Is it worth it? Gaming 5520 ICY70 upgrade.

I currently have a two year old Acer Aspire 5520-5377. It has the ICW50 mobo with the onboard 7000m video and am looking to swap it out for the ICY70 mobo and do any of the listed MXM upgrades (i.e. 8600GT, 9650, etc.)

Is it better for me to do the swap, buy a gaming version of the 5520 with a stock 8400m, or just get a used Sager or XPS or comparable gaming unit?

Initially, I was thinking of doing the swap, sell the old ICW50 and have an upgradeable 5520 gaming laptop.

I would also look into running Windows 7 Ultimate, upgrading the RAM to faster ddr2 800 ram (4Gigs+), use either an SSD drive or 250G 7200rpm unit, use an 8+ cell battery and a 90W+ charger.

Is this a good idea or should I go a different route?

Your feedback is much appreciated!

**
Dave

 

From the looks of it ICY70 is a mobo used on 17" units while ICW50 is used on 15" laptops so you can't swap them.
Also if you factor in the cost of new mobo ($200) and add an MXM upgrade you'll have spent a lot of money for what in essence is an old laptop.
It would be cheaper to sell your current laptop and spend all you have on a mid-range notebook with ATI 6550 or nVidia GT540M if you want some performance in gaming.

 

@downloads

I agree...

 

@ Downloads and Arminator.

The motherboard will actually fit. The size of the motherboard is the same so is the layout. The 17 inch notebooks had the possibility for 2HDD's which is why the case is bigger.

I had a spare 5720G motherboard laying around which is working but it had broken down during the swap with my ICW50 motherboard. My friend has an acer 7720G motherboard ( ICK70-L12 ) laying around which I bought for €15. See if that would work.

 

Thanks for the responses. I thought that doing the mobo swap would be a worthwhile venture. I estimate that I'd spend about $350+ USD on the mobo and vid card (taxes and shipping included) on parts alone only to end up with a low end gaming unit.

So the answer to my question?

No, it is NOT worth the money and time upgrading the 5520 to make it a gaming laptop. Not to mention that for the same amount that would have been spent on essentially used parts, add the cost of the 5520, I can get a used XPS, Alienware/Dell, or Acer gaming unit from my local CraigsList for around 300 to 600 bux USD.

Again, thanks for your feedback!

 

Yeah, you can get a brand new Acer 5552G for ~$570 with a dual core 3GHz AMD CPU and 6650 GPU, which will be a much much better gaming machine.