CPU upgrade for a Qosmio x775 q7170

Hi guys, I've had this Qosmio for a couple of years already, and I recently noticed that the CPU it has (Intel Core i5 i5-2450M @2.50 GHz) might be the reason certain games run so slow.

So I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade it to a more decent one. I did a quick search and found that it is possible (unlike the video card Nvidia GTX 560M) to upgrade it. I read somewhere in these forums about an "Intel Core i7 2670QM" as a good candidate; also read the 2820QM as well as a 2630QM and other i7s.

I guess my question at this point is: Is there any guideline I can follow to shop for CPUs to upgrade mine? Socket, chipset, or any other detail to keep in mind?

Also I am open to any suggestions as to a cost-efficient option, I can adjust my budget as long as there is a reasonable increase in performance, I am mostly concerned with not being compatible.

Thanks a bunch!

Qosmio x775-Q7170
CPU: i5-2450M
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 560M
RAM: 6GB

 

All the CPU's you mentioned should work although, honestly, your better off selling this and getting a new laptop.. CPU upgrade won't help much with this..

 

Which games are running slow?

If you can find a Sandy Bridge quad-core i7-2xxxQM for cheap, it'll be just a drop-in upgrade. Might very well be worth it to you, but again, it all depends on the apps you run. An SSD and additional 2GB RAM would also do good, but I would stop there short of getting a whole new system.

 

I run Guild Wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online, now LotRO is a 7 year old game, and it still drops down the FPS in some places. I've been thinking that it's the CPU but I could be wrong, you do have a good point on RAM, I might do that and buy some to reach 8GB (I think it's the max supported) to see if the performance increases.

How much difference could I get by getting one of those "Sandy Bridge quad-core i7-2xxxQM" CPUs?

 

6GB of RAM is plenty for games and most other tasks.

As a no-cost option, consider the following:
--Reformat your computer's hard drive and reload the operating system (a "fresh install")
--Download and install the latest drivers in the process; they should all be available on Toshiba's website, but get the graphics drivers from Nvidia if possible since Toshiba likely doesn't keep them up to date
--When you install your games again, be sure to update them too with any available patches

That would likely eliminate software-related causes of your performance issues.

I'd suggest doing some research on those two games to find out if they're primarily processor or graphics card limited; your processor may be just fine and it's the graphics card that's slowing you down or vice versa. If it turns out the graphics card is your issue ...start saving for a new notebook.

Should you upgrade the CPU, here's a help guide written by one of our forum members: http://forum.notebookreview.com/toshiba/651540-x775-x770-disassemble-thermal-repaste.html

 

6GB RAM is not enough and 8GB RAM is barely enough too on a fully updated and A/V protected O/S today.

Your current cpu should support 16GB RAM. Buy a couple of (100% fully refundable/no restocking fees) SoDimms and see if they help in your current setup, as is.

I have seen the CPU score, the RAM score (of course) and even the igpu desktop and gaming WEI scores improve by simply adding RAM (25% jumps or more). And with platform performance based on CPU+RAM=Work performed... every other component will be improved too.

An i7 QC CPU would also give you higher performance (for all components in your system, including your GPU and SSD). But without maxing out the RAM along with the cpu upgrade; you'll be leaving performance on the table that will help with everything from O/S responsiveness/snappiness to actual (sustained) productivity.


See:
ARK | Intel® Core™ i5-2450M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)


I would also suggest buying DDR3 1600MHz SoDimms too rather than the officially recommended DDR3 1066/1333MHz parts instead for a further increase is system responsiveness.


Good luck.

 

It is common for MMO's to be CPU-bound, but you should determine whether this is indeed the case for you in these 2 games seeing as your GPU is not very powerful to begin with. Find out which component is the bottleneck first before deciding what to upgrade.

Does turning down the graphics settings and/or resolution noticeably increase FPS? If so, you're most likely bottlenecked by your GPU and a CPU upgrade won't help much if at all.

