Sony Vaio SZ-491 N/X, upgrading CPU

I have Sony SZ-491 N/X and I'm thinking about upgrading the CPU.
It once was a top of the line SZ series but I feel it's too slow for what it once was worth.

It's currently fitted with Core2Duo T7400 and a slow spinning SATA hard drive but it's way too slow for my taste.
Also the notebook runs very hot and I've installed replacement CPU cooling fan and a warped face plate three years ago but it's failing already due to heat.

The question is which CPU is the best fit for the SZ-491N?
I've been reading Quad Core vs. faster clocked Core2Duo debates. I'm more into HD video editing and doing Microsoft Office stuff more than gaming so I'm leaning toward the Quad CPU.

I don't want to spend top dollars for cutting edge CPU like Qx9300 as the rest of the components are over four years obsolete. I don't even think that the chasis of the SZ-491N was built to resist high heat emitting CPU like the T7400. Hence the idea of lower clocked Quad Core is very tempting indeed.

I've been comparing similarily priced Q9000 and T9600 and was wondering how much speed gain I would get over the T7400. If the gain is not worthy of the money in a real world application, I'm willing to wait until the premium of the current CPU becomes more affortable in the year end.

Your expertise is greatly appreciated.

 

Your only possible upgrade cpu wise is the T7600. Since there is no major difference between the T7400 and the T7600 your better off spending some money upgradding your HDD and adding maybe more ram.

Or save your money and buy something new.

 

Im running a T5600 1.83Ghz CPU on a Sony Vaio SZ4MN, how much of an upgrade would the T7600 be? seeing how old these CPU's are, do you think its suitable to pay £150 for it or is there any place to get the CPU cheaper?

 

nation,

Upgrading the HD and the RAM was my intial plan. Then I got greedy and wanted more.
Why is the T7600 the only option I have? What about the T9600? Is the Quad Core not compatible with the SZ-491N? Is it the motherboard that's limiting the bottleneck?
I spent close to $2800 on the SZ-491N when it first came out. I'd like to get it up to date with a few hundreds more if possible.

Thanks

 

It all depends on what you do with your laptop; i.e. what type of application you want. My opinion save your money for a new laptop. £150 for a CPU is a lot. I mean you can almost buy a netbook for that money.

The T2300, T2400, T2500, T2600, T2700, T5200, T5300, T5600, T7200, T7400, and T7600 plus few others are socket M
The T7100, T7250, T7300, T7500, T7700, T7800, T8100, T8300, T9300, T9500, T9550, T9600, T9800, T9900 plus few others are socket P.

A socket P CPU won't work on a socket M.
you paid a premium price when you bought your laptop because it had the fastest parts on those days. Having the best parts on a new laptop does not leave a lot of room for upgrade.

Untill about a month ago I had a gateway laptop. I bought it with a Celeron M430 (also socket M). Since it was the cheapest CPU available I was able to upgrade it to a T2500 and then to T7200. Before selling it I downgraded it to a T2300. The gateway was not worth selling with the T7200 since this CPU cost between £80 and £90 in ebay

 

I see, the socket was the reason.
As you said, I guess there really is no reason to spend extra money on a CPU.
That leaves me no choice than sticking with what I have.
I don't understand the logic behind Intel making different sockets to confuse the customers.

By the way, what would you say about the T7400 compare to the current crop of the CPU like the T9500? Are the newer generation CPUs twice faster than what I have?

 

Well it all depends on what you do with your laptop. To surf the net, write some text, watch a DVD, both CPU are equale. The difference between these CPU is noticible when working on some CPU entensive task such us video encoding or rendering.

The T9500 is not twice as fat as the T7400. I would say it's about 30% or 40% faster. I can't open the follwing page to check (my connection is very slow today).
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

By the way Socket P has been recently by a new socket which is designed for the i3, i5, and i7 CPUs

 

Thank you. You truely are the notebook deity.

I'm pulling my hair why I made such critical mistake and spent so much money on an obsolete CPU socket that leaves me no choice. I thought I was tech savvy. It would've been nice if I could at least upgrade a motherboard with the P socket but then it would be just as cumbersome and costly as buying a used PC.

 

as I said I had the T7200 in the gateway laptop and it covered all my need. What do you use your laptop for?

You have vista in your laptop. Isn't it? How much RAM do you have?

 

First off, the socket type and FSB speed will limit you to a T7600, which is a negligible superfluous reason to buy it, for speed, since such a minor upgrade will not be noticeable. You can't "limit" a bottleneck, there is no bottleneck as you refer to it, it's just a shear limitation, what size is your laptop (screen size)? You completely disregarded heat output as well.

 

Folks, nevermind.
As nation pointed out, the socket limitataion really end my search.
I was hoping to do high definition AVCHD editing with the notebook PC.
I have a SZ491N/X that's sitting on top of the base just made for the SZ series so that I could connect an external monitor via DVI.
The highest resolution my camcorder can shoot is 1920X1080 at 24fps in Progressive mode. My old desktop Pentium PC couldn't handle the Sony Vegas Pro processing the HD footage.
I was hoping that the Core2Duo could do some trick but I guess I'd be better off buying the new PC than to upgrade the older ones.

 

u are better off buying a new pc in my opinion... try getting a laptop with a core i7 quad and u should have no problems with vegas... and if u want one with a proper GPU , try Asus G73 ... core i7 quad , 8GB RAM and ATI 5870 , which is best mobile GPU... about 1500 pounds when imported in from US since it is no available in UK...