Looking to upgrade FX-7805U

Hello all. I have read through most of the posts here in this forum and others and wow, there is a lot of info! Anyway, I have an FX laptop with all stock parts except I did add a second HD. I was looking at upgrading to a blu ray player, possibly to an FUll HD screen (mine came with the 1400 x 900) and also possibly a processor. I know it might be cheaper to buy a new laptop but Id like to attempt it. Would changing the processor really make that much of a difference? I have an external HD DVD/Blu Ray drive that I use but would like to have a primary BD player on the laptop. ANy and all comments and suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

maxing out with a X9100 will certainly provide you with a noticeable difference in applications/games. Even more so with Throttlestop which enables you to overclock the X9100 past its stock 3.06GHz anywhere up to 4GHz.

Mine's at 3.99GHz (15x multiplier) @ 1.450v.

Alternatively, you could go with a t9900.

Dont bother with a BR drive if you arent committed to upgrading the screen to a 1900x1200 variant. Conversely, better to invest first in the 1900x1200 for more desktop real estate and then upgrade to a BR drive to complement it (funds allowing).

Getting a SSD as your OS boot drive and offloading music/vids/docs/photos to the 2ndary drive and/or external HDD will increase overall performance too.

Just make sure if opting for the X9100 that you also invest in an adequate cooling solution IF you choose to dabble in the OCing too.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to research the various processors you mentioned. Would I need to add any extra cooling or undervolt the processors even if I don't OC? Also, where would be a good place to buy the HD screen for the laptop? Thanks again for the help!

 

I would check your pressent HS, be sure it is the dual core one. If not and you plan to OC the x9100 get one. With the lower TDP style you can get 3.4 GHz reliably with the higher one 3.6 to 3.99 GHz is possible reliably.

If you are a gamer you may be disapointed with 1920x1200. Your frame rates will drop significantly. If you are using it for production work of any type and have the eyes for it you will quickly wonder how you ever did without it. Of course with a BR player it is not a must but is noce to have true 1080P rather than a reduced resolution.

SSD is amazing, I was a long time hold out but am a convert now. These do not boot super fast but good enough with a SSD and apps opening up is just amazing. My user files including downloads is on the d:\ drive and other than opening files I grab from the net they all seem to go right to the storage drive.

Don't expect to get your money back but, for the investment, you will end up with a system that should last another 2 years before you are looking to upgrade. The one deterent is try in two years to find another 1920x1200 system. with the 16x9 push 1920x1080 may be all that is available and that 10% loss can definately be seen. I would love to see a 16x9 2140x1200 in a 18.4" or even just make the 16x10's popular again but alas they are going the way of the DoDo bird.

If the G73's were a 1920x1200 it would have been a no brainer to get a JW-3DE but the screen to me i just too important.....................

 

Are their any aftermarket/chopchop solutions to upgrade the graphics unit on this thing?

I'd be very intererested! It would be a great project and my wife could have something comprable to my new G73JH

 

Something I have pondered, the gpu is soldered to the mobo, but you can get a 7908 mobo for around $400.00. It comes equiped with the 260GTX so it's a bit better than the 9800M GTS. You could just swap the mobo's

 

That would be an awesome project to get into! I think I'd love to try it!

Thought I have a feeling it wouldn't work, and I would absolutely hate to shell out the cash to find out it didn't at all work...

 

There's got to be somebody out there who's pulled off the GPU upgrade.

What do you guys think of the following upgrades on a stock p7811fx.

Note: I'm not really looking to spend more than 500 bucks here.

CPU: i5 560m

SSD: Vertex 2 120GB - and then the stock HD for storage/back-up in the secondary bay.

I like what I'm reading about the Crucial 128GB but I think it needs a motherboard that supports SATA 3 to run at full spec.

 

The CPU wont work. Only T series P series and the X9100 will work for the most part. Sorry

 

you can get a whole laptop for not much more. Thats a bad buy there.
for 629 you can get an asus g60 with an i5 and a 360 gts.
in general dont upgrade your laptop dont be investing 100s of dollars into cpuss that no one cares about unless yours breaks or something.

maybe get an ssd, you can bring that to your next laptop

In general I would say just play capitolist. Try to sell the whole thing for 400$ and buy an asus return like I did. Free upgrade to a p8700 and a 260 gtx. nicer screen too

 

About the only reason to really hold on is if you have and need to hold onto 1920x1200. There are very few systems out there other than business and these go for a premium. Even if you can go for 1080P at 17" you could still end up forking out quite a bit of change.

This is why I've put the money into mine. If it were not for the screen I would not have bothered. The only throw away upgrade though is the CPU. @50 theere but the SSD could go into another system and I ordered 8GB 1333 ram instead of 1066 in case I need that too. So in all $250, or even $340 with the ram, is a wise investment.

I don't think the 260m is a good enough reason to spend $400 for the upgrade. Just not that much of a boost to justify the money, now if it were $400 for a quad capable and 260m that would be a differnet story.................

