Can the i7 720QM be upgraded?

Can the i7 720QM be upgraded? any thing faster that uses the same socket/platform?

 

820qm, 920xm, 940xm all work. But 920 and 940 are 55w and will require a better heatsink/fan combo

 

what are the model numbers/names of the 55 watt versions?

EDIT: I see now.

Are these CPUs the same exact architecture? or can overclocking the 720QM offset the performance gap?

 

Assuming you can use SetFSB, you'd be lucky to reach the speed of the i7-820QM, perhaps maybe even the speed of the 840QM, provided you have 1600mhz CL 9 capable RAM installed (which gets automatically downclocked to 1333mhz CL9 to give you headroom of 266mhz on the CPU).

The 920XM and 940XM are the same architecture (Clarksfield) as the i7-720QM except they have unlocked TDP/TDC and Multipliers. Be warned, the cooling and power requirements are enormous, the 920XM in my N61JQ drew close to 95W when overclocked to 2600mhz on all cores. Don't bother with upgrading to any Clarksfield chips other than the 920/940XM chips since the locked down TDP/TDC means that they will rarely turboboost.

You are better off trying to see if your laptop can support an Arrandale chip such as the i5-560M, i5-580M or i7-640M. These are going for as low as $50 on ebay and will give you the same performance as the i7-820QM minus the heat and power issues. Plus for some reason, they are also TDP/TDC unlocked so you can use Throttlestop to force them to operate at full turbo boost at all times should you desire. The biggest hurdle is ensuring your BIOS supports the microcodes required. If it doesn't you may need to mod your BIOS to enable the Arrandale microcodes or request someone like Prema to do it (if you ask really really nicely, maybe even slip him like $20).

 

As stated they are all the same architecture, but the power consumption and heat generation by the extreme chips are ridiculous. My M17x R2 had a 920XM, and it used to idle maybe like 45-50C with a 26C ambient. On full load the CPU would easily shoot up to like 85-90C. Also you should make sure the model you are putting it into has the power circuitry on the motherboard to handle the extra juice the extreme CPUs need. That and the 920XM/940XM are still pretty expensive, going for 220-300 used for a 920XM, and like 400+ for a 940XM.

 

Do I get it right that there is no such thing in existense as decent non-overheating 15.4" 16:10 (Not 15.6" 16:9!) notebook with 920/940xm?

 

Not in Q3 2014...

 

actually since you are in this forum. Have you tried throttlestop. Almost all my chips undervolt by 7% or greater.

 

It is an Asus G73JH which i plan to perform cooling modifications on. 1 OC thread shows a 3.2 OC,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...us-g51j-a1-i7-720qm-overclocked-properly.html

 

cdoublejj, Google says it's 15.6" 16.9, not 15.4" 16:10. =/

 

17.3

Asus G73JH Specifications

 

From a power/performance perspective, that is worse than the desktop i7 860. And I thought mobile chips were binned for low power consumption...

 

Of course it is!!! For one this laptop chip or series of chips is first gen I series and it's constrained to the laptop power and cooling envelope.

I do plan on heat sinking the VRMs and improving air flow.

 

cdoublejj, oh, I thought since you quoted me, G51A-J1 was the answer to my question. =/

 

Well the G73JH is no walk in the park either, it doesn't have great cooling for a 17", which will have to be dealt with.

 

My JH had a 920xm in it and it was doind just fine cooling the thing. Sure I couldn't hit 4 GHz on air cooling, but you could still have a decent overclock on the stock cooling.

 

Don't mind the nay-sayers. I have my 920xm clocked at 29x on 1-2 cores and 28x on 3-4 cores respectively. That is nigh on 4ghz. This is overvolted in a 15.6inch laptop in ambient 26C. In winter with upcoming dual PSU mod I will be going for 4ghz

As for heat it idles at 35-40C and depending on what I do at load up to 97C(throttle temp is 100C so I keep temps below that). These chips were built very well. You can run at these kind of temperatures and overclocks and high voltage all day long and it doesn't skip a beat. 3.2ghz aka 24x across all cores is still good for everyday use and about as high as you can go without over volting.

Basically mod away man. The 920xm can take a lot of tinkering haha

 

Lol my chip is fine, its everything else that died. I decided that the power vs performance wasn't worth it, considering how much more efficient Arrandale was.

