Upgrade z61t cpu?

Hello. I'm thinking of buying a z61t with a Core 2 Duo 1.66 processor. Is it possible to swap out this cpu at a later date for a Core 2 Duo that is faster?

- Mark

 

Yep, but it will void your warranty and is not the easiest thing to do, You should have some technical proficiency.

 

A faster hard drive will give you a bigger performance boost.

 

Thanks for the answers guys. I like to buy the slowest processor of the newest core, in this case Core 2 Duo at 1.66GHz, then upgrade to a faster version in the line when prices come down dramatically in a year or two. Presently the Core 2 Duo mobile tops out at 2.33GHz, a pretty healthy increase from 1.66GHz.

Of course there is no such thing as future proofing yourself but in the past this strategy has worked quite well as I'm still using my P4 3.06 that was originally purchases with a 2.4GHz processor.

- Mark

 

The way I look at it if you were buying a new notebook 5-6 years ago and the lower end choice was a 733MHz PIII and on the top end was a 900MHz PIII doesn't seem like much of a difference right now. If all you are doing Internet or Office I doubt you'll notice a difference.

 

Like I said 1.66GHz to 2.33GHz is a 40% clockspeed increase. That's a sizeable performance increase.

The main reason I like to have more cpu power is that I do quite a bit of video and audio editing work and those apps each processor cycles like mad. The Core 2 Duo at 1.66GHz will give me a nice performance bump right now at a reasonable cost and a few years down the road I can get another performance bump for a small investment.

I like to spend my money on parts of the computer that don't have wild pricing fluctuations like the screen, the hard drive, the video subsystem, memory. Although those components have premiums for top end components they aren't as crazy as with processors where low end to high end can easily vary by $500, or a third to a quarter of an entire system.

Thanks again.

- Mark