How to max out my p-7805u

Hey,

I own a P-7805u and am looking to upgrade it to its fullest potential. I use a bunch of 3d software, do image rendering, a bit of gaming, and what not. I need a laptop, and don't really have the extra money to build a separate desktop as well. I was looking at the Intel Core 2 Duo T9900 for the processor and CORSAIR 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 for the memory. My laptop is mostly stationary, and Ive got it set up with some good air flow to keep it cool. What would be my best option for maxing this thing out. I don't want to spend more than 1k upgrading it.

On a side note, shortly after I bought this thing, it started doing this thing where after I shut it down, it will turn itself back on immediately or sometimes up to a minute later. What could cause this and how can I fix it? Also, has anyone had any trouble playing SC2 on this thing? Thanks guys, I'm looking forward to you replies.

 

I can help you out with the SC2 part, on ultra its pretty laggy, playable, but, I'd rather have high FPS, and on medium-high it runs perfectly fine, quite smooth. This is on a stock P-7805u at 1920x1200 resolution.

 

I don't recommend upgrading to 8GB of memory unless you do strange stuff and are certain that the 4GB you have now is being used up. BTW the E0 Core 2 Duo x9100 (QHBT) beats the T9900 as long as you overclock it.

I play SC2 on max settings fine on 1440x900 and with a slight GPU overclock.

I forgot to mention that for most people the best upgrade is getting a solid-state drive.

 

^^Truth. I cannot watch a YT video and download/upload a torrent at the same time.

 

Well currently when I start rendering a high resolution picture, the cpu tops out at 100% and the Memory usage is at 2.75gb. Would the Memory usage increase with more processing power? Should I just wait to test the memory usage once Ive got the new processor?

 

And whats the deal with a SSD? Are there any drawbacks, or problems I should know about with one? And which SSD would you guys suggest?

 

For $1000 sell your 7805u and put that money towards a new laptop. There's tons of options for $1200-$1500. You can get a refurb Asus G73JH for $1049 from Best Buy and it's probably actually better refurb because initial machines had some issues that would be fixed in these machines.

 

Is the processor on the Asus G73JH Faster without overclocking? And if I wanted to upgrade the processor in it, what would be the best one on the market that I could fit into that machine? And is the GPU removable?

 

He is right in that spending $1000 on the P-7805u would be a waste of money. However, now isn't a good time to buy new unless you can get a good deal for your 7805u because honestly the Mobility Radeon 5870 is only around 40% more powerful than the 9800M GTS and a hard drive laptop is going to run Windows just as slow as our laptops. I'm not sold on the Core i7 for laptops either because I'm pretty sure that you can't undervolt them and they are power hogs. (My friend has an i7 laptop with a Radeon 5650 and an 18 CELL battery and only gets 3 hours battery life.

Get a $200 SSD and a $300 processor if you must for a total of $500 and don't spend much more.

 

He said the laptop is stationary most of the time, so it doesn't matter if its a power hog. And the i7 + 5870m is the most powerful laptop you can get at the moment outside of SLI or 480m (talk about power hog not to mention expense). Ok, you can get faster i7's than what's in the G73, but unless you really tax a quad core CPU it will not be a bottleneck for anything. Very few people have been able to max the CPU, and definitely great for gaming.

The 5870 will blow away the 9800m GTS in anything you throw at it. As will the i7 CPU. The Core i series are not good overclockers, but mainly because of TurboBoost. But it really will not bottleneck anyone. Just take a look at the Asus forum and the G73 threads.

I still think it's a mistake to invest anything in that laptop considering the budget of $1000. If you have free money to spare after getting the G73, I would spend ~$200-$250 for an OCZ Vertex 2 or Agility 2 120GB SSD to use in conjunction with the included HDD for the best of all worlds. It as two drive bays, so no problem there.

 

Well, you COULD invest in SSD anyway and transfer it later to another lappy when and if you would decide to change the P-7805..

 

The only problem with investing in a solid state drive is that they are predicted to get much cheaper in the near future and most likely faster. I recommend getting like a 60GB or 80GB one because you will want a new one when you get a new computer.

