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    2630QM to 2760QM upgrade?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by hyrule4927, Oct 2, 2011.

  1. hyrule4927

    hyrule4927 Notebook Consultant

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    I've been thinking about upgrading the CPU on my ASUS G73SW for a while, and I was simply wondering if a Sandy Bridge compatible motherboard should be automatically compatible to upgrade to one of the newer revision Sandy Bridge mobile processors. I know the 2720 and 2820 should be compatible, but the 2760 and 2860 seem to offer a huge performance boost over their predecessors (yet somehow cost the same). So, does anyone have any idea if I could just buy one of these CPU's and swap it with my 2630, or would there be complications?
     
  2. too456

    too456 Resident Angry Bird

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    The complication I can think of might be CPU microcode. Because the bios may not be updated with the new processors' microcode, you might run into problems.
     
  3. Deks

    Deks Notebook Prophet

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    Theoretically there shouldn't be any problems because the cpu is just a higher clocked SB...
    But it came out as a refresh so it probably wasn't thought of before in the BIOS... though that really shouldn't matter.
    If the chipset is compatible and the manuf. BIOS not limited to not support anything than your current cpu, then hypothetically it should work.

    You might want to do a BIOS update before that though.
     
  4. TomJG90

    TomJG90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Update your BIOS... Shouldn't be a problem then. Just make sure you can return the processor if it doesn't work although i only see a 0.0000001% chance of that happening..
     
  5. hyrule4927

    hyrule4927 Notebook Consultant

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    The most recent BIOS on the ASUS website is from March, and it is the same version I have. Obviously that is from before these revised processors came out. However, Xotic PC offers a G73 with the new revision processors, so I'd take that to mean that they're compatible (unless they hacked something to get it to work of course)?
     
  6. Deks

    Deks Notebook Prophet

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    It's unlikely they hacked anything.
    The likeliest case might be they introduced a new BIOS support for these new CPU's, however, in a lot of cases, it's the chipset that defines compatibility even if new CPU's come out in the meantime.
     
  7. xault

    xault Notebook Consultant

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    I can't say for your model notebook, but the MSI GT780DXR series can use either the 2630QM or 2760QM. My notebook was released before the 2760QM, but I think they also released a BIOS update to support them.