T6600 to P8800 upgrade advisable?

Hi,
my current specs are in the signature. There is a good ebay deal for P8800 2.6ghz fsb 1066mhz for 166eu. I´m thinking about buyin´ it.
I am not certain as if my current processor T6600 2.2ghz fsb 800mhz is slowing my ddr3 down to 800mhz instead of 1066.
If so, is the upgrade to P8800 advisable and with it will my ram work on 1066mhz?

 

It won't make a difference in performance even if your memory ran at half speed. Your memory will never be the bottleneck. You won't notice a performance benefit from the CPU upgrade if you don't find your current CPU hitting 100% load very often.

 

ok tnx for the advice, then i´ll settle for the T6600 for know. At least till my warranty is up .

 

go for the p8800... It will not slow down your DDR3 ram and will allow it to run at full speed... also you'll see improvements in CPU intensive games like GTA4...

 

The OP has not specified usage, so therefore, until not known, I am considering as normal usage, and a P8800 wont show any noticeable performance.

Upgrade only if you stress the CPU very often and need the extra crunching number power, if not, it is not worth it, better I would say is saving for a SSD where the HDD is normally the main performance bottleneck.

 

Hmmm, i am using my laptop as a desktop replacement... games, videos, surfing, ripping etc. i looooove gta 4 btw.
The P8800 will allow me to use more of my ddr3 ram potential i know. Thats one of the reasons why i´m considering it
HDD´s both run at 7200rpm and are identical. So the best choice for the upgrade (if decided so) would be the P8800 cpu upgrade i think (they would work on 1066mhz instead on 800mhz like now if i understand it correctly). Now, i am only wondering if it is worth the money (165€ . Also, i would loose warranty right?
Am kinda a tech noob and as such am open to all suggestions and of course thankfull for them

 

Do you hit 100% of both cores on your T6600 constantly?

 

No, not constantly... am not sure if some gaming couses it to hit 100% usage. New games like modern warfare 2, gta 4, assasins creed etc. but i think they use pretty it much.
Also, some dvd ripping does couse it to run hot.
Althou i would mainly like to gain some more gaming fps .
The P8800 should be a little colder i think? It uses less power right?

 

For gaming the GPU is the one for the FPS-handling, perhaps you might see a 1-2FPS increase...

DVD ripping? Isnt that ODD based?

I think the CPU could show some improvements, not noticeable on regular basis, but spending 160+ pounds, is it worth it?

And it will run cooler if both CPUs are stressed if not they are pretty much the same (read the same)

 

I think the cpu upgrade you're considering will be worthwhile - the 165€ price is something you'll have to decide if its worth it - and yes, no more warranty.

What you'll be getting is an up to 37.5% faster CPU with a 50% increase in L2 cache - better heat characteristics, lower power requirement and the FSB you covet.

If the money is not too objectionable for you, then it seems like you might be happy with this upgrade.

37.5% based on SuperPI results here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

Oh, and if an SSD in your area cost in the same neighborhood, I would definitely recommend the CPU upgrade over the SSD option - if you really are looking for a performance upgrade.

 

That's assuming he is using a CPU bound program and doesn't care about warranty. If he isn't, the difference will be negligible.

 

Yup!

Quote:
"Hmmm, i am using my laptop as a desktop replacement... games, videos, surfing, ripping etc."

That's what I'm assuming too.

 

That is my point, thanks sgogeta.

The faster CPU does not mean a faster laptop normally. On very rare occasions it becomes noticeable, whether this is worth the money or not, it is not to decide, but we are to inform how that will affect overall performance.

And my guess is that a GOOD SSD will be much more worthy than the faster CPU.

tilleroftheearth, none of those are very CPU hungry.
I will list them:
GPU games
CPU/GPU videos
WiFi surfing
ODD/HDD ripping

 

Serg, when I get to test an Intel G2 160GB SSD, I hope my experience shows that too.

However, up till now, an SSD simply offers 'snap factor' rather than a real productivity boost - at least with my direct experience. And when filling the SSD significantly past 50% of its capacity, then the SSD slows down to notebook mechanical drive (or slower) levels.

Until I test an Intel in my system(s), I can honestly say that productivity-wise, we're not there yet (with SSD's).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=436882

 

Albeit very interesting, my point is that the faster CPU wont be a good investment unless fully used.

 

Which is interestingly the inverse of the SSD option. lol (the less capacity you use, the faster it is - but this very fact makes it much more expensive $$/GB).

Serg, I agree, but when I say I want/have a desktop replacement - it should be able to handle anything without breaking a sweat - only the new CPU offers that - not the SSD.

 

Considering the T6600 works at 2.2GHz I see little problem with it.

As I said above, it is a matter of the OP seeing if it is worth the expense on the new CPU.

 

Fifty percent? Slower than a spinner? Um, what kind of SSDs have you been using?

 

A bad one, ask davepermen.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=436882

 

So, got an offer for the P8800 for 170$. I´ll go for it.
Will keep you all posted on the performance gain and will post screenshots before and after .

I think the performance boost + cooler work + longer battery life will be worth the 170$ for me.
One thing though that i dont realy understand is this; i have DDR3-1333 ram so will it work on 1066mhz with the P8800 fsb 1066? I know it´s not all that important, was just wondering...

 

I am not fully sure, but it should downclock to match the 1066.

Have you checked if it runs at 800 right now?

 

Even on that one i am not sure... here are some everest screenshots

 

I am not entirely sure, but I think it runs at 800 ATM.

