Ordering a Processor

I ordered a processor, specifically the Intel Core 2 Duo T9500, but it was DOA, so I had to return it and was able to get a full refund for $160, one of my friends I was talking to stated that was way too much for a processor. How much is too much for a processor? As I have told people before that I will be doing video editing and using photoshop for designing websites.

These are the ones that are compatible with my laptop:

1. Intel C2D T7500 (2.2 GHz/4MB Cache/800MHz): $41
2. Intel C2D T7700 (2.4 GHz/4MB Cache/800MHz): $90
3. Intel C2D T7800 (2.6 GHz/4MB Cache/800MHz): $140
4. Intel C2D T8100 (2.1 GHz/3MB Cache/800MHz): $45
5. Intel C2D T8300 (2.4 GHz/3MB Cache/800MHz): $83
6. Intel C2D T9300 (2.4 GHz/6MB Cache/800MHz): $142
7. Intel C2D T9500 (2.6 GHz/6MB Cache/800MHz): $151
8. Intel C2D X7900 (2.8 GHz /4MB Cache/800MHz): $200
9. Intel C2D X9000 (2.8 GHz /6MB Cache/800MHz): $480

I don't really know if the really high end ones are worth it or not, I want speed and multitasking for sure. I want to make sure that the performance for my laptop is up there because I need to use it for a good two or three more years. Which one should I get? I mean, I'm not really trying to spend $500 dollars but if that's what it takes then I guess...The reason I posted the prices is because that's what I'm finding them at. Are these reasonable prices?

 

From the price/performance perspective, the best is T9500 in your list.

I think $150 is a fair price for that CPU. Still check with e-bay.


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All those prices are from E-Bay, I was wondering if you guys knew of places where I could get processors cheaper. Thanks for the advice, I'll probably stick with that then.

 

check your CPU usage, if its not at 80-90% most of the time, then the CPU wont be a bottleneck. You'd be better off spending the money on an SSD

 

If you read it carefully, you will see that this guy has pretty high CPU usage.

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Given you can find a T9500 only a bit more than a T9300, go with that. Unfortunately mobile Core 2 processors that have 800 FSB are only sold OEM these days, so pretty much Fleabay or go digging around forums or our NBR marketplace.

 

What does a bottleneck mean? I'm really confused about that.

 

Bottleneck is pretty much the thing that limits the whole thing

Basically, if your CPU is bottlenecking your computer, you won't get much of a performance increase even if you change your GPU and hard drives to whatever the best in the world is. They'll just slow themselves down for the CPU to keep up

 

Thanks man, yeah, I just placed an order for the T9500, I don't want to be frugal, but I recently stumbled on to a 1720 Inspiron, I was wondering if I was to soup that up and sell it on E-Bay, would it have a resale value?

 

If it has the Nvidia graphics and a T8x00 or T9x00 series processor, maybe 400-500

 

that's good price for the T9500 .. I paid 160 for mine recently

 

might be a 'fair price' for a processor, but be sure to bounce that price against what a new machine would cost.

$600 can buy a pretty good laptop these days.

 

seeing your GPU is Nvidia 8400 series,
you might want to reconsider to change your laptop into whole new one with better specs, since 8400/8600 series are known to be faulty
having them is like having a time bomb inside your machine, although it may not blow at all.

 

The Inspiron 1520/Vostro 1500 GPU seem to be less badly affected than the all the other models. Mine has survived 2000+ hours of extreme gaming. That and the cooling system is a bit odd for the 1520, the GPU and CPU have their own heatpipes and the GPU is cooled before the CPU.

 

It belonged to my friend, who decided to get a new laptop because ironically she would need to upgrade his processor and felt as if she couldn't because it was too much money for the processor he needs. She's also a video editor, works with multiple programs open and etc.

So long story short, he gave me the laptop but I unlike some people, don't really look to get a 17" Laptop because it's too bulky. We both put in our orders together to Dell and we both got ours just before Christmas 2007, so it has about a good 3.5 years of usage but it's in pretty good condition.
Here are the current specs:

Inpsiron 1720
Processor: Intel C2D T7500 (2.2GHz/4MB)
Operating System: Windows 7 HP (64-Bit) + Windows Vista HP SP2 (64-Bit)
Hard Drive: 1TB (2x500GB) @ 7200RPM
Memory: 4GB DDR2-PC5300
Optical: DVD-RW/CD-RW
Graphics Card: 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 8600M
Screen: WSXGA+ (1600x1050) Matte Finish [Replaced in January 2010]
LCD Back Color: Red (used to be pink)

Now she also gave me the original hard-drive (120GB @ 7200RPM) that came with his hard drive. What could I really get with this? Should I sell it?

