ASUS k53e upgrade CPU/mobo

Hey everyone. I'm gonna preface this with the fact that I am a starving musician lol.

I have an asus k53e from 2012 or so. I have juiced up the ram to 8gb but am looking for some performance enhancements. It runs Windows 10 right now and I have followed some guides to optimize it's performance but feel my machine still lacks peak functionality.

I know it has the i5 Sandy bridge CPU and have been thinking of upgrading the CPU and changing the HDD to a solid state drive.

My end goal is being able to have a machine that will be a recording unit to run various DAW software along with multiple vst plugins for recording and audio production.

Possible to pull off an upgrade to an i7 Skylake or newer chip? Should I just get a new machine? I like my laptop, it's served me well and can usually better justify less expensive periodic upgrades to the wife than purchasing a whole new unit altogether.

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

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It should be possible to upgrade to the i7-2670QM through i7-2860QM but anything beyond 45W Sandy Bridge CPUs will not work.

The K53E is a mainstream class notebook and with the i5 CPU it should be able to handle almost any DAW application you throw at it, as long as you have a decent audio interface. Relying on the internal audio and CPU to do DSP is going to be no fun.

The best upgrade you can do is to get a SSD. This will be much more noticeable than a CPU upgrade unless you really are maxxing out your cores (32+ tracks? tons of CPU-bound plugins?). Some ASUS Sandy Bridge notebooks have been known to have compatibility issues with SATA III/6Gbps SSDs. Your best bet is to buy a cheaper one and make sure you can return it if it doesn't work.

 

Well I assumed that would be the most cost effective place to start anyhow. Those Samsung Evo SSDs are pretty solid right? I would just remove the CD drive and replace it there I think.

The software I use is cubase and ableton. Ableton runs pretty slow, I prefer cubase for this reason. I want to be able to run plugins within cubase though like positive grid and other effects plugins.

Also starting to get into a lot of native instruments software too.

I will be picking up a new interface too to get optimum signal input. Looking at the NI komplete audio 6 for that.



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The CD drive SATA port may be SATA II / 3Gbps so that would be a bad place for a SSD. You might want to do it the other way around to get the SSD on the faster 6Gbps port.

This utility may be able to tell you about your ports:
http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/Identify_unaffected_SATA_port/

 

So move the HDD to CD drive instead of SSD.

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Yeah, if it is actually on a slower port. The Samsung EVO is a good choice but probably the best value for an older machine is something like the PNY CS1311 240GB.

 

If I do not use that many different programs regularly would it stand to reason that this would be an effective option?
PNY CS1311 120GB 2.5" SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - (SSD7CS1311-120-RB) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019H3B3P6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_3KVuyb7GK0BP7


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Yeah, that's a really good price too. If you just want your OS and you don't have a ton of programs to install on the SSD, 128GB will get you by.

The question is really more if you wanted all of your working audio session files to be on the SSD too and how big those sessions will be.

 

I wouldn't get a 120GB SSD, get a 240GB one at least!

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