upgrading NP8662?

Hi folks,

Am thinking of upgrading my NP8662 I purchased from XoticPC couple years back:

Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53
4 gig RAM
GeForce GTX 260M

I hook it up to a 1920x1200 monitor.

What's possible? Swapping GPU? to what? Go quad core? Would it be worth it?

Am looking ahead at Battlefield 3, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, ...

Am playing with the idea of building a desktop but space is a premium...

thanks!

 

Quad core is probably possible, but you have to check if your CPU socket is more pink than purple, and your RAM slots are black.

I think you'll be in luck since it came with the gtx 260m.

Speaking of which, no, the GPU is pretty much at max... HOWEVER its a very good gpu and notebook for overclocking... You may want to push it to 600/1500mhz or so.

Quad core will help with CPU heavy games, many quads are overclockable, a q9000 however may be slower in some games.
For RTS games I think it will help a good bit...

 

Thanks- doubt I will go quad core if the Q9000 speeds is comparatively worse. I do wonder how important quad core is becoming... haven't tried Starcraft 2 or Shogun 2 yet and suspect my current system might chug.

I've also never OC'd before and after reading some threads downloaded the Nvidia utilities. Before I attempted anything, wanted to check whether I should update the drivers- when I checked using the program, there was one listed with the caveat that

"System Update does not support the systems drivers for your system. Please check for an update from your manufacturer's website"

Is this really true? or just legalese to cover themselves?

Should I skip updating and jump right into OCing?

thanks for helping this newb!

 

I recommend an upgrade to the QX9300 (12M Cache, 2.53 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) and overclocking the GPU. Back when I had the NP8662, I found good results with an undervolted QX9300 and a mildly overclocked GTX 260M.

 

Go quad core. Just don't go q9000. Don't get the qx9300 either (or check on those prices first)

Some games, actually MOST very new games WILL run faster with a slower clocked quad core.

Save up for a q9200. Its .13ghz slower (than both your p8700 and the qx9300) but it has unlocked multipliers for more overclocking

You can overclock the q9000 and q9100 but the multipliers are locked. You have to OC your RAM as well, basically get your FSB to 1333mhz and then the q9100 will be at 2.8ghz.
Its a little harder to do and stabilize.

For the graphics card, I'm not sure the Nvidia utilities will help you. Try MSI afterburner, you might like it.
Yes thats a lie. If your drivers are 1*0 series, you should update them. Just go to nvidia.com, its easy.

Or you can check into vBIOS flashing and modding guides with Nibitor, this is more of a permanent overclock and will also enable you to increase voltage which you'll probably want to do anyway.

There is only one graphics card at all likely to be a worthwhile upgrade, this is the ATI 4850... You have to find an MXM 2.1 version, which is very rare and was only released with 2 laptops, the MSI gx720 and the arima w840di/alienware m17