An X9100 like the Core i7 are both going to be more than you need for games. (Games don't even take advantage of more than 2 cores in most cases except physics and particles which can be done much more efficiently on the GPU, which is like an ultra-core processor.)

The 5870 is going to be topped next year (the 480m doesn't count because it's double the power) so unless your just dying for a 40% increase in FPS (take this statistic with a grain of salt), wait for when a graphics card comes out that is double the performance of the 9800M GTS.

 

Well, obviously up to the OP, but there's always something faster or better in the next six months. After Intel Sandy Bridge comes out, Gen 3 of SSD's, and HD 6870 there will be another iteration, ad nauseum.

But SSD would be your best bet if you really wanted any kind of upgrade. A 60 or 64GB would suffice if you can install two hard drives, and just use the SSD for your boot drive. That's what I do.

Depends on what games the OP plays too. If mainly older titles, well then maybe it doesn't matter much. But for newer stuff, the HD5870 will eat anything you throw at it for lunch. I'm not sure where you're getting 40%? It scores double with 3DMark Vantage and about 50% better framerates in Crysis. It is a significant upgrade IMHO, especially considering he has the budget now. I have a GTX 260m and used a G73 that a friend has and it was impressive over my 260m, and the GTX 260m is slightly better than the 9800m GTS.

I dunno, if you're going to wait, then get a decent SSD that you can use in your next laptop. Otherwise I wouldn't spend any more money on it.

 

Now that you mention it I think the 40% improvement was FPS in Crysis that I saw. IMO benchmarks for graphics cards are total crap so I base everything off of FPS in games. Benchmarkers will generally make the GPUs with the most cores the winner. This is the same with FLOPS. The 5870m gets over a TFLOPS, with the GTX 285m only getting 576 GFLOPS (according to Wikipedia). However, they are generally equal in performance.

 

3DMark06 is not a good judge for graphics benchmark really. Vantage is much better. 50% improvement is significant, and again, it depends on the game. If you're at 25fps with the game you're playing, then an additional 10-15fps will be welcome. If you're already at 60fps, then what difference does it make if you're running at 90. Some games will fare better than others too depending on the tech. So I guess it ends up with what the OP intends on using the laptop for.

There are other laptops that house an i7 and HD 5870 but none that can match that price point. It has dual drives, 6GB RAM, 1600x900 res screen, HD 5870, Gigabit ethernet, wifi N, 500GB HDD with room for another HDD or SSD, for $1050.

Either way, I'd hate to see someone with a $1000 budget and a laptop they could probably sell for $400-$500 easily, to not get something newer and much more powerful was only my point. Otherwise an SSD is the only thing I'd consider and mainly because you could use it in your next laptop. Even when the next gen SSD's come along, the Sandforce SSD's are exceptional and I don't think a regular user would notice much difference in performance.

 

Yeah I totally agree with you man. If he had his heart set on spending a thou then getting an i7 and the 5870 would be the best way to spend it. I personally am the kind of person to wait until something is sub-par before I replace it, and the replacement needs to be substantially better. (For example, I bought the original Game Boy Advanced but couldn't get myself to get the SP.)

 

As a gaming machine forget the $1,000.00 upgrade budget. You are way better off with a new machine. If you have and need to keep the 1920x1200 primarily for other work then the upgrade is more realistic. For myself the screen was the selling point for an upgrade.

You don't realize the screen realestate difference from 1600x900 to 1920x1200 untill you really use them. if you are picture/3D rendering it can make a huge difference.................

 

I use a 42in LG set at 1920x1080 for my primary monitor. Thanks for the opinions guys. I think Im going to go ahead with the new machine. Anyone want to buy a mint condition 7805u with the original packaging? The computer is barely used. I use a separate usb mouse and keyboard with a separate monitor. The Laptop monitor stays disabled always.

 

Good luck. Once you determine what you can sell your 7805u for and decide how much you want to spend I would post in the " What notebook should I buy" forum. You will get a whole host of educated (ok, and lots of biased, lol) opinions and help you find exactly what you need.

If you're willing to spend you $1000 plus whatever you get for your 7805u (probably ~$500-$600 maybe more) you can get a really nice new machine.