sure your power supply is enough to handle it my i5-2430M and 540M needs a 90w adapter. an i7 would need 130w or more

Really? Thats interesting. Must be your manufacturer.
I'm not able to adjust my 620 at all in terms of core clock. Technically it should turbo up to I think 715 but it never seems to, even after I changed the thermal paste and it dropped 10C in heat at full load. I searched around for overclock it and special bios, because I think my bios is flawed causing it to never turbo. I couldn't find anything for special BIOS, but I found lots of people who couldn't overclock their Nvidia GPUs. Found some programs that hacked the bios to let you overclock them, but they were mostly for higher end solutions.

Thanks for the tip, I will double check with the power supply encase they changed something. Our mobile CPUs are failure similar, (actually our whole sytem seems to be fairly similar with your GPU having an edge and my CPU having a smaller edge), if you could upgrade CPUs do you think you would?

I have an i5 I am looking at if not the i7 which is faster so I may go for it if nothing else.

 

[airplanegeek]

i reapplied thermal paste also and im going to take apart my dads old laptop which has an i7-2620QM but no gpu and im going to see if i can possibly change it.

 

[IInuyasha74]

i reapplied thermal paste also and im going to take apart my dads old laptop which has an i7-2620QM but no gpu and im going to see if i can possibly change it.

I'd take that as a yes haha. Well good luck with changing yours. Let me know how it goes because I am still a little on the fence if I want to do mine or not. Not sure its worth the cost.

 

[airplanegeek]

So i changed the cpu today and it actually worked. i5-2430M to the i7-2620M. because that particular i7 was not quad core my TDP didn't change, still at 35w. The clock speed is higher by .3GHz and my fan seems to run louder

 

[IInuyasha74]

I see well thanks for letting me know. That gives me better hopes for my system. I was pretty sure I could do the faster i5 before, now I am sure because its just a faster dual core.

Ivy Bridge is more energy efficient but I am still not sure with it. Owell, I think I might just give my system a year to sit and use before upgrading. The CPU I have I cannot sell for much, and really the graphics processor I have in it doesn't justify an i7

 

[airplanegeek]

oh and another thing, when i tried to put the i5 in the laptop that had the i7 it wouldn't even boot to bios. im not sure if its because i forgot to plug in a cable or because its not compatible

 

[IInuyasha74]

Hmm interesting. Owell, I am just going to try for the i5 I think anyways. I am trying to negotiate a deal with a guy for an i5-3360M which is 2.8Ghz normally, 3.3Ghz dual core turbo, 3.5Ghz single core turbo. According to notebookcheck thats about an 18% performance boost so I will be happy with it. Trying the i7 is a little too risky for me I think.

 

[airplanegeek]

well good luck! and best answer please?

 

[IInuyasha74]

He wouldn't go for it, but owell, I'll just put in the new RAM when it gets here and maybe turn off some senseless extras and make the best of it.
Thanks for chatting