Upgrading CPU from T3200 to T5800, is it worth the effort?

I have the chance to swap my "Intel Pentium Dual Core T3200 (2.0GHz/667Mhz FSB/1MB cache)" for an "Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 (2.00GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)" basically for free(long story).
And I just wondered if the performance gain is worth the effort.
I'm assuming I'd have to do a fresh OS install afterwards, on both laptops.
Any Opinions? Thanks in advance...

 

If it is free, why not It's a good learning experience IMO. But the performance difference would pretty much be negligible (maybe max 5% dif, not really something you would notice in any sort of day-to-day activities).

 

I think the only difference is the L2 cache, 1MB in the t3200 and 2MB in the T5800.
Read this about L2 Cache
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cache.htm

I think the upgrade would give you a nice bit of more performance. And if it's free you should go for it

 

You might as well go for it.

And no, you won't have to reinstall anything for a new CPU. It's just plug and play. I swapped CPU's myself just last month.

 

Nah, i'd sell the t5800 on ebay, personally.
You're going to gain like 1-5% tops.

 

You won't notice any performance increase at all during normal usage.

 

How about instead of the T5800 I use a P8600...would that be worth the effort?

 

Sure, thats almost twice the bus speed, and .4ghz higher core speed.

 

The P8400 or P8600 would definitely be quite a step-up from the T3200. Even a T6400 or T6600 would be. They're all Penryn (45nm) processors compared to the T3200 which is based on the older Merom (65nm) architecture. The T5800 is also a Merom chip.

The T5800 and T6400 look identical on paper- 2.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2mb L2 cache, 35W TDP. But the differences between the 65nm Merom and 45nm Penryn architecture are substantial. The T6400 outperforms the T5800 by about 12% and uses 16% less energy (battery) also!

 

That's a nice upgrade, i was under the impression that transistor size didn't affect performance directly.

 

I didn't realize it until very recently. The difference between the T3200 and T4200 is almost identical to the T5800/T6400. The T4200 is even 2-3% faster than the 2.16GHz T3400.

Budget notebooks are better than ever now that even the Pentium Dual-Core is a Penryn processor! I suspect we'll see some entry-level models offering the Celeron Dual-Core T1600 and T1700, which are the only dual-core Merom models left...

 

My desktop has a wolfdale pentium dual core, went from 2.5 to 3.2 without even so much as a thousandth of a volt extra. I'm impressed. And happy, as the g31 chipset motherboard doesn't allow voltage adjustment

 

From what I've read, the desktop Pentium Dual-Core processors are the "holy grail" for overclocking!

 

Funny you should mention that as I'm also upgrading my Desktop proc for the 1st time in about 6 years.
I just ordered an "E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz" which can be OC'd past 3.2Ghz.
Was only $69 shipped from Newegg.
I'll probably do a conservative OC at 1st though. We'll see next weekend.

As far as the laptop goes, I'm getting another Studio 1537 from the Dell Outlet(used a current coupon & Free Shipping) and will swap the Proc(8600) & Blue Ray with mine & keep the Bluetooth. Then re-sell it on CL...the upgrades should only cost me around $75 or so. I was thinking of just keeping the one coming & sell mine but since it's black & the lid is a pain in the a$$ to swap I'll just keep mine.
Plus mine doesn't have the dreaded media button problem..don't want to risk the other having the problem & not be able to fix it like I did on mine.

 

Just be very, VERY careful when you're removing/reinstalling the various components! The Studio 15 tends to be rather fragile. The motherboard is more susceptible to damage than it should be. It can flex all too easily and then all hell breaks loose....

The Studio 15 has some great attributes, but I've found out the hard way (experience...ongoing) that it has some significant shortcomings, too. If Dell had only made the chassis more rigid and less prone to flex, it would have saved a lot of headaches for them as well as those of us who've had issues with it!

 

Well, after about 5 hours(I took my time) it was a success!
Not only did I up-grade the Proc. but I also swapped in a Bluetooth card, Blu-Ray player & a 1440x900 LED screen!
I was very surprised how smooth it all went & also at how much you need to remove JUST to get to the optical drive!
The processor was pretty easy as expected but to get to the optical drive I had to remove not only the bottom cover but the "Palm Rest" as well. It looked pretty grimm when it was all apart. I also managed to swap the LED Screen as well as the Blu-Ray WITHOUT removing the display assembly from the main body as it says to in the Dell Manuals. Removing the hinges, etc seemed like a HUGE pain in the a$$ so I just worked around it which ended up being no problem as long as your careful.
Kind of wished I took some pics along the way but I was too focused on not breaking something -lol!
Both laptops went back together fine & both work great...now I just need to sell the other one.
The biggest pain turned out to be getting the software that runs the Blu-Ray movies to actually update & work...that took a couple hours in itself. I had no problems burning or encoding DVD's but it just wouldn't play a Blu-Ray movie. I finally just re-installed the Media Direct software and downloaded the 4.0 patch to my hard drive & patched it from there instead of running it immediately. Either way I fianlly got it to work & the movies look really nice!
Now I need to figure out if I can get the movies to play on my 26" LCD via the HDMI from the laptop in full size instead of letter boxed on all 4 sides. When I tried it the next day the movie would not fill up the entire screen on my 26" LCD. I get the feeling it's a limitation of my on-board video card.

 

I'm glad to hear that worked out for ya. I might be buying a WUXGA 1920x1200 LCD panel pretty soon to replace my WXGA 1280x800. Good to know it can be done without completely removing the display assembly.

 

Wow I'm impressed it went so well You have some nice upgrades there