BTW my N61JQ was cooled by a Silverstone 180mm Penetrator blowing directly on to the heatsinked components. I was mostly limited by my PSU as the laptop would auto shutdown past 2600mhz on all cores or 3.46 GHz on 2 cores.

 

Yeah i was thinking about over volting on mine and PLL mod if needed. supposedly SETfsb has the clock gen for my laptop. I also plan on installing heat sinks on the VRMs as well and maybe some air holes and or micro fans to help move some air for the VRMs as well. I'd very much like to achieve 3.x on my existing CPU since the cost to upgrade the CPU is so high.

 

Don't bother with fsb or any kind of PLL mod. Just up the multi.

 

Yup. I tried both ways and using unlocked multipliers has the best performance/heat ratio. Of course, that is supposing you'd get an i7-920xm.

 

does the i7 720QM have unlocked multis? other wise it's a nice $360 USD actually more than that if you don't hunt around for deal for a while, by the looks of it.

 

Can't see the point of upgrading a cpu at this price range to 'only' be getting current i5 level performance or lower (not to mention a hotter running and more power hungry platform too).

A new notebook is highly recommended (by me) vs. upgrading anything this old. Even if it means you're saving for the next few months vs. 'instant gratification' now.

My 2 cents,

Good luck.

 

No, it doesn't, setfsb is pretty much the only way to go for the 720QM.

 

definitely not, hell I have quite a collection, I've tried them all over the years, 2 x 720QMs, an i5-480M, an i5-460M, an i3-360M and an i7-920XM. Take your pick lol, but seriously, the i5 Arrandales (especially the 560M) go for about $50 on Ebay, hell even the 640M goes for about $150, both will give insane performance vs price vs power/heat compared to the 920XM. Coming from an ex-user, believe me, unlocked multipliers are nice but it isn't worth it, the 45nm manufacturing was total turd when it comes to power efficiency. The fast dual cores will more than suffice for your needs, you will get a cool and reasonably quiet machine compared to a monstrous 97 degree Clarksfield heater with only 20% extra performance on average.

 

i'm not so sure about that because i'm looking at ps2 and wii emulation and the wii emulator does better on 3 cores or more and higher clocks. also i do some VM and multitasking. i'm also looking at top of the line mobile graphics cards which can CPU bottle neck. Really I care about flat performance, i only care about heat as it affects the OC. I do not care about battery power.

EDIT: not to say that's not possible, i'm still wrapping my head around the fact that the new dual core i3 is faster at dolphin that the q9550. However I think the i7 720qm is faster than an OCed T9300. Are these supposed CPUs you suggesting smaller than 45 NM, compatible with my socket and faster than the 720qm?

 

Yes, the fastest dual arrandales are faster than the i7 720qm. The only issue is if your laptop BIOS can support them.
I believe with the dolphin emulator, you want the fastest possible single core clock speed, this is where Arrandale excels. In fact, the only thing better is the 920xm but you'd then have to deal with heat/power issues.

If you really don't Care about heat and power, the 920xm can work since your chassis is quite beefy.

 

those CPUs are compatible with my mobo (G73JH)? Couldn't micro codes be added to the bios? are they higher wattage than my current GPU? if i can upgrade to these duals are there even beefier quads i can get?

 

Yes you can easily add the microcodes to the BIOS, you will need some experience, preferably try to find a BIOS modder who is willing to do it for you.
With this generation, the choice is dual core Arrandales with 32nm manufacturing or quadcore Clarksfield with 45nm manufacturing.
Arrandales use much less power than Clarksfield. For example, my 920XM used close to 85-90W when only 4 hyperthreaded cores (i.e 2 physical cores) were fully loaded at 3.33ghz with 95 degrees whereas an i7-640M would only draw about 45W at the same load.
Really, the only reason to go Clarksfield is for the 920XM if you don't really care about power or heat. It can exceed the Arrandales in single threaded workloads by about 20% (i.e. the 920Xm core at 4ghz + overvoltage) at cost of extreme power and heat.

 

do the i7s count too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrandale

wow dual core i7 they must really have some serious IPC on top of that 32nm construction.

all assuming i can get the 920xm clocked that high, is that possible? is the xm faster than my qm clock to clock?

how much is one of these i7 dual cores gonna cost and can't i over volt and over clock it and get even better performance? is my qm any faster at single threaded? will one of these duals bottle neck an hd7970 or hd8970 or do they have the PCI lane bandwidth?