The only laptop that can actually allow me to do the things I need is a really high performance one, I have been tweaking my laptop to pull as much as I can out of it. I'm talking about something like a Dell XPS 15" souped up which comes out to like $1700. Maybe in two years or at best another year or so, I just replaced the screen and the Hard Drive.

I don't know I haven't really had a problem with it, I was planning on upgrading it to the 8600 series but I'm not sure if I should even bother with that because of my usage. I think mine hasn't gone bad because I rarely ever game except for a few times on facebook but I think my old HP from '02 could render those graphics...LOL.

Yeah, I don't think mine will go down either and oddly somewhere I read before that the GPU gets hotter than CPU so it makes sense.

 

T8100 should be good enough, the performance difference between the first generation penryn is not all that much. There is no point spending the extra 100 odd dollars for the T9300 when the T8100 would give you similar level of performance.

Use the money saved for your future computer purchase.

 

From the list the P9500 is the one to go for.

I'm sure others are also compatible but might be somewhat more expensive to what you're after. Namely P9800, P9900 and X9100. All these are 45nm C0 or E0 stepping Core 2 Duo Mobile chips and I'm pretty sure your system will work with these two (assuming it supports 45nm C2D's). If it's the Inspiron 1720 then this is true. I doubt Dell placed a BIOS lock disabling detecting of the above models.

Look for a technical brief PDF on your laptop model, that will list all the processors models available for CTO models. There you should find the models you're okay with, both from a compatibility and financial perspective. From there just proceed accordingly.

 

Not (compatible).

the chipset is 965 so only 800MHz fsb supported

 

Yeah all those processors you listed above are 1066 FSB...not supported on PM965.

 

Opps, sorry guys, my bad. Didn't notice that, I was somehow sure the Inspiron 1720 is based on a P45 mobile chipset.

Thanks.

 

Thanks for helping out everyone, I appreciate it, now, would you guys recommend buying a used processor or a new one? I was looking at all the ones for T9300/T9500, most of them are used for a $100-$170, so I'm not sure how much of a factor that is. The new ones for the T9XX series are well into the $200 so should I just go ahead and get a brand new T7800 it's the same price as the T9500? I'd be sacrificing a tad bit on the performance, I'm not sure if I would even notice it...

 

no, get the T9500.

a processor either works or not, so doesnt matter if it's new or used. Mine was used. Besides, I'm not sure if Intel still makes those (probably not)

the T9300 is cheaper alternative and has similar performance, so if you're not doing much CPU intended applications then go for that one instead. I went for the T9500 because I'm playing Unreal Tournament 3 which is CPU hungry

 

As long as you thoroughly test out the processor, unless the previous owner overclocked the crap out of it you should be fine.

 

Wow, thanks for the advice. Yeah, I've made up my mind I just ordered the T9500 (again, hopefully it's not dead this time) for the laptop. Isn't the difference only 2.5 GHz (T9300) to 2.6 GHz (T9500)?

Excellent point. I wish I thought of this...How would I test for that? I'm guessing overclocking is the same concept as introducing nos to a car engine?

 

More like setting the idle closer to redline, or keeping the engine constantly revved. There's no real way to test if a processor has been overclocked, though, all you can do is run a heavy stress test (like wPrime95 or Intelburn) and see if the CPU spits out errors.

 

Yeah you should run like Prime95 for a couple of hours and see if you get any errors/BSOD. Also tests out your RAM.

 

Oh okay, so I take it that there's no real harm in overclocking your processor?

What kind of errors should I expect? Stuff like blue screen of death and etc?

