Asus CPU and RAM Upgrade Help

I am still trying to squeeze at least another years worth of gaming out of my G51VX-RX05 for gaming. I have all the defaults with the exception of 2x 320 GB WD Scorpio Black HDD in RAID 0 I put in a couple months ago.

Anyways, I have heard mixed rumors about upgrades. I currently can upgrade both the CPU and RAM for around $200, but was wondering if its possible, or even worth it.

I already have 2 4GB sticks of 6400 DDR2 RAM. I am a little worried that installing it may cause it to brick if its no supported. (paranoid, I know). Can anyone confirm its possible? Using PCTools from CPUID it says the max memory size is 8192 MB.

Also, I can pick up a Intel Core 2 Extreme X9100 at 3.06 for about $180!! I would imagine that it would be a huge increase in performance over my P7350 which I overclock from 2.0Ghz to 2.5 for gaming. I have the laptop fan modded, so my CPU temps don't go over 55c under full load in gaming (in BF3 on medium settings).

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

 

RAM shouldn't be a problem to upgrade. The only difficulties you'll have to face is that DDR2 is expensive now.

Don't know much about CPU upgrades, but I'm assuming that if it's the same socket and if temps are good, it should be alright, though hopefully someone else with more CPU upgrade knowledge will comment.

 

If it's the same type of RAM, I would try one module at a time - then, verify with a 24 hour memtest session before deeming it 'good'. Some systems may not work with 8GB RAM, but will work with 6GB, so keep that in mind when testing the RAM.

As far as upgrading the cpu. I'm not a big fan of these types of upgrades.

From stock clocks, the X9100 Extreme is 'only' 65% faster than your P7350.

See:
PassMark - Intel Core2 Duo P7350 @ 2.00GHz - Price performance comparison

See:
PassMark CPU Lookup

If we can assume a linear increase in PM 'scores' to account for your overclocking, then the performance increase between these cpu's is only around 32%. Hardly worth $180 and the chance to brick your system imo.

A platform upgrade, on the other hand, will net you close to 4x or more performance and you can get that for as little as $700.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the quick replies. I think instead of even bothering upgrading anything in the laptop I am just going to save up to build a new desktop. Any upgrades wont do that much, especially due to the GPU being older (GTX 260M) I need the laptop for school, but I would really like to be able to run BF3 at higher than 35 fps on medium settings.