Acer 6930G upgrades worth it?

Hello,

I am considering upgrading my 6930G from a T6400 (2.0ghz 800mhz FSB 2mb L2) to a T9600 (2.8ghz 1066mhz FSB 6mb L2) and am wondering if I will see a significant change in speed in gaming and other applications. I have read in other threads on here that it is nearly impossible to overclock the T6400. I would prefer not to overclock just to make sure everything is more stable, and I don't have much experience with it.

Currently I have changed the ram to DDR2 800 from 667 and upgraded the hard drive to a Western Digital 320gb 7200rpm and put the Hitachi 320gb 5400rpm as my second hard drive. I am hesitant to get an SSD because of the huge price point still and the fact that I don't know enough about them to be confident in having one. Maybe in a year or so I will get one when they become more of the standard for laptops.

I also have the 9600m GS 512mb DDR2 graphics, but am considering getting the HD 4650 1gb DDR from mxm-upgrade.com because I don't know if the 9600m GT 512mb DDR3 will be a big enough difference. Notebookcheck.com has the 4650 rated way higher than the 9600m GT. It is rated close to the 9700m GT.

Thanks for your input.

 

Hi lewisg77, and welcome to the forums!

800 MHz core speed and a 266 MHz boost to FSB is certainly a significant change. You won't find it helping that much in gaming unless the game is particularly taxing on the CPU, but it does provide a decent uptick in general productivity, and will be a massive boost to media encoding (something I do surprisingly often). I upgraded my CPU from a T5550 at 1.83 GHz to a T8300 at 2.4, and I love it. Worth every cent of the $200 I spent.

Good pick with the WD Scorpio Black. I just purchased a 640GB Scorpio Blue to upgrade to, as I only have one hard drive slot (6920G, meh).

As for the graphics card, make sure you're comparing apples to apples. Notebookcheck averages out its benchmark results across ALL resolutions and ALL graphics card configurations - which means that the 9600M GT aggregate score includes DDR2-equipped cards, and the ATi Radeon HD 4650 seems to be mostly GDDR3 models.
In the end, the GeForce 9600M GT GDDR3 and Radeon HD 4650 DDR2 should be more or less equivalent - dig deeper into the benchmarks (especially actal game performance), and pick the one that seems best; both have been sold with the 6930G.

 

I've noticed that most games that are pretty recent out are more CPU intensive and a 2.0ghz Core 2 duo is almost becoming the minimum on 2009/2010 games. I just want my computer to last a little while longer before I have to make another big purchase. I lucked out and got my 6930g-6941 with the blu ray player for $699 last June on a one day deal from Tiger Direct, but I almost kicked myself this winter when the new i3/i5/i7 processors came out. I've read that the T9600 is on par with the lower end i3/i5 processors and want something that will be current for at least another year or so for casual gaming and multimedia use (I use my 2nd HDD for a DVR). I found a used T9600 for $225 on ebay from a person in TX. I really wanted to order from someone local in the US as opposed to getting it from Asia or Europe just because if anything goes wrong, it's easier to return locally. Also, language barriers can get in the way sometimes.

I went ahead and ordered the ATI 4650. Maybe I should have saved a little money and gotten the 9600m GT off of ebay, but I wanted to try out the ATI. I've always been partial to ATI. My first laptop (Dell 600m Pentium M 1.6) had the Radeon 9000pro 64mb and I loved it. ATI was way ahead of the game back in their 9000 series.

Is it true that 1gb of vram is better for higher resolutions? I've noticed that while using my 9600m GS with 720p or 1080p, I get some lines and flickering on the screen when watching cutscenes or playing sometimes, but at the same time I'm getting 35+ fps which is weird. It's happened both on my laptop monitor and using an hdmi 24" 1080p. Any ideas?

 

Then go for the CPU upgrade! All up to you.

I've heard that 1GB of VRAM is better, but most modern graphics cards can grab main memory if they ever need more than their discrete allotment.

 

Just to update you, I performed the CPU upgrade to the t9600 today. Got it used for about $150 less than any other sellers on ebay. It works amazing! My windows experience rating went up from 5.5 to 6.4 on both my CPU and Memory ratings. I also decided to go with an SSD that should be here tomorrow. I'm getting the Intel x25-m 80gig. I was going to go with an OCZ agility 64gig, but I would like to have a little more storage on my primary drive for games and programs besides windows 7. My hd 4650 should be here next week. I will let you all know how high my windows rating goes after each upgrade.

 

WHOA. You are going to have one killer machine when you're done.
However, just for fun, compare the cost of all these upgrades to a new system - the two might be very competitive.

 

I already figured that out, and the cost of all of it put together is about 600, and I'm not going to find a laptop with a blu ray player and an SSD for that much. I really love my computer because of it being somewhat portable and still being able to have two hard drives. I won't want to change probably for another three years after all these upgrades. I'm getting married in July and this is kind of my one last hoorah before I have to grow up, haha. I probably won't be doing much gaming unless my wife isn't around, haha. She thinks gaming is retarded, even though she'll sit for hours on end watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model and think that's a totally justifiable form of entertainment, lol.

 

Aw darn it, now I need to bring my machine up to pace with yours.

 

Darn it lewisg77, now you've started an arms race!