If reducing settings doesn't improve performance much, you may be bottlenecked by your CPU. Check your CPU utilization in-game and take note of both your overall usage and usage per thread. If any one of them approaches 100% coinciding with low frame rate and low GPU usage, you've got a CPU bottleneck on your hands. In this case, an upgrade to a quad-core i7 may or may not help much depending on how the game is coded, more on this below.

A game which is not very well multi-threaded and does not fully utilize all 4 available threads (physical & logical) on your i5-2450M, yet is still bottlenecked by the CPU, will not see a dramatic improvement if you upgrade to an i7 quad-core-- unless that i7 runs at a much higher clock speed. This is the case if you see that overall CPU usage is not at 100%, but usage on one or two threads is maxed out. In this case, faster cores --as opposed to more cores--is what will help the most.

However, if the game is maxing out all of your dual-core CPU, a quad-core i7 will definitely help. Games which take full advantage of 4 or more threads are still relatively rare even in this day and age, to say nothing of older titles such as LotRO and GW2. GW2 is a DX9 game and I have heard a lot of complaints of its lack of proper multi-threading, so an i7 running at the same frequency as your i5-2450M, e.g. the i7-2670QM, probably won't improve performance by a ton. LotRO, however, is DX11, which should--in theory--benefit much more from a quad-core.

RAM is probably gonna be the least of your concerns unless you have a very bloated Windows environment or run a lot of stuff in the background while gaming, which is not recommended anyway. The 8GB RAM and SSD upgrades I suggested were more geared toward benefiting your overall computing experience as opposed to strictly gaming. 6GB should be enough for just about any game in existence, especially if it is 32-bit, but double-check your RAM usage while playing just in case. Running out of system memory usually manifests itself as crashes to desktop and freezing/prolonged hitching, not low frame rates.

The last but most unlikely concern is running out of video memory (VRAM) on the graphics card. This usually manifests itself as stuttering/short hitches during gameplay. Your 560M has 1.5GB, which may seem like a below-minimum amount given today's console ports, but you have to keep in mind the 560M's relative power. 1.5GB is more than adequate for the games and resolutions/settings which are suitable for the card. But again, monitor your VRAM usage in-game just in case.

One last question before I conclude this spiel: What are examples of other games you have which do not suffer from this same performance problem?

 

Hey guys, thanks a lot for all the replies.

Mr. Octiceps:

I did some quick tests with 3 games: Skyrim, GW2, and LotRO and I found places where my performance would drop and I get low FPS. Now, it's not all the time, mainly GW2 and LotRO were pretty good at medium to high settings, except for certain places where the drop was very noticeable, as low as 7 FPS sometimes.

I monitored with Afterburner for a minute or so where the games would drop performance, and here are some SS of what I got:

GW2:





LotRO:





Skyrim:





Skyrim for the most part runs very good, I rarely get low FPS, those SS are running it at Ultra settings, about 25 to 30 FPS average, if I run it Medium it goes smooth as silk.

The other games (LotRO and GW2) run fine at medium to high settings but from time to time in certain regions or places I get those spikes coinciding with low FPS.

I hope it helps to see if it's my CPU or GPU. RAM in use in all cases was fine btw.

Thanks a lot!

 

GW2 and LotRO look problematic. Low and erratic GPU usage and high CPU usage. It also looks like your CPU is overheating. When was the last time you blew out the dust? Also try playing with the laptop bottom elevated or on a cooling pad. Can you check if your CPU is running at 2.8 Ghz in games like it's supposed to? If it's overheating and subsequently throttling severely down to 800 MHz, this will definitely slaughter performance. If it still throttles even when temps are fine, you'll need to use ThrottleStop.

Skyrim looks the most stable by far, no surprise that it performs the best.

 

Agreed, looks like thermal throttling.

 

Very good! I think we have a winner here. So I checked my CPU for throttling and found in LotRO at least, that whenever I get a low FPS moment, my CPU drops to around 800MHz, and normally runs at ~ 2200 MHz. The high temperature (98-99°C) coincides with the throttling.

