i7-3610QM - worth upgrading it?

Just installed a GTX680M to replace the 660M I had. And now wondering if the next step is to upgrade the CPU?

I know nothing about the various versions though. I know back in its day the CPU I have was considered pretty good, but nowadays I'm guessing there is a decent performance boost to be had? Thanks for any advice.

I would also perhaps like to upgrade to an SSD but the thought of installing everything again puts me off. I guess I'd consider that if I did a clean install of windows 10. Cheers

 

I can't speak for the CPU as I also want to get an answer. However, get the SSD as soon as possible, you will not believe the difference.
I installed an SSD first week after receiving my R4.
Piece of advice, wait for the final version of Windows 10.

 

I have a i7-3630QM & gtx 680m and have no problems with it, with gaming you wont see much of a performance gain, id would make sure to clean you heat skins and replace the stock thermal paste with something decent I'm a fan of gelid extreme gc-3 but there plenty of decent stuff.

the SSD would be well worth it

id wait from what people are saying windows 10 seems a bit worrying if you have a win 7 disk lying around or you can download it off there site with just your product key here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery
and install from a usb stick

Have you upgraded your GPU heat-sink to the three pipe version?

 

Interesting thing about the heat sink. It is the three pipe version, and I did think temps were perhaps a little high after some testing with various games.I'd bought some Arctic MX-4 thermal paste to use on it.

I decided to do some googlng and found another 3 pipe heat sink, but that had some extra copper sections compared to what was on mine. Plus the part that connects with the processor itself was a different shape. Hadn't seen any of that when doing my "homework".

I decided to buy one off eBay and have literally just installed it. Temps went from 74c with Train Sim 2015 (yeah I'm a geek ) down to 63c with this other heat sink. And consequently the fans are a lot quieter. I'd spoken to Dell about buying a heat sink, as I wanted to get the right one and they had assured me the M17XR4's all came with the same heatsink that was suitable.

For reference the part number on the one I have just bought is AT0MK0030F0 compared to AT0MK0020F0. Made all the difference.

Perhaps I should be looking at an SSD first then.

 

SSDs are the number one upgrade for any PC, I've put some in a basic Core 2 Duo box at like 2GHz and it makes them way snappier. As for the CPU, are you running demanding stuff that is maxing it out? If you're not using the CPU to its full potential I wouldn't upgrade it and, realistically, with a 680M the 3610QM should be more than enough for gaming.

 

HI sorry I didn't explain very well

• there is no 3 pipe heat sink for the m17x r4 cpu. I meant the GPU.
• yeah an SSD is well worth the money. just dont go for an msata as it is only an sata 2 port so you wont see the benefit (unless your just after the storage space) i have made this mistake
• its defiantly worth flashing your 680m with svl7's modified vbios i use the overclocking one with stock voltages: http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1847-nvidia-kepler-vbios-mods-overclocking-editions-modified-clocks-voltage-tweaks.html
• guide on how to: http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia-video-cards/2166-[guide]-nvidia-vbios-flashing.html

 

Yeah I got what you weere saying about the heatsink. It was the GPU one where I found there are a couple of variations of the 3 pipe one. Appreciate the responses here chaps.