 

Umm, Echoshade has better specs than me, except for the ssd....I thought about getting the T9900, but just didn't want to spend that much. For what I use it for, I'm not gonna see much difference between 2.8 and 3.06. Do you guys overclock? Is it safe to overclock on acers when the bios are locked? I heard it's not that good for it when it's just thru software.

 

You can't overclock the CPU on the 6930G. It's not possible since there never was any software developed for the pll the thing has.

 

So I got my SSD and HD 4650 in the mail on Thursday and installed them on Friday because of being busy with school and the fiancée. Been hanging out with her all weekend, so I haven't been able to update you guys on the progress.

OMG, what a change it is to have an SSD....but you guys probably know about it since you do a lot of reading on here.

So the HD 4650 is a big step up from my 9600m GS. I should have checked my 3dmark before the upgrades and then after, but I was too excited to install them and didn't think about it. So in 3dmark05, it scored 10653 and 06 it scored 5583. That's without any overclocking. In RE5, I was able to play DX9 with all settings on high and aa 2x at 720p with ~30fps. Once I overclocked it about an hour ago and found a stable speed at 650/600, I got around 50fps with the same settings and was able to even do 8x aa with around 40fps. So then I tried the DX10 version and was able to do all settings high with no aa at 30fps. I still think the DX10 version looks better even without the aa just because of all the lighting effects. The only other game I've been playing lately is Dirt 2, and that saw a huge boost over the 9600m also, but I haven't been able to get exact benchmarks yet.

I've noticed the GPU does run a little hotter than the nvidia, but it could also be that it's right next to the T9600 which should run a little hotter than the T6400 just because of frequency. Under full load, the GPU gets to around 90. I don't know if that's normal or not for the 6930. I put a lot of arctic silver 5 on it, but maybe I should have used a thermal pad instead?

On top of being way way faster than before, and windows not taking a minute to boot up, and the huge graphics gain, I really didn't expect to get a lot more battery life out of it. Under normal browsing and word processing use with it in powersaver mode, I got another 45 mins of worktime, and probably closer to an hour if I turn off wifi. The SSD saves so much power, even though I still have the 7200rpm in the other slot, but since it's the secondary drive, it's not always spinning. And the other thing is that the T9600 downclocks itself so well, that it goes down to 800mhz when idling in powersaver mode, and is still very useable for normal tasks. I was debating buying a netbook because with two spinners in this and the old processor, I was lucky to get 2hrs of life, but now i get closer to 3 or 3.5. Anyway, it's like a whole new computer, and I'm very very happy with all the upgrades. If it wasn't for this forum, I wouldn't have known how to install the processor myself.

I will run 3dmark again with the overclocking and see how much higher it goes. I have a feeling I gained at least 1000 considering it went up 20-30 fps.

 

Well done with the upgrades, lewisg77!
90 at full load is a bit hot. Keep in mind that Arctic Silver 5 actually loses effectiveness the more you slather on. A thermal pad might be a good idea - get in touch with the folks at MXM-Upgrade.com, perhaps, they've got a good supply.

 

So I'm trying to fix the overheating issue. I tried a thermal pad I got on ebay, but I think it was too thick, so it was still in the 90s under full load. Then I tried using less arctic silver, and it actually went up higher to around 100. Maybe it's a driver issue? What's bad is this is happening with it being on my laptop cooling pad too. Do ATI cards usually run hotter than nvidia?

 

Ok I think I fixed it. I stole some thermal pads off of the memory on my 9600m GS and put them on the memory and GPU on the 4650 and now it averages 70 degrees under full load, and when overclocked, it only gets up to 75 degrees. That's much better than 100! The funny thing is that my Cooler Master laptop pad only lowers the GPU temp by 3 or 4 degrees.

Ok, here's the best part!
3dmark05 before overlock: 10653
After overclock: 12649
Gained: 1996

3dmark06 before overclock: 5583
After overclock: 6546
Gained: 963

So now that it's not overheating, I'm super happy with this...

Do you guys know if there's a different overclocking program besides GPU Tool that overclocks ATI cards? The GPU tool I use won't let me overclock the shader speed. Is that normal?

 

That's because unlike Nvidia GPUs, ATi GPUs don't have different clocks for the core and shaders. Hence, you can't overclock the shaders separately.

 

The overheating problem is kind of universal with the ATI cards people have upgraded to. Mine started out at 93C till I got it down to 83C. Without a copper shim, it would overheat to the point where I couldn't install drivers.

 

Yeah I read your thread about you upgrading. Could it just be that MSI has a better cooling system for that card? What temp is too hot to be running at for a GPU? Is around 75 degrees ok? Mine starts out in the 50s now, since i fixed the thermal pads. Have you overclocked your 4670 at all?

 

Idling in 50s and mid-70s at full is more or less perfect.
Start worrying when you're in the mid-to-high 80s at full tilt.

 

The MSI cooling system is kind of wimpy compared to the 6930G but it continually runs rather than the Acer which only runs when it has to and the heatsink is connected as one piece rather than the two pieces and fan that the 6930G uses and the pressure is much greater on the MSI to the point where incorrect thickness thermal pads can probably break the pins. If I run something CPU intensive, then the GPU temps can go down to even 38C depending on ambient temps on the 6930G.

And it seems that everyone wants me to OC my card.... I really doubt I can break Interns' score. I only get 7900 on stock with trial default settings on 3DMark06.