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    Upgrade Inspiron 1520 CPU and vid card possible?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by slikr, Feb 5, 2009.

  1. slikr

    slikr Newbie

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    Hi! My current cpu is T7100 1.8ghz and my vid card is Geforce 8600M GT 256mb will it be possible to upgrade it to T9300? or maybe a geforce 9600? Thanks.
     
  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    You cannot upgrade the graphics card.
     
  3. Apollo13

    Apollo13 100% 16:10 Screens

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    ...but you can upgrade the CPU. You can upgrade it to any CPU with an 800 MHz front-side bus and Socket P connection, which includes the T9300 and the T9500. Note that doing so will void any remaining warranty.
     
  4. slikr

    slikr Newbie

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    any site to buy the cpu and teach me how to replace the cpu on my laptop? thanks
     
  5. RacerX1

    RacerX1 Notebook Enthusiast

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  6. PhoenixFx

    PhoenixFx Notebook Virtuoso

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    If you are only considering the CPU upgrade for gaming performance, then DON’T. your gaming performance is bound by the GPU.

    You can find upgrade instructions in the service manual.
     
  7. slikr

    slikr Newbie

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    my problem is gta 4 is slow. thats why i am thinking of upgrading the cpu. should I?
     
  8. PhoenixFx

    PhoenixFx Notebook Virtuoso

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    If that is the only reason, then NO.
     
  9. paulmt123

    paulmt123 Notebook Guru

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    I have an inspiron 1520 and initially GTA4 was slow (10FPS!) but download the right drivers and you can run it at 1200x800 with most settings on low, shadows on medium and get 24FPS which is playable particularly as its much higher than that when zoomed in further, (or 30fps at 800x600).

    Download the 179.44 drivers (the 180+ series for GTA4 are awful) and modified inf file from laptopvideo2go.com
    Download riva tuner and overclock the GPU memory to 500mhz and change GPU clock to 550mhz, shader clock to 1400MHZ (yes it doesn't cause any problems doing this). If you experience art effects or
    In nvidia control panel - Set ansiotropic filtering to 16x in order for it to look good (it has very little effect on performance) and antialiasing to off or 2x with supersampling on.

    Download l8fangki and set the fan speed to maximum when playing games.
    My GPU temp peaks at 69 which isn't too bad for an 8600 and thats when laptop is on a soft surface, most of the time it peaks at mid 60's after several hours playing time. Its completely stable and looks good.

    If you don't want to overclock (dell has seriously underclocked this card compared to many other laptop vendors), then you'll still get 17FPS and it will play OK if you download the 179.44 drivers and do nothing else.

    You can play GTA4 on this card.
     
  10. Fragilexx

    Fragilexx Get'cha head in the game

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    GTA IV is a particularly bad console port; you wont get really good frame rate unless you have a really good computer, simple as. Some computers that play Crysis very well still cannot play GTA IV well.