Intel P9700 for Esprimo U9200

I would like to improve performance and time my girlfriend's Esprimo U9200 might be running on battery. The notebook is equipped with an entry level T3200 CPU, which is really weak. The U9200 Esprimos were sold with T series CPUs from T3200 to T9500. Hwinfo says the mb is Socket-P with Intel GM965 + ICH8M chipset.

Some people upgraded successfully to T9500, but I'd like to go for low power P9700. Before buying from laptopmonkey I wanted to doublecheck the compatibility with them and they stated the P9700 will not fit in, because its supposed to work with chipset 45 series.

I thought that there could be problems if I wanted to put in a quad core CPU, but all dual core socket P CPUs should be OK.
So what is correct?

 

You can't run 1066MHz FSB processors in the 965 chipset.

 

Don't be confused with lower TDP and lower power consumption. It's more of a marketing tool and doesn't accurately reflect battery life. If you want less power consumption on the same architecture, your only options are to get something with a lower clock speed or lower the voltage via undervolting.

 

Oh I see. So if I understand it correctly I may use only CPUs up to 800MHz FSB. When I looked on the top of the available series I can use:

• T9500 - OEM option for most expensive Esprimos U9200 (I have to be careful and purchase socket P model SLAQH or SLAYX)
• X7800/X7900 - based on 65nm technology
• X9000 - based on 45nm technology

The mentioned extreme CPUs have 44 TDP, but I'd assume there will be more flexibility of how to setup the multipliers. The prices of unused units are not drastically different between all those 4 models I listed, so I'd like to ask for an advice, which one to pickup in the end (T9500 or X9000) with respect to performance and achievable battery life.

 

Between T9500 and X9000, T9500 is probably the better balance, especially if your laptop does not allow for multiplier control, etc.

I would personally go for the T9300, though. Only 100MHz less than the T9500 and typically half the price.

 

Thank you very much for your advice, I'm going to consider T9300 as well.

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