nx9420 upgrade: 135W or 120W (power supply)

This is sort of a general upgrade thread I suppose. I've had my nx9420 for 2 years now and hopefully at least another 2 more years. I've been looking into upgrading for awhile now and will eventually pull the trigger on the upgrades once I decide to spend my money.

Firstly, I plan on upgrading the GPU to the nw9440's FX1500m 256MB. With this upgrade, I believe a larger power supply is needed (90W standard for the nx9420) to power the more powerful GPU. It seems nw9440's with the FX1500m shipped with the 120W power supply (correct me if I'm wrong) but would the 135W help/impede the performance of my notebook? Both power supplies can be found at close to the same price so that is not a factor.

Other additional upgrades I plan on doing are 1) keyboard with pointstick, 2)Heatsink for GPU and possibly 3) CPU. (Please suggest anything else that you think should be upgraded to increase longevity or performance of the notebook)

I have an Intel T2400 1.83GHz and wondering if it is still decent for another year or two. The best CPU possible for my chipset is the T7600 as far as I am aware of. Either the T7400 or T7200 would also be possible solutions that are lower cost than the T7600.

Hopefully after I have completed all of these upgrades, it will be a competent machine. Once I get around doing this, I will probably post my experience on the upgrade.

Kind of a long read but I am open to suggestions and would greatly appreciate and help or input to this upgrade.

 

The 135W power supply is compatible as it steps down according to the power requirements. Generally, using a higher wattage power supply for a lower requirement is fine, but not the other way around.

 

buy the 135w no doubt.
if your notebook cooling is good, have a look at the x7800. it doesn't fall behind a t9300.

 

Note I have the Napa platform and the "best" processors that I can drop in are Merom (Socket M) processors. Both the X7800 and the T9300 are socket P processors and sadly cannot upgrade. One way is to find a motherboard to support these processors as HP did have a refresh to support socket P processors, but the cost of a motherboard may possibly be greater than a new notebook...

 

Just because you can upgrade, it doesn't mean it's worth it.

Please read my post, but don't take it like I'm telling what to do.
It's all up to you and it's your money.

I think your upgrade plans would have been great if you either could upgrade to the latest parts like the 8700GT equivalent NVS 320, or if your laptop was broken and needed new parts.

I've also been thinking about upgrading my nx9420, but I've realized it's not worth it. Save those money for the next computer instead. But it also depends on what you're using it for.

Even though the Nvidia card is faster than the ATI, it's still product from 2005 (the nx9420 showed up in march 2006). It's a very expensive upgrade compared to what you get.

The same goes for CPU, although it's easier to find better prices due to better availability. The performance is not that much higher though. Look at this review, but skip the gaming part since it's done with the resolution set to minimum. You would get a higher clock speed than now of course.

The CPU type have always been more important to me than the CPU clock speed. Like when I overclocked my Opteron 146 from 2 to 3 GHz I thought: "Great! . . err, now what?" It was much faster, but it didn't make any difference for me, but maybe for others who have the fastest GPU available or does a lot of CPU intensive tasks.


Upgrade the RAM to 3 GB if you haven't done it, use Windows 2000, XP or 2003, not Vista or 2008. Buy a keyboard if you want to since they're pretty cheap anyway and it's good to have a spare later on when they're not available anymore.

Even if you fell like upgrading, remember to look at the total price.
I think an upgrade like this shouldn't cost more than 25 % of the new price for a new 8710p (the successor for the nx9420). That's somewhere around 350 - 400 USD, and probably impossible to stay at since that's the cost for the GPU and heatsink alone. The reason for the price limit is obvious, you want to keep the costs down, and it's also a way to realize how close to a new computer you'll get. I think you'll end up closer to half the price of a new laptop at least. Buying a new one next year or the year after is much better.

That CPU doesn't fit the nx9420, it has different socket and FSB.

 

Oh, I forgot to say, my nx9420 uses 65 W (Kill-a-Watt) when running RTHDRIBL and Orthos at the same time, with the GPU on max and the T2300 undervolted from 1.2625 to 1.0 V.

 

Well lucky for me, I don't plan on spending $400 on upgrades, hopefully closer to $200. Here's a brief breakdown
GPU -> $100
Heatsink -> $40
PSU -> $40
Plus shipping I guess so that may vary from $20 to $45. So that totals to roughly $200. Mats, do you still think its worthwhile or should I just hold off for a new notebook when the time comes? I would make use of the GPU since I use CAD programs every so often. I think I'll pass on the CPU for the time being since the cost performance ratio is too high. Thanks for the inputs.

 

Is the laptop particulary slow when you're using CAD programs?

I think the prices for the parts are good, and a GPU upgrade would make bigger difference than a CPU upgrade. Going from a X1600 to FX 1500m (= 7900m GS)is a big step, see the links for benchmarks.

The 7900 was never a hot running card, the desktop 7900 GS used like 45 W and the links above lists them as 20 W parts. As a comparsion, the desktop X1600 Pro uses 41 W. I doubt you need a new PSU, since my nx9420 uses 65 W from the wall (<60 W from the PSU?). The desktop figures doesn't tell you everything, but I don't think the power consumption would raise more than 10 W. You should undervolt the CPU though if you haven't.

If you need it, buy it.

Personally I wouldn't do it anyway, just because I don't need it. I use mine for Pro/Engineer and it works well for what I do.

The new HP machines are coming this fall, maybe something to look at next year? And/or, hold out 18 months for the new Windows.

 

Well I don't plan on buying a new notebook for at least another two year. One reason I wanted to upgrade the GPU is to improve on some gaming but this is more of a want and not necessarily a need. I'm just worried about the power supply due to some people requiring the PSU since a message came up saying the current power supply wasn't sufficient (from my recollection).

I plan on undervolting shortly when I have the time. And for the CAD programs I use, sometimes when I'm rendering things, it does slow down, not sure if that is GPU or CPU based though...

 

Check the task manager, does it reach 100 %?
You run the X1600 at 370/470 MHz, right?

Ok, so it's a gaming upgrade mainly. Ask around what people think about going from X1600 to 7900GS (more common name).
I have enough games to play on mine for a while, even Crysis worked, but yeah, it wasn't that pretty . .

 

Well currently I'm not using CAD as much right now due to lack of need at the moment and I wiped my hard drive accidentally due to my stupidity. I have read some comparison of the two cards and the nVidia should be quite and improvement. If I was very ambitious, I would try a 8710w card but that is too much risk and a substantially greater cost. I believe this card will satisfy my needs for games though, that is why I have decided on it.

To Mats: If you need additional info from my PM, just ask, not sure how well I explained it.

 

I don't think it's worth trying anything else than the cards that are made for the nx9420.
The reason is that the GPU BIOS is stored in the motherboard CMOS. By doing this, HP have full control over which card you can use.

The FX 1500 is a great card for it's price, and even compared to its successors.
3DMark 06:

nx9420 X1600: 1821
nw9440 FX 1500: 3960

8710p NVS 320: 4775
8710w FX 1600: 4937