Sony Vaio FZ31S upgrade of everything...

Hello everyone,

You guys helped me a lot to choose when I was buying a laptop 3 years ago that's why I came back just here but don't even have the foggiest idea what email and password I have used back then.

Anyway, I have Sony Vaio FZ31s and I need better performance but just don't want to spend £900 on a new laptop, not just yet (this has nothing to do with the fact that my girlfriend just bought a new laptop which is a rocket ). I use it mostly for photo editing and gaming occasionally. I would like to upgrade as many things as possible if they are in reasonable price. I started with RAM and I've read my chipset supports only 667MHz so I'm planning to buy 4GB 667MHZ low latency - still need to check prices.

Now, for photoshop and the like I think the next most important thing is processor - the thing is I have no idea what is the best processor I can put on my motherboard. Same thing with graphics card. Any ideas?

Not sure if it's worth putting 7400RPM hdd instead of 5400 which I have at the moment.

I want to buy 4gb flash memory and put it in my usb to serve as a quick acces memory for this "Vista boost" or however it is called.

So what do you guys think would give me the best performance improvement and value for money?

Thanks
Seb

 

1. You cannot upgrade your graphics card. A new laptop is the only way.

2. The RAM is a good start point, also if you upgrade to 4GB don't bother with the extra flash memory, wont do a damn thing. If you system is using 2gb or less the flash memory is a decently good idea, but as I said, useless in this case.

3. Follow this link and those are some processors that are available for your socket. The Q9000 or the T9600 would be my choice, although I believe some Socket P motherboards wont accept the Q9000(or any mobile quad cores), someone else would have to confirm that.

4. Switching to a 7200rpm drive would net some faster access and load times, but a lot of things come into play such as: data density, cache, etc. The single most effective upgrade I have ever made to my computer is adding a SSD. They are pricey, but it is totally worth it. I am using Intel and would totally recommend this model, I own the 80gb version and it cost a bit more at the time, so that is a very good price.

In my personal opinion, these upgrades would cost half of a new laptop or more(possibly), I think just waiting it out would be the best thing you could do. Technology has advanced so fast over the last three years, just imagine even in a year or less what will be available.