Asus G50VT-x5 Upgrade Question

Hello everyone, I have a few questions and seeking some opinions on upgrades for my laptop. I was thinking of purchasing a new laptop, but since I recieved this laptop for free as a gift when it first came out, I would like to invest a little into it to make it able to handle some of the newer games out.

I have an Asus G50VT-x5, Best Buy edition. It is all stock right now with the exception of adding Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I use this computer mostly for downloading and games. It currently has the Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 (2.13 GHZ) and have found it can overclock to around 2.45 GHZ. I have read much of Clutch's breakdown and benchmarks on the laptop and find them to be very resourceful. I see that Clutch installed a T9600 chip (2.80 GHZ).

I am leaning towards the X9100 (3.06 GHZ) or the T9900 (3.06 GHZ). The only difference I see between them is Max TDP and price. I think I will go for the T9900 for the fact that it is cheaper, and Clutch had a good experience (I believe) in installing the T9600. Any comments or suggestions here?

The computer also comes with 4GB DDR2 Ram, I would like to get two 4GB DDR2 ram sticks for a total of 8GB. I have read mixed reviews as to wether or not this can be done.

I am also going to install an OCZ SSD drive and a new fan, as to mine is dying. Asus doesn't appear to still be selling fans for this computer so I am going to have to get a similar one that I found, unless anyone knows of a website that sells the original fans.

All information would, and will be much appreciated. Any questions I will answer as soon as possible. I thank you in advance. And yes, I know what I am doing in the way of installing, etc, I just recently built a new computer from scratch with a Asus Rampage 3 motherboard/I7 3.33 GHZ 980x chip, 12GB ram, HD5800 graphics, very nice machine in all. Just want to get a little more out of this laptop while it's still running strong and current.

Again, thank you in advance.

 

Either the X9100 or the T9900 will work. The T9900 might be more attractive because it has a lower TDP, and since the G50vt doesn't support unlocked multipliers, the X9100 doesn't have anything to bring to the table.

8GB should be supported.

Any SATA SSD will work. As for the fan, you might have to poke around the Asus e-store. I believe the G51 fan will fit.

(Speaking of the G51, I remember someone upgrading the 9800m GS to a GTX 260m)

 

If you are determined to upgrade your processor, get the x9100, sure G5Ovt doesn't have bios options that allow you to adjust multipliers, but with throttlestop(search this forum if you have never heard of it) you can easily get a x9100 running at 3.6ghz, which makes it on par with a i7-620m, more or less.

8Gb ram is possible, but is it really necessary? unless you use extremely memory intensive programs.

Upgrading the 9800M gs to 260M is also possible, but the cooling system will struggle to keep it under 100 C under load, not worth your money and trouble IMO.

 

X9100>T9900. Throttlestop will let you adjust the multipliers like lidowxx said.

 

Every 2-3 weeks... sigh. Look here before making a decision.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...vx-rx05-cpu-upgrade-question.html#post7029357

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/550790-g51vx-new-cpu-again.html

 

Thank you all for your quick responses. I do apologize, I should have searched this site a little more before asking this question, it does seem that questions like this or very similar do pop up very often.

Throttlestop looks to be the way to go, I wasn't aware of it, I thank you all that mentioned it. I am going for the X9100, seems like a better choice and it's not too expensive.

As goes for the ram, my memory is usually always at 90-100%, so I would love to upgrade it to 8GB total. Since currently it has the DDR2 PC2-6400 200-Pin 800 Mhz Non-ECC, I was thinking of going for the Crucial DDR2 PC2-6400 200-Pin 800Mhz Non-Ecc, 8GB matching pair. Can I go higher in the Mhz or should I just keep it at 800? Here's the link:

CT2KIT51264AC800 - 8GB Kit (4GBx2), 200-pin SODIMM , DDR2 PC2-6400 from Crucial.com

As goes for the fan, I found a fairly cheap (knock-off) but same fan,

ASUS G50VT Fan [ASUS G50VT Laptop] - $37.20

As goes for the GPU, I would love to upgrade it to the Asus Geforce 260M GTX, as Asus uses an inverted MXM design as I've read.

Can anyone tell me a little more about a gts-bios as clutch describes in his asus-g50vt breakdown.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...ts-clutchs-asus-g50vt-x5-best-buy-review.html

To quote him: Im rethinking the gts bios but i started heading that direction by getting the dox drivers installed. With temps up 5 degree's and the fan kicking in loud im getting a little scard. I want to hit 10,000 atleast once, that my magic number. Last night with DOX 182.something i hit 9166 (dc on et) @ 1280x720 this morning i connected it to an external and ran it at 1280x1024 got something like 8440. The P8600 on XP might net me 9,000 3dmarks which would make me happy lol but i dont want to flash the bios just to get a score i want to setup the unit to where I am comfortable running it that way daily.

Again, thank you all for your quick responses and helpful suggestions. Great site and good people.

 

There is a comprehensive guide here on the forum that shows you how to flash a 9800M gs to a 9800M gts: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...3940-why-how-make-your-9800m-gs-into-gts.html Read it THOROUGHLY before trying it as if you are not careful with what you are doing, you risk bricking your GPU.

Be ware that not every 9800M gs can be flashed to a 9800M gts successfully without running into stability issues, you might get errors or BSOD with your new Vbios if you are unlucky, that's said, it depends on your 9800m gs, really, not every piece of silicon is made equal. I would advise against upgrading to a 260M for some reasons, you most likely won't be able to handle the heat coming from 260M without a major overhaul of the existing cooling system, secondly, the performance increase going to a 260M isn't that much, especially if you have success flashing your 9800M gs to 9800M gts.

As for the 3dmark06 test, you can hit 10K with a moderately overclocked x9100 and a 9800M gs running at gts speed.

 

Thank you very much lidowxx, you have been very helpful. I will read through that guide you posted and make sure I understand it completely before proceeding with that. I realize the stability dangers that go along with it, and if I go through with it and have any questions or concerns I'll post them here and would very much appreciate your insight on the subject if you have the time.

I am going to put the X9100 chip in and forget about the 260M graphics card. You are right, from what I've learned the system will get way too hot and my system runs hot enough as it is. From what I've learned from you and other sites it won't be much of an upgrade if I flash my current card properly. Again thank you for your help.

Did you run into any problems, or is there any special procedures that you can recall while swapping out the chip (x9100) for your x1? I have put in many chips for desktops, this will be my first for a laptop. I found some guides on it, and clutch talks about it in one of his forums/threads, but I would love to hear anything you have to say about it, tips or pointers. Taking the computer apart I know how to do and have done, the swapping of the chip is my only concern. I have read many guides on this, but guides don't outway personal experience.

Again thank you, and thanks to everyone else for the help.

 

Actually there is a G50 dissemble guide here you can follow: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...8551-asus-g50-notebook-disassembly-guide.html

The g50 is very easy to dissemble, just clean off the leftover thermal compound on the heat sink and apply some quality thermal paste like ICD-7 on the CPU and northbridge, I would recommend to reapply some paste on the GPU core(leave the thermal pads on the GPU memory chips) as well since your whole system will run warmer with an overclocked x9100 than with a C2D. Don't worry about the thermal pads on the northbridge you are going to replace, a fair amount of thermal paste will fill the gap nicely, and of course it will work better too. Don't hesitate to re-do the whole process if you mess up something by accident, overall it should be fairly easy job, hope this helps.

 

Thanks again Lidowxx, you have been a lot of help. Going to save a lot of cash for a virtually a brand new machine, thanks to you and the others on this post. Best wishes and thanks again for your time and knowledge.