Possible to upgrade CPU to i5 or i7?

I am assuming the Mobo holding the SU4100 and SU7100 or whatever are not the same as the Mobo for the new i5 and i7 CPU they are now offering?

If not could the Mobo be replaced with the i5/i7 board and if so any idea how much it might cost?

 

The motherboards must be different because they have different ports.

Given that the ports are different, the casing is different, so you'd need a new case also.

To get a new mobo + cpu + case probably costs as much as a whole new laptop given how much Dell (and all laptop manufacturers) mark up replacement parts. This wikipedia page lists the i7 640um at $300 itself: List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ok yeah thats what I figured well that sucks.... I have the SU4100 and while its decent it really is the bottleneck on the machine Windows Index lowest score being the processor which is 4.0 Everything else is 5.5+. Now I wish I would have waited a few more months to purcahse my M11x...You never win with Technology now a days.....


Time to convince my fiance to buy this one from me in a few months

 

Yup, the mother boards are different.

 

make her buy the R2, and she'll have a hard time with optimiziton and battery life. then you just lend her your R1 and take over her R2, now everybody will be happy. dumping trash on fiance is bad for the relationship. in addition, you can make things even more beautiful by giving her some cash or a gift card, which she didn't know she deserved in the first place.

 

She just likes the backlit keyboard etc... She could care less about the processor since she won't be doing any gaming on it anyway. I would hardly consider this trash she runs great!

 

I can confirm that you definitely can not do this... If you want the i5 or i7, you'll need to purchase an R2.


Sorry...

 

Erawneila - I have re-written this note about 5 times so it doesnt come across the wrong way.. Simply put, why did the engineers create the R2 in such a way as to not allow the early adopters the option to upgrade? I have purchased 3 AW machines so far. And I will admit, this makes me a bit mad... We have no option to upgrade MOBO and Processor. What if we wanted the I7 without the OPTIMESS graphics? I know you are only support and not R&D but please let them know that historically they have allowed the machines such as the m17 the ability to upgrade and purchase newer graphics cards and processors.

Best wishes, Stevenx

 

Well I can take a stab at that.

The R2 changes ports, so you're talking a new cpu, new motherboard, and new case.

Also, you could not have an I7 with the GPUs of the R1 because all of the Arrandale family of CPUs come with the integrated graphics processor packaged in. (I suspect that is why they dropped the VGA port--they wouldn't have dropped functionality for no reason, especially since it meant not being able to use the old cases and having to redesign a new one.)

Now throw in that the R2's TDP is almost double the R1's, meaning the cooling system must be redesigned. (Actually, I haven't compared internals of both, but I imagine that's the case given the drastic increase.)

So it is impossible to just upgrade the motherboard and cpu. Your ideal version of the R2 needs a new motherboard, new case, new cpu, a redesigned GPU system because of the change in CPU architecture, and redesigned cooling because of the additional heat. There's no way to just pop in a new motherboard and the I7 and have it work. They could have made an R2 without Optimus and with the I7, but it'd still be a whole redesign with no way for the R1 users to upgrade without buying a whole new system.

If Core I was more similar to the C2D, then it might have been possible.