 

Prime95 will keep track of errors in it's logs. If it BSOD you know you have some kind of hardware issue (bad stick of RAM, or bad CPU)

 

There is some harm, but in practical terms, not much unless you overdo it. The life of your average processor can be measured in decades, so if you take a few years off of that, noone is likely to notice. Now, if you overclock it and continually keep it running at extremely high temperatures, then yes, the chances for actual damage go up, just like running an engine at redline without adequate cooling or lubrication can destroy it. Fortunately, most processors will shut down automatically before actual damage happens. Most of the time.

 

OC-ing the cpu won't really shorten it's lifespan to the point where it will burn out during the time frame you are using it (and possibly even afterward if you sell it).

Furthermore, if you keep your temperatures down or even undervolt and cpu and it can be OC-ed with the undervolt, then you won't be really doing it any harm in the first place.

If temperatures are the biggest enemy of cpu's and most electronic components (and we know they are), then the reasonable conclusion would be to keep the temperatures within acceptable parameters (say in the 80 degrees C range).

Keeping it in that range at max load would be within the safe zone and the cpu would be operational for decades to come still.

Same applies to the OC... if you do it and keep your temps within 80 degrees or even lower (depending on the cooling measures you go with), then you won't really experience issues.
However, there is such a thing as problems with pushing the cpu's too far.
Even if the temps are low under an OC, it depends on how stable the system will be under a specific OC.
Most of the time though, I do not find overclocking the cpu to be of measurable use.
If I would be able to OC my cpu for instance to 2.8GHz and keep it stable, then THAT would be a 30% increase which would in effect be nicely measurable.
Anything below 20% gain is not really worth doing if you ask me.

 

Okay, thanks for the analogy and that sounds interesting but should I just buy a faster processor instead of doing that? I have a T5250 (1.5GHz w/2MB Cache) and I just ordered a T9500 (2.6GHz w/6MB Cache), would it be possible to get better performance w/my original processor (T5250)?

K, gotcha. Would you believe this, I just ordered the T9500 the other day and now I see a X7900 for the same price...

Well, when I ran the SIW program, most of my temperatures stay in the range of 40 Celsius to 50 Celsius. I don't really game at all, but I watch movies, do video/photo editing using various programs and web design using several adobe programs. However, this seems much more complicated to me, I currently have a T5250 (1.5 GHz w/2MB Cache) and the rest of the notebook description is written in the signature. But should I overclock this one? I ordered a T9500 just a day ago.

 

Well, the thing is, overclocking on a notebook platform, unless you have a CPU with unlocked multipliers (which the T5250 and T9500 are not), is highly dependent on the individual model, as well as the individual chip. Without an unlocked multiplier, you have to either play with the clock generator, or start doing hardware modifications that have the same effect. If you really want to look into overclocking your Inspiron 1520, you're probably best off asking this question either in one of the overclocking threads here, or over to the Dell Inspiron and Dell Studio subforum, where you can ask other owners of this model if they've been able to do these sorts of things.

 

good choice of CPU

I'd also take T9500 before the X7900. It the choice ware between the first and a X9000 then that's different story, but as I said before the X series usually generate lots of heat when pumped to speeds above their T---- equivalent.

as for whether or not the CPU has been overclocked before - no real way to tell, but in fact if it was OCed and is still working then that's just a benefit for you, as it would tell you that the CPU is proven to work well even under heavy loads.

there's this thing called the bathtub curve (applies to almost all things out there), which means that if you push whatever you make to the limit at its first year of use (say a 10 year lifespan of that device), and it survives, the chances for it to fail before its lifetime drop significantly ... and it will work well for sure. On the other hand the devices that will most likely fail before its lifetime would do so if pushed hard in the first year. Hope that makes sense.

- dont forget to undervolt the CPU to lower its temps, this trick does wonders

 

Yup I would second undervolting, I got my T7500 to like 20-21C idle (23C ambient) and like 66C full load, shaved off probably 15-20C by undervolting and repasting my Vostro 1500.

The Vostro 1500 maybe to handle X series processors, SomeFormofHuman has got 2 of in Vostro 1700/1720 (which has the same cooling system).

 

lol... how did you get it below ambient?

 

That sounds a whole lot more complicated than I hoped for. Thanks for clearing that up, I was confused really but at least I understand in the technical terms what it exactly means. I think it's just easier to buy a faster processor, when that becomes impossible, I will be posting questions on how to do it. Lol.

