Fastest processor for Dell Studio 1737 Laptop

Hello folks.....

I have a Dell Studio 1737 laptop that I really like however its getting a little slow in its old age and I would like to upgrade the processor (Got an SSD drive to fit tonight to it, the Processor is next on the list!) - At the moment it has a Core 2 Duo processor, can I stick any core 2 duo processor in it or does it have to be specific ones? Basically, as the title of the thread says, whats the fastest processor I can stick in this laptop?

Just home from work and checked CPUID...
It has a Penryn Socket P(478) Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00 Ghz
Core Speed 1196.93 Mhz Bus Speed 199.49 Mhz Rated FSB 797.95 Mhz
Mainboard Chipset is PM45 Southbridge is ICH9-M
DRAM Freq is 400Hmz and Graphics are ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650

I'm thinking about this processor as a decent and reasonably priced upgrade:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz QHBJ Socket P
New Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz QHBJ Socket P CPU Processor | eBay

 

You should be able to use any Socket P Core 2 Duos except maybe quads/extremes. The T9400 will work fine.

 

And would it give me a noticeable bump in performance? Is there anything a bit faster that's still a reasonable price you would recommend ?

 

Oh, another question, thanks for the reply btw! If I want to increase the memory do I just buy the same speed or if it's a faster processor do I need faster memory?

 

Depends on what you're doing... the T9400 is nominally 20%+ faster than the T6400, but if you're not hitting full CPU utilization that much, you're not going to notice that much. In general I'd probably recommend buying an SSD before buying a new CPU unless you have a specific CPU-limited scenario in mind.

T9600 is also a decent choice. Once you get past that, the T98/99 start becoming really poor values.

You don't need to buy faster memory. Either way, the memory that came with your laptop is probably the fastest memory it can handle already.

 

Cool, as for a performance use, I am an amateur astro photographer and the main application for processing, called Pixinsight has some very powerful routines that need a lot of processor use, that's why I want the max processing power.

 

Just bought a T9600 for under £30 that should give a decent performance bump..... Just upgraded to a ssd last night,all that's left is increasing memory to 8gb but that's still over £100 so will wait till the price drops for that!

 

One last question.... Will it automatically increase the FSB to 1Ghz when I put the new processor in? What effect will this have on the memory as its a lower speed is it not?

 

Don't worry about the FSB or memory. It will all work automatically at the right speeds. They don't have to run at the same speed.

 

Don't hold your breath on it. The prices are going only one way, and it's UP.

 

Is that socket able to handle 1066 processors?

True faster doesn't mean faster unless the board chipset is built for faster RAM but I know I upgraded DDR2 to 4gig because going 8gig is cost prohibited currently because it is now consider old memory and that cost more now.

 

No probably not if you have DDR2 RAM... T9900 is the absolute best probably...