What do i need to upgrade to make my ASUS K52F i3 run faster? upgrade RAM, HDD, Processor?

this is my current laptop - ASUS K52F:
Windows 7 64 bit (am going to upgrade to Windows 8 64 Bit soon,
Intel core i3 CPU M380 @ 2.53 GHz
3GB RAM (2.86GB Usable)
64-Bit operating system = Windows 7 Home Premium


I was just about to buy this Toshiba Satellite 17.3" Laptop 4GB Memory 500GB Hard Drive C875-S7303 - Best Buy
Toshiba Satellite C875-S7303 comes with armed by the 3rd Gen Intel Core i3-3110M processor Features a 3MB cache and 2.4GHz processor speed with smart 4-way processing performance for HD quality computing, 4GB of DDR3 memory for multitasking power expandable to 16GB, as well as hard drive capacity of 500GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)

but a friend thinks i should save the $400 and just buy more RAM, and this would speed everything up,

how true is this?
i can upgrade the ASUS RAM to 8GB, but will that really make much of a difference in term of speed opening programs and multi-tasking?
or would i need to upgrade other things, like processor /memory/etc ?

Im just in 2 minds whether i should buy the $400 toshiba notebook, or if it wont be too much different to the ASUS i already have?
- i use the laptop for web browsing 10-15 tabs open in one browser at once, itunes, MS WORD/EXCEL, notepad, sometimes a movie file/streamining, youtube - sometimes all open at once, this is when it lags and runs slow/freezes

thanks for all replies

 

SSD and RAM upgrade. Upgrading to 8GB is really cheap, should be under $40 for 8GB.

 

Your friend's on the right track. A SSD (and, to some extent, RAM) will speed up your current laptop. Most tasks are I/O bottlenecked, thanks to mechanical hard drives, so I'd consider checking Newegg, Amazon, etc for SSDs in your budget (Crucial, Plextor, Intel, or Samsung. Don't consider any other SSDs due to reliability and/or bad customer support). RAM is very cheap; you can get a stick of G.Skill 4GB 204-pin DDR3 RAM for $18.50 on Newegg right now.

 

thanks for the replies,

even though i could buy SSD/RAM, does anyone think getting the Toshiba C875-S7303 laptop which has :
- 15GB expandable RAM (Compared to aaus 8gb)
- a 17" screen (asus 15"),
- a 3.0 USB port, asus only 2.0 USB ports
- windows 8 pre-installed, asus windows 7
- i3 3rd gen 3110M - asus i3 350m - 2 years old

Will these differences improve the speed/multitasking compared to the ASUS and make it a noticeably superior laptop?
even if i upgrade the asus from 3gb to 8gb RAM?

 

1 - not really, I bet you barely use 4GB as it is.

2 - physical size doesn't matter as much as resolution and PPI. I wouldn't buy a new laptop unless it had 1080p.

3 - imo, Windows 8 is only good on a tablet. metro has no place on the desktop. Anyway, you won't notice any objectively-significant speed boost by going from 7 (already pretty fast) to 8.

4 - for what you're doing, you won't notice any difference in CPU. The processor is pretty much never the bottleneck these days, and as said above the most common bottleneck would be the hard drive. I'd apply the $400 budget to a large SSD (you can afford a 512GB Crucial M4) and maybe maxing out your laptop to 8GB.

 

thank you privatejarhead for the detailed reply,

your starting to make me think its better if i just stick with the ASUS K52F and just upgrade SSD and RAM,

But as i am clueless about SSD, can you tell me what i should be looking for (spec) when buying one, so that it works on the ASUS?
- I have a friend in China at the moment coming home next week and can get him to buy me stuff out there,

is it wise to get him to bring me back a suitable SSD as i imagine its much cheaper there, but i have no clue what spec to request to bring back, il also get 2x4GB DDR3 RAM there too- as looking at the prices of ssd's im looking at $100-500!! Not as cheap as i expected,
and this just replaces my hdd right? so id want atleast a 300gb one

i just saw this video how to replace ssd and it doesnt look too bad on the asus:
Howto Replace Hard Drive on your Asus K52F - YouTube




so do you truly believe upgrading the ssd and ram will make my asus very fast, ideally rapid for what i do, with no laggin/freezing
i dpo like the idea of a brand new bigger laptop with new OS , but if i can upgrade for much less and have faster speed/multitasking/booting as a end result with the same old laptop, id do that

is there anything else i should be updating at the same time as the SSD AND RAM?

thanks

 

