The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    m17x R3 upgrade options

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by battousai386, Nov 21, 2013.

  1. battousai386

    battousai386 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    6
    My Alienware specs are:

    Alienware m17x R3
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
    Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00Ghz
    4GB RAM
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M


    My laptop is mainly used for a variety of Adobe programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). It locks up quite a bit when trying to run both Photoshop and Illustrator simultaneously, and it takes forever to start up and load programs. I've already decided to upgrade my RAM to 16GB. I'm just wondering if I should upgrade my CPU as well, and if so what are my options?

    Thanks!
     
    battousai386, Nov 21, 2013
    #1
  2. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

    Reputations:
    5,413
    Messages:
    10,711
    Likes Received:
    1,204
    Trophy Points:
    581
    Any Sandy Bridge CPU up to 2940XM will work.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Nov 21, 2013
    #2
  3. juliant

    juliant Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    1,015
    Messages:
    1,409
    Likes Received:
    27
    Trophy Points:
    66
    Basically the main problem of yours is the hard drive. You should first think on upgrading your hard drive to a solid state drive. And then you will not have to wait for the programs to open and start; its a difference like day and night... And then yes, upgrade your CPU, memory, graphic card etc. etc. but the question is, how much are you going to spend in upgrading all those parts. Is that a good solution or selling it and buying a new one is a better option?!

    Think very well what you want to do, as you may end up spending more in upgrading it and in the end you will realize that was better if you got a newer system... Just my 2 cents opinion :)
     
    juliant, Nov 21, 2013
    #3