Do they now? I mean, I don't think I'd get the X7900, it's a bit of tease now that I think about it because I'm only sacrificing 200-300 MHz as opposed to sacrificing 2MB of L2 Cache. I think it would be worth it to stick with the T9500, perhaps if the X9000 was available for a reasonable price, I would get that. I don't know if this means much but the X7900 that I was going to get was actually in a MacBook Pro beforehand, although I don't think it would matter if you put it in a Dell Notebook.

As it stands now, with my current processor my average temperature range is between 40C-50C, but upgrading to the T9500/X7900/X9000, I would expect that to change. Thanks for the bathtub curve, I did not know about this, it's great way of perceiving the mechanics of something.

How would you go about undervolting? Is that covered by your Repasting Guide? Also, is undervolting as it sounds, such that your are somehow shortening the power coming in from the battery/adapter?

 

Flipfire's undervolting guide can be found here.

With it you can modify what voltage the CPU gets on which multipliers. Everything is explained in that thread.

 

^ I used RMClock for long time until I realized that it takes up to 5% of CPU load to operate itself ... and this was when I switched to ThrottleStop (I think I sound like a car insurance commercial .. lol). The development of RMClock has stopped with the Merom CPUs, though one can still use it for Penryn.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

 

Thanks, yeah, I am understanding this at an exceptional rate, especially when you understand the concept behind it.

I'll take a look at this once I'm done with the other guide, it's not that I'm biased or anything but I had already started with that guide more than halfway so I'll go through that and then I'll try this out. Thanks!

 

So this is going to sound awkward, I took your guys advice and undervolted my current processor (T5250/1.5GHz/2MB) and here's my results so far:

I followed the instructions as listed in that thread to the teeth, when I started RM CPU Clock, I discovered that I have four multipliers for my processor:
6x, 7x, 8x, 9x and all of which were at 1.2500V to start after inputing the defaults (which happen to be 0.9500, 1.0500, 1.1500, and 1.2500, respectively). Now I followed Tsunade's advice and used the RM method and currently I am testing the 0.9625 Voltage, about 25 minutes in and still no BSOD.

In addition, I didn't encounter any BSODs or errors of any kind during the previous trials and I tested the larger voltages (1.2500, 1.1875, 1.1500) for roughly 45 minutes and as I got closer to 1.100v and below, I increased the amount of testing time by approximately 30 minutes to almost double.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, am I doing this right? I'm monitoring the temperatures at pretty much each interval and at the maximum voltage, I was at approximately 75C. Now I am at 0.9625Volts and currently hovering above 51C. Is this normal?

 

15 deg cut away ... awesome

30 min is pretty long time to test though, I went with only about 5 to 10 min max. The errors that would pop up (or BSOD) will do so in the first minute most likely anyways.

anyways, you start decreasing the voltage from the highest multiplier, and when you find the threshold you move back 2 steps and that would be your working VID. Then you can leave same voltage for the other lower multipliers, or lower each one step-wise from the highest.

 

It actually dropped 24 degrees, I don't know, I thought I was doing something wrong by not getting errors. I ran the test for about 30 minutes, now I'm on the lowest voltage possible for everything, if I don't get errors at all here, what should I do? The thing is I haven't hit the threshold yet and I don't know if I am going to at all. Is it because this processor such a low-end processor (Intel C2D T5250)?

 

you should buy pizza and call it a day ..

I hope you're using Orthos .. right ? Test with Small FFTs ? Because that's what you should use when stressing

 

Yup, Orhtos and Small FFTs. I might actually do that, I'm getting really hungry. Wow, thanks for the clear up man. I don't think I'll be able to expect these kind of results with a T9300 or X9000, whichever I end up getting.

 

NP.

the lowest I've seen with a T9300 was like 0.950 volts at the highest multiplier (without the IDA). Mine cant go that low as it's not the top version of the T9500. I'm down to 1.025V at x13 .. as at 1.000V I got errors.

 

This might seem like an obvious answer but I'm going to ask the question anyway, since I was able to decrease my T5250 to 0.9500 Volts, does that mean pretty much anyone with the same processor can do it? Or do other things like motherboards, video cards, ram and hdd play a factor?

 

each CPU on its own, there are no two same CPUs out there Similar results could be expected from similar setups though, but that's not true all the time.