Still running a P8600 in your M17?

If you are still running a P8600 in your M17 laptop, you have a serious bottleneck!!!

I recently upgraded my M17 from P8600 to T9600. I was expecting a moderate increase in gaming performance and a larger boost in processor intesive tasks such as video processing etc.

My system has 2 x 3870's CrossFire which I thought were performing at full capacity which I why I didn't expect a great performance increase in gaming - boy was I wrong!!

I ran 3Dmark05 with the P8600 in place. The first few seconds of the first benchmark test run at around 70-75fps. The final score was around 15,500. This is all at stock, no overclocking etc.

Then I swapped the P8600 for the T9600 and ran 3Dmark05 again. As soon as I hit the run benchmark button I was amazed. This time, the opening scenes were running at 90+fps. In the third test (the airship one) I actually hit over 400fps at one point! Final score, just a few points short of 19,000. Dirt 2 Benchmark at 1900x1200 with everything on highest settings possible averages 32fps. Only problem now is that, with the 3870s performing much faster, they are getting hotter - after a lot of benchmarking, they are maxing at 75 and 78 degrees - are these temps something I should worry about or are they within tolerable levels?

I had no idea the P8600 was acting as such a bottleneck. The T9600 is only 400Mhz faster than the P8600 but it also has double the L2 Cache, which I think is where the bulk of the extra power is coming from.

I bought the T9600 on ebay for a bargain price of £80. I should be able to get most of that back selling the P8600, so the upgrade cost me very little.

If you are still running your M17 with a P8600 - upgrade!

 

3DMark06 is very CPU dependant. You should run the same tests on 3DMark Vantage. That one tests the GPU's and is much less dependant on CPU.

 

Don't bother too much about the high temps in benchmarks, because I believe you play games most of the time and not benchs. Monitor temps while gaming and then see where you stand.

 

3DMark06/05 is highly CPU dependant as DR650SE states. Your actual in game performance will not be that much higher, except in those that were bottlenecked by the slower processor (which wouldn't be that many).

 

I still have a P8400...........sitting in a box in my desk!

 

LOL now that is funny.

 

Nice upgrade! One of the many reasons why I love the M17x, you can upgrade this thing like a desktop! I too have the P8600, and am happy with it so far, plays everything but plan on upgrades in the future! Did you do the upgrade yourself? Did you have to tweak any bios settings or simply swap CPUs?