NP8662 CPU Upgrading

Hello! I was thinking i may upgrade my Sager NP8662 in the next couple of months from my P8600, esp since the i7's have been introduced i figure the prices should be down a little. What CPU's would be the best bet for an upgrade for me without being toooo expensive?

BONUS Q's: How are 4gb RAM modules doing in terms of price to being worthwhile? The same for SSD's?

TY!

 

You can not put an i7 chip into your NP8662.. different sockets...

 

He means that now the i7's are out the c2d prices should drop.

This is not necessarily the case however. Look at cpu prices, choose your budget and get whichever sits within that. We can't make the decision for you, and certainly without knowing what "toooo expensive" is for you.

 

4gb ram is still very expensive
just for example

 

Yes... I see now... My bad..

You are also right on your second statement... : )

 

There is no such thing as not too expensive. Everything mobile is always more expensive and upgrading will always cost more. The only CPU upgrade I would bother with is the 2.5 Ghz Core2Quad QX9300.

 

That's the one upgrade I plan on doing sometime down the road when I get the money, the QX9300. I don't think the 280m is justification enough, and 4GB RAM is more than adequate and I don't see the price of 4GB chips coming down any time in the near or even not so near future.

@ LaptopNut - Holy COW! I didn't realize you DID the upgrade. How hard/easy was it? Was it worth it? Let me know how the GTX 280m upgrade goes and if you can do any benches to compare against GTX 260m. Even if it's my Core 2 Duo with GTX 260m at least we'll know the combo of CPU/GPU difference.

 

Yes, I did the CPU upgrade just over a few days ago, I ordered a QX9300 ES from Shirley and received it really quickly. While I was waiting I read up about it, did a bit of research on thermal paste application methods and also got hold of the NP8662 service manual from a NBR forum users sig, if someone knows who that was please let me know. I owe them a thanks.

As long as you take your time the upgrade is pretty straight forward, just note that any time you upgrade the CPU, you will also need to re apply thermal paste to the GPU as well since they share the same heatsink.

Without the slightest doubt, the upgrade was well worth it. I know the majority of games are GPU dependent but this upgrade is more about overall future performance.

I immediately noticed much better in game performance in GTA IV, pretty much any lagg I used to get has now vanished almost completely, Supreme Commander, Empire Total War, Microsoft fsx and others all play better.

Overall system speed is much better and any task you do is very fast. I was still a few fps lower in the Fsx benchmark than the 2.85 Ghz Core2Duo was but overall, performance increased by about 7 fps in that one. That game was primarily designed for Single / Dual Core though but a 3 fps difference isn't much.

I undervolted the CPU from 1.162V to 1.050V reducing temps down by over 5C+ in some multipliers. Undervolting it is not a necessity though but I recommend it.

I get idle temps of 32-40C and load temps are cooler than when I had the Q9000 OEM installed. I did stress testing for 11 hours and have found no issues. I will do a few benchmarks after I have installed the GTX 280M.

Note that H-Emmanuel has gone a step further and the result is that his NP8662 is now probably more powerful than the new NP8690 with the mobile i7 haha. This guy is at 3.15 Ghz per core on his QX9300 now.

 

That'd be me, glad you found it useful

 

Thanks, at first I just downloaded it out of curiosity, I had no idea I would actually be using it to guide me in the installation of a new CPU a few days later. I found it extremely useful!

 

thanks for the service manual link. I think I might put some MX-3 on the CPU/GPU when I get in my Sager. Buying used from someone that bought it off xoticpc w/ AS5 pre-installed.