 

Hmm, it is my understanding that DDR3-1333 operates at 667mhz and as such there would be no benefit or difference in ram performance swichting the processor FSB fom 800mhz to 1066mhz.
Could anyone confirm this? Sorry, i´m just lame

 

Suggest save your pennies to look to obtain faster GPU performance either by a faster notebook (G50VT/G51VX/G51J), or by using a DIY ViDock with a faster desktop graphics card like a HD5770, which gets > 10k 3dmark06. The ViDock idea more potent with expresscard 2.0 (x1 2.0) systems scheduled for release in 2010. A HD5870 at x1 2.0 gets 3dmark06 > 20k as shown here.

 

Get the P8800.. currently your memory will be running at 800MHz.. with the P8800 , it will run at 1066MHz.. because its the limitation of the PM45 chipset.. also DIY Vidock is a great idea if u want to play crysis on high but the 4650 card u have is goo enough for now.

 

judging by your usage description i doubt you'll see any difference by upgrading the processor, not in speed or battery life. keep in mind the 35w TDP for a T series CPU is the MAX tdp. intel has speedstep, so most of the time its consuming lower power.

to confirm if a CPU upgrade would be any use to you, keep the performance monitor open (its in the task manager) and play a game/perform an activity you think is CPU intensive, and if more than 70% of the time the CPU utilization is 80% or more at max frequency, then you should upgrade your CPU. If its below those figures, its very very unlikely you'll notice a difference

 

i just upgraded two days ago from T6600 to T9600.

you should not expect so much increase in performance. However , you will notice the difference when you use your machine intensively.

for examaple: I have intel 80 G2 SSD and its benchmark increased a little , its 512k write speed increased %35 and 4k write speed also increased %20. but no difference in sequential write speed.

i use DC++ sharing program and it hashes so big files. with t6600 it was hashing at 80mb/sec speed, now with T9600 it hashes at 115mb/sec speed.

i play games so much, so i feel the increase in performance, but GPU is the bottle neck.

to sum up , i think it is faster now , even if i use it for other things.

 

I´m guessing again that the RAM memory boost from 800mhz to 1066mhz will also mean something in the performance gain. Next weak ill be getting either the P8800 or P9500, which ever available for that price (170$). I´d prefer the P9500 couse´ of the 6mb of cache memory. To sum up, benchmarks allround next week

 

Van Capri,

I'd be surprised it the memory change from 800 to 1066 did anything tangible that you would feel. Benchmarks might show it, but benchmarks are sometimes used as an end in themselves.

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/511-memory-scaling-ddr3.html

 

these screenshots say that your ram works with 1333, not 667, since it has to show half of it.

 

So, i made the upgrade... now its P9500, and ram realy works on 1066mhz now.

but my temps are realy too high right now, i think i did a thermal paste overdose, can that be?
idle cpu temps are ´bout 50°C

 

This is so true!

 

the P9500 should idle in the low 40s... my undervolted T9400 idles around 35-45C on idle.... it's about P9500 voltage... so i think u applied a lot of thermal paste.. u only need a drop u know...

 

So now i did it with just a drop... same thing. Meanwhile i can take my notebook apart and put it back togeather in 15mins . I tried 3-4times now, i also checked the heatsink if the paste was evenly spread on it to. Tried cleaning everything and than again using just a drop. No luck. My GPU idles at about 57-8°C, and the CPU at about 45-50°C. I noticed that one of my HDD´s idles at about 57-58°C, isn´t that much?
So, beside the paste, could the problem be anything else?
P.s. i now have turned on the "Fan always on" option in bios to take my temps low ´till i get this right.


HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

Temps on idle


Temps on idle FAN ALWAYS ON

 

does your fan turn on when on idle @46 C ??
what thermal paste are you using?

 

It turns on if the cpu hits 50 i think, i am using arctic silver 5... that one should be good i guess.
I dont get it thou, my gpu temps were on idle about 48°C, now they are 60°C. Also, the hdd temps are higher and that does not make any sence to me.I can post some picks of the heatsink, motherboard cpu and gpu if that will help resolve the issue.

Here are some pics when i cleaned it.





I tryed putting one line of paste as mentioned on arcticsilver.com. Than, later cleaning it again and putting just one drop, both gpu and cpu but i got the same temps. Now i wonder, maybe it´s not the paste?

 

is this the same behavior when you were using T6600??
I think the fan cause this high temps..
I know different processor could cause different fan spin threshold

you should try a fan mod, I've seen it somewhere, using registry or something, to change the fan spin %

 

With T6600 the idle cpu temps were about 40°C, and i know gpu idle was 47-48°C. The fan was only running during gaming and some cpu usage applications. During surfing an some low requiring stuff it was almost always off.
I also read something about the fan mod´s, but, this cpu should realy run cooler than T6600. Im also still concerned about the gpu and hdd temps

 

your hard drives are idling at a very high temperatures... they should idle in high 30s C at most...u might want to get a cooling pad to cool them down otherwise u might roast them... also keep ur fan on always on in BIOS otherwise ur temps will be even higher... all the CPU and GPU temps are allright...

 

Yes my hard drve runs very hot, at least one of them. I think it is becouse the one is just above the gpu, which, on idle runs also damn hot. It is like that since i switched to P9500 cpu. I tryed the "dot" and the "line" method using Arctic Silver 5 but i still have tha same temps. Im considering using the "spread" metod today.
I realy am in a loss of ideas right about now.
Factory default temps were something like gpu=48°C CPU 40°C HDD´s=38-40°C

So any ideas how to lower the hdd temp? Even if the option "Fan always on" in bios is turned on it does not get below 46°C

 

one thing in my mind though,,
when you changed the cpu, did you still have your gpu OC'ed ??
You might want to put off the OC first when changing cpu ..
and as we speak now does the gpu still OC'ed ?