I replaced the stock 500GB hard drive in my W520 with two SSDs (160GB and 180GB), and yes, they do make your computer feel much snappier than if you stuck to a mechanical drive. This is mainly due to the random access times; on a mechanical drive, you're looking at maybe 15ms or so for the head to seek the data you want, whereas a SSD has somewhere between 0-1ms seek time since absolutely all of the data is available to the SSD controller all the time. Boot times for Windows will be considerably faster than with a mechanical drive (I went form 45s to 18s), programs open up very quickly (GIMP usually takes 10s on my desktop, though on my laptop it's almost instant, for example), and an extra benefit is that your data can survive a drop or other abusive action since SSDs are much more resistant to damage than a mechanical drive (where you have several platters spinning at 5400RPM or 7200RPM, read heads for each one that are sandwiched between them, etc etc...). I wouldn't go dropping your laptop a lot though, since it might break before your SSD does.

As for how to buy one, it'd be a safer bet to just get one from a US site (Amazon, Newegg, etc) since you will have the factory warranty and you can ensure that you're buying a quality drive. Those would include the Crucial M4 (fairly cheap for SSDs, actually), Plextor M3, Samsung 830 or 840 series, or Intel 320/330 series (my laptop has both a 320 and 330). The first three brands have their own SSD controllers, the Intel 320 comes with an Intel controller (Intel and Samsung controllers are pretty much the best out there, next to the Marvell in the Crucial M4), and the Intel 330 comes with a modified Intel-firmware Sandforce SF-2281. Other drives out there have the regular SF-2281 or older Sandforce controllers, and they have questionable reliability (especially the older ones). In addition to that, some companies are just horrible to deal with (OCZ especially) due to bad tech support. You'll want to get a reliable SSD because if something were to happen to it (like bricking, but this is unlikely with quality drives), it's next to impossible to perform data recovery on it (though regular backups are important, mechanical drive or SSD). It'd be better to go down a size to save money than go with an off-brand to do so.

Note that when you get a SSD, you don't have to defrag it or perform other cleaning jobs that you would have on a mechanical drive. In fact, Windows 7 will automatically disable Defrag when it detects that you have a SSD installed. Also note that if you eventually buy a new laptop, you can transfer over the SSD into that one to improve performance as well (though you still have to reinstall Windows if you do).

Windows 8 doesn't really facilitate multitasking, since each "tile" will take up your whole screen if you click on it, and there's no option to make a program fit in a smaller window as in Windows 7 and all the other versions of Windows. There are some programs that bring back the functionality of Windows 7 to Windows 8 (such as Start8), but then what's the point of getting Windows 8?

As for RAM, you can buy pretty much any DDR3 1066MHz 204-pin RAM and you'll be fine. Typically, G.Skill is the cheapest quality RAM on the market, though Kingston, Mushkin, Corsair, or Samsung are great choices too. RAM is RAM is RAM; just get whichever is the least expensive for the capacity you want.

 

I use a Core 2 Duo P8600 which is much slower than your CPU and by having 8GB RAM and an SSD (OCZ Vertex 120GB), it makes it feel much faster than other desktop machines at work running quad core Xeon's with WD Raptor 10 000 RPM drives.
In short, yes, the ram and SSD upgrade will make a large difference.
While the Toshiba is newer, it is still using an old-school hard drive so that will make it feel slower than it could be, given what you do with your machine.
At worst, the upgrade doesn't do what you want it to do but the SSD can be moved to the Toshiba so it's not a total waste.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation
i think im finally starting to understand it,

when i sometimes reboot the asus laptop back to factory settings, so everything is setup like when brand new, there is already 100GB used up from all the pre-installed ASUS software/hardware..
..as i will only be buying a 128GB SSD & removing the HDD (to lighten laptop), that would mean a bit chunk would be taken from the beginning!

how much of this 100GB of pre-installed hardware/software could be safely be deleted without ruining the OS/functionality?
is the whole process of initially uploading all your laptops memory to the SSD difficult?
- i also have a portable 500GB external HDD so guess i could save lots on there, but i dont like the idea of having my data/information/files in two seperate areas,
not very user friendly to have to keep connected the USB HDD to load/find something,

i dont want to leave a HDD in the laptop, as it would just weigh it down, so just the sdd would be my preference,
it would probably be 2lbs less by swapping the HDD for a SSD


So now i know more, can someone point out anything in particular (specification wise) that i need in a SSD for my ASUS K52F besides the size (128GB) ?
as looking at these SSD's : Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, ssd

they just all look so different, with different read/write specs, what am i looking for here?
4kb/sustained/max -read/write...some are called SATA and some SSD. ?!

Thanks for the info/advice

 

Wow, 100GB. Windows with drivers is usually 15-20GB.

