[Q] P150HM upgrade CPU to I7 2920xm/2960xm

Hey gang

I really want an opinion more than anything. I've done my research and read the reviews/benchmarks, but I am still not satisfied. I'd like to know what you think, especially if you've owned either of the Sandy Bridge Extreme cards.

Currently I own the MALIBAL P150HM. When I purchased it last year the base cpu offered was the i7 2630qm. I was advised to stick with that cpu and bump the GPU to the AMD 6990m. As awesome a card as it is, I do not do any gaming on any level these days due to work and school. So now I kind of regret not upgrading the cpu at time of purchase.

Anyways. I see on eBay and the NBR marketplace some 2920xm cards for roughly $500 usd. Retail is still over $1000 usd. I am not really looking for a new laptop with the ivy bridge cpus because I am completely happy with my current setup. Is the performance gain worth it for the price?

Workload: Multiple virtual machines, MATLAB, Eclipse IDE, Android build environment, and image editing software

Current performance of 2630qm card is not bad, but when I use VM I can feel the stress.

I'd like to hear your opinions on whether or not the 2920xm/2960xm is worth the $500 purchase and also any advise you can offer me. Thank you!

Tommy

 

For the XM processors you're mostly paying for the ability to overclock them. They have unlocked multipliers. However, the P150HM does not support overclocking since the HM65 chipset does not allow overclocking. For much cheaper you could probably go the route of an i7-2820/2860QM. They are only 100mhz lower than their XM counterparts and often hundreds cheaper. They will run VM just fine.

 

Eldaren,

Thanks for your input. the 28xxQM is also on my list of prospects.

If only the chipset on the p150hm would support ivy bridge, I wouldn't have to make such tough decisions

Thank you