 

Meh I doubt it would be a worth while upgrade for me to go from 4 GIG to 8 GIG, the 260GTX isn't much better at all IMO than the 9800GTS (newer version with smaller die).

I did happen to get the FULL HD in mine luckly, but meh. The only upgrade I would ever do is the x9100, especially since they're so cheap these days.

 

Don't discount the SSD's. I was one of those, so who cares people too. I am a convert now. I do not expect anything from 8GB other than helping the "I Wants".................

 

Yeah, getting over the "I Wants" is the hardest part hehehehe...

Do the SSD's boost FPS marginally?
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No they don't, they just load stuff faster. For the price per mb, I don't think so

I'll wait until a new technology becomes finite and let the rest of the general public hash out 100$/1000$ to beta test

 

No real FPS gains other than levels load much quicker, if multiple textures need loading from disk, latencies from either tha game or os loading files etc. As a strictly gaming machine it is not going to get you much if anything at all FPS wise but you may find some spots that stutter will stutter a bit less.

SSD's will make the OS, The internet, updates, programs, games etc. just feel that much snappier. I get more from the SSD than a gamer as I am not really a gamer at all. While Super Fetch and prefetch help out the OS and MS programs a bit a SSD helps EVERYTHING!

 

I game, facebook, email, skype. That's about it

 

The internet bennefits greatly from a good SSD. All the HTML, ASP, pics sound files etc are usually small and the higher IOPS of the SSD really comes into play with a fat internet pipe. The internet is my main use of the system with some coding and picture/video editing etc.

Now a good 7,200 RPM drive is usually more than adaquate but a SSD just gives you that WOW factor and it is true as they say once you have one it is hard to go back to a plain HDD again. While with the 7K500 my computer tower at work felt a bit letharic before, now it just seems plain primative.

 

I wish on my G73JH I could use raid0 like my p7805u :'[

 

The G73's in general suffer that fate. A good SSD though blows a raid with present HDD's out of the water. Even with the write issues in 4K the ICH10 has. Reads on a SF2 across the board are 276 MBs plus, something you will not see on a RAID0 for sequential and even 4K reads are way better. IOPS are better etc etc etc. While expensive a SSD just makes even a 7K500 raid) look bad but with XT's the difference in read access is blured a bit.

I am still today tempted by the G73 but if I were to go that route it would have to have a i7-x940 and a good SSD for primary. as it is though it will be a while as I am more than happy with where I am. Hopefully a good reasonably priced 1920x1200 will start to become available by that time and maybe even better GPU's and CPU's.

 

This will be my last gaming laptop as my military career nears its end. I'll make desktops from now on. I needed the portability, but towards the end not so much. I just want a place I can finally call home, and an amazing gaming rig with it!

 

Yeah, I was wondering why nobody recommended those. Thanks. I'll have to have a look at the middle-range core 2s. I guess. Just an SSD should be a pretty strong upgrade though, I imagine.

 

Yeah, I really like the screen on this thing. I'm a front end/UI web dev. I do lots of quick bits of coding followed by refreshing of the browser so it's nice to work off of two windows without having to minimize when you're also juggling photoshop and other apps. It's basically the next best thing when I have to haul it to an office where a second monitor isn't available.

I haven't taken advantage of the second HD bay yet but I still like that it's there.

How many games are actually using quad core at this point? I could see the appeal for Photoshop CS5 but I'm not really big into first person shooters these days.

Do the smaller screens on later models have better screen refresh? I saw something about reduction of FPS for the upgrade earlier. I got the 7811fx which came with the 1920 x 2000.

 

I believe the 1920x1200 comes with 60hz.

You gotta 1920x2000 ? AWESOME...

 

Better refresh is coming in the way of 3D systems. The G73jw-3DE will have 17" 1920x1080. If I were to decide to get a new 1080P that is the way I would go.

Games are not really at the point they would fully use a Quad core let alone 8 logical cores. Not being a gamer though I can see in the hear future using some if not all those cores. I know for video encoding and picture editing etc they would come in useful now.

The second bay is great to keep the original drive for storage and the primary bay for a SSD. It is also useful if you need a huge storage and RAID0 performance. One of the things I love about the P78 series, its versatility. All the power and upgradability of a busness class machine with the punch of a GTS 9800m with good cooling.

While agreed there are some issues with the machine, as in just about any other, they are trivial and easily overcome. Mine personally has been a real champ. Runs cool and way faster than ever intended. So far it has proven to be a real tank despite BB cheaping out on parts to make an econo-gamer.

Despite the first P7811 beinga well over 2 years old the design has essentially held up well. I got my P7805 at the inception, Jan of 2009, to get a 1920x1200 screen while the limited run was out there. So in a few months it will be over 2 years and this is the longest I've held into just one computer and for the foreseeable future I will still be using it.

 

I think I'm going to hold onto mine as well, it's a great machine.