It wouldn't be 2lb less, maybe a few hundred grams at most and not that noticeable when in a laptop.

Uploading all the stuff from the current HDD to the SSD isn't hard, there are imaging apps that can do that for you. I always prefer fresh install personally though.

 

thanks,

as im going to buy direct from CHINA what would be the best (or what are th highest end) make / model of SATA III SSD to buy,
im going to get 256gb or 512 GB i thiink, as there so cheap out there

 

Link (just curious)?

Note that you'll loose out on any warranty coverage going down this path. And the cheap drives probably use the older Sandforce controllers, making them unreliable compared to other SSDs.

 

this samsung 830 from china is 1399 Y = £10!!
http://www.360buy.com/product/601115.html

as theyre so cheap i will buy the best make/model ssd sata ii i can get,
what is the best make/model of a SSD SATA III 256GB can i get?

as there a several brands but i want a good quality ojne that will last me years (hopefully)

 

Crucial M4, Plextor M3, Samsung 830 are all good drives at 256GB. Crucial is typically the cheapest, especially now due to Cyber Monday sales.

 

thanks i have read crucial m4 and samsung 830 ssd's are recommended,,
but as ssd's are soo cheap in china i want to get the very best ssd's so it will last me years at the tope spec

do you kno of better ssd's than the samsung 380 and crucial m4

- if i cant get them bought for me in china, where is the best online store for these cyber mon days sales for the mentioned ssd's? ive only seen best buy and walmart

 

There's the Plextor M3 series (should be in 256GB flavor) and the Intel 520 series and whatever replaced that (240GB flavor).

 

I thought the intel 330 was the latest model in 240gb?

intel, crucial, samsung, or plexter,
if they were all the same price for 240-256gb which wuld you go for?

 

Intel sells two lines of SSD: the 3x0 series (budget) and 5x0 series ("performance").

Between those brands, I'll choose whichever is the cheapest for the given capacity. In most cases, it's the Crucial M4 that wins out in price.

 

One of us is missing something here: about 10 yuan to the pound makes that Samsung roughly £140. That's about twenty quid more than they cost in the UK.

 

Plus whatever shipping cost plus VAT

 

really?
i googled 1399 yuan and got £10 =

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1...&sugexp=chrome,mod=4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

http://www.360buy.com/product/601115.html

im still lost why the china site quotes in Y when thats japanese ciurrency

 

At any rate, 10 quid is way too low for a SSD. As per a common saying, if it's too good to be true...

 

i just made a stupid error, i assumed any yen/yuan is japanese, so thats what = £10, but 1399 chinese yuan = £150
its 1399 japanese yuan that = $10!!

so what online US stores are best to check for cyber monday deals in the Crucial M4 SSD 256GB?
dont know where the cheapest prices are for computer hardware

 

is i still possible to buy SATA II ssd's from stores these days? as i can only seem to find SATA III's

 

Sure, there are still a number of SATAII drives out there. Intel 320 comes to mind, as well as the Samsung 470.

 

cheers.
so now i know i cant pick up a 128GB SSD for £10 and china prices are similar i need to reconsider my idea of buying a 256GB SSD!

You said before the OS takes up 30GB, does that mean NO other memory is taken up besides what i choose to install/download/files i hold in the memory?
- if i only use say 20gb on my software/docs/music, would a small ssd like 64GB stil run fast?

ive seen a used Crucial v4 on ebay for £5, claimed to be in fine working order.
im skeptical buying off ebay, but how long do these crucial sdd;s last on average for?
do they deteriorate over time?
as ive had PC' and laptops for 5+ years before with no problem.
and as SSD's dont have spinning plates like HDD so i cant see how they could just die on me after years of careful use - so no maxing of the memory or dropping/knocking the laptop

any questions i should ask the ebay seller to check the ssd?
thanks

 

You dont' want to fill any drive up too much, so you probably need 128GB. You don't want to spend all your time copying stuff on and off an external drive.

There are SATA II drives selling cheaply at the moment - perhaps £50 for 128GB but you won't get the full performance boost. A good SATA III like the 830 or M4 would be getting on for £80. Look out for deals. You could try overseas sites, but by the time you add on VAT and shipping i doubt you'd save anything.

I've heard bad things about the V4.

I have no experience of buying drives on ebay, but I wouldn't - especially if it was cheap. SSDs can be bad .

I think your laptop should be capable of running your software without lagging so I recommend reinstalling Win7 or 8 and see if that fixes your problem. Check to see if you have enough memory and increase it you need to, then pick a SATA III drive and save up if you can't afford it now.