I had to change my Video Card recently, about 4 months ago and I took the opportunity to clean and apply some Thermal Paste to both CPU and GPU. I am thinking on using a better Paste since the one I used is old and cheap, so I bought Arctic Silver Arctic Alumina, hopefully this one works a bit better.

Any other suggestion?

 

Don't use that Arctic Alumina if it's the thermal adhesive, not the thermal paste. Both are called Arctic Alumina, but they serve vastly different purposes. Thermal adhesive is meant for bonding surfaces together permanently, e.g. small RAM and VRM sinks, not to be used on CPU's and GPU's as thermal paste. If you put it on, your heatsink is never coming off.

Thermal Adhesives: Arctic Silver And Akasa - Thermal Paste Comparison, Part Two: 39 Products Get Tested

If you got the Arctic Alumina thermal paste instead, I still wouldn't recommend it over Prolimatech PK-3 (my current paste) and Gelid GC-Extreme, which perform better: Charts, benchmarks Thermal Compound Charts, [6] GPU Cooling

You should also read through this thread where someone had the exact same CPU throttling problem as you, albeit without overheating, and was able to solve it quickly and easily using a great tool called ThrottleStop. But repaste and get your overheating taken care of first before moving on to this step.

If all is working correctly, your i5-2450M should be running at 2.8 GHz in games, not 2.2 GHz.

 

Oh man you really are a saver, idiot me, I bought the Adhesive, I guess I'll just return it. I went now for this one:

GELID Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compound - Newegg.com

Hopefully this will cool my CPU and I can do some new tests.

I'll keep you updated, thanks again Octiceps!

 

Take your time putting the heatsink back in place. It's possible that something went wrong with your last paste job. Going by the temps, that is likely. Well, it's either that or Toshiba couldn't design a decent cooling solution for that laptop if their life depended on it, but I'd say that is unlikely.

 

That is probable, but the performance decrease has been there before I even opened it for the GPU replacement. So I am thinking it was overheating back then as well, and I can attest that it wasn't dirty at all, I have my hopes in this new Thermal Paste!

 

I'll take your word for it since you opened it up, but since the HS will be removed, it's a good time to dust everything. Fan and heatsink. Sometimes, dust buildups can be hard to spot from the outside.

 

Yes, that is particularly a good idea. Cleaning is always good, even if it's just a couple of dust motes. Do you recommend an air can for cleaning? Or something else for that area?

Thanks!

 

For anything dust related, an aircan should do the trick. Use good old IPA and Q-tips to remove the old thermal paste.

 

Time for an update!

So I did as planned, opened it up and added the new thermal paste (GELID Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compound), now this is probably the most important finding that got me thinking:

I found the screws of the CPU and GPU to the heat sink a little lose, which lead me to think that it might have been the main reason of the overheating. Like I mentioned before, I replaced my GPU a couple of months ago and I probably didn't tightened them very well. This time of course I made sure they were securely tight after applying the thermal paste.

Results: CPU is not overheating anymore, temperature is about 10-15ºC colder and no throttling of course, as predicted by Octiceps it's running at 2.8GHz and the games when running at full graphics are performing very well. At this point only my GPU limits me but I expect that, and it's something the settings can help balance out. Thank you all for the helpful information that lead to this, saved me time and money, and special thanks to Octiceps! (I will post Screenshots when I get a chance to do tests to keep them here for comparison)

Now to the not so good news: After restarting the computer my wireless card is now giving me trouble, it seems to pick up connections but very weak, even by sitting next to my router the signal is weak and doesn't even connect. It recognizes them, but it doesn't connect. I thought the antenna was the culprit, so I reopened and made sure all wires were connected and all was right, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I then moved the wires around, tried to isolate the antenna wires so that they were not mingled with others that may cause noise but to no avail.

So at this point I am out of ideas of what to try, could it be the antenna as I think? Any suggestions before I commit to buy a USB Wireless Adapter? Thanks!