 

You can easily clock the 920xm at 3.7ghz on 1 or 2 cores (2-4 threads) and up to 3.3ghz on 4 cores (8 threads) on stock voltage.

No arrandale can match an XM in single threaded or dual threaded performance. Yes they will bottleneck modern games that make use of more than 2 cores. Really there are many benefits to upgrade to XM;

1.) Top performance in any application, single threaded/multi threaded.

2.) Completely unlocked multi to play with.

3,) The only mobile nehelem chip remaining that won't bottleneck modern GPU's.

Yes they get hot but then that is to be expected. The chips are based on 2008 technology at 45nm. However they are very well made chips that can take alot of heat and abuse. Also if clocked high you can reach low ivy quad performance ie up to 3630qm and just shy of the 4700mq. Impressive for such an old chip. If you want the performance you have to deal with the heat no choice with your old G73JH.

Last answer is yes you can overvolt it. I have done it. It adds a TON of heat though so you have to be prepared! Now I run at 3.73ghz on 4 cores and 3.9ghz on 1-2 cores. Also you need to get a beefy PSU. More than 200W is certainly necessary if you do that as the cpu will consume more than 120W from the wall even in a game haha. An overvolt isn't particulary necessary though at the moment. 3.3ghz on 4 cores is adequate these days. I like to do video encoding so squeezing an extra 500mhz is useful. For gaming I often clock it back to 3,3ghz to save power.

 

I have the QM what about the QM can't it come close?

 

Not even close my friend! Even the 840qm (the fastest QM) can only reach 2ghz on 4 cores and 3.2ghz on 1 core.

4 cores: 920xm = 3.33ghz-3.7ghz
840qm= 2ghz

1 cores: 920xm = 3.7-4.0ghz
840qm = 3.2ghz

Even if you were to overclock the BLCK (equivalent of fsb) you wouldn't gain more than a 200-300 mhz and you would really stress the other components of the machine as you essentially OC the whole system doing that. Not good. Your chip is even slower than the 840qm which itself is MUCH slower.

 

To compare the M15x to the G73 is rather unfair. The M15x had remarkably GOOD cooling for a 15" machine and the other issue he faces is dealing with only a 180w PSU.

I'm all for the 920XM too though. It's probably your best bet, even IF you opt to just leave it at stock. I had mine running only 2.4GHz across all four cores and had it push up to 3.8GHz for a single core since most of my games used hardly more than that. It's a great chip, but yeah it sucks soooo much power and puts out so much heat. Just be sure you use some seriously high quality TIM for the repaste and you'll be good. ^-^

 

don't they sell some 200-220 watt universal power adapters?

 

Not that I know of. The only universal models out there go up to 120w which just isn't enough.

There was one Lenovo power adapter that had the same plug type by a fluke chance and it works. Hell if I know what model it was... Someone over on the laptop section on OCN was talking about it.

 

I wonder if i could install a small fan to G73JH's power adapter? Short duct taping and wiring to of them together in parallel.

 

You could try a dual PSU mod! There are some guides. Some alienware owners have done it to get more power to their machines. Your machine would only think it is plugged into one PSU not two but the load would be balanced over the two PSU's. Pretty cool. With dual 180W you should be good to go. That would give a good 360W if you needed it.

 

The only down side is being stopped at air port security for having a weapon in your luggage. :laugh:

In theory though, unless it has a smart tip the laptop wouldn't how much juice it has to work with any ways and having the load balanced would.. again in theory smooth the power out. I wonder what OFFSET configurations can be cooked up so the box isn't so big, maybe have them off set further apart on the cords.

 

180W, fits the JH: Targus Universal AC Power Notebook Adapter APA05US PA 1181 08 3 Connecting TIP | eBay

 

if they can make 250-300watt PICO ATX 12 power bricks i wonder if i can find a 200watt 19v power supply and lop the end off and put an asus end on. a dual PSU mod would be way cheaper though.

 

What about an alienware 240W power brick.? does it have more than 2 pins or a smart tip? other wise i could lop the end off and colder on an asus end.

 

I know that people use 240W PSU from Alienware in Clevos and Msi. It have middle small data pin but You just not connect it and it's ok like that. The easiest way is replace whole cable with connector which I think require soldering it on the PSU end or finding adapter like that: X75 Power Connector - 7.4 x 5.08mm Female Jack to 5.5 x 2.5mm Male Plug.

 

like that connector or will that very same connector work?

EDIT: checked specs it IS THE tip i would/will need.