The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    i5 to i7 upgrade

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by sfax, Jun 14, 2013.

  1. sfax

    sfax Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Apologies if this isn't the right place to post this question. I'm considering a processor upgrade and have no idea about them really. I'm thinking of going from my current VAIO's

    "Intel® CoreTM i5-460M, 2.53GHz"

    to something like this

    "Intel Core i7 4770K 3.50GHz Socket 1150 8MB Cache"

    I use the VAIO for programming and run Visual Studio, ReSharper and SQL Server and it can struggle. I already have 8GB of RAM and an SSD. The full version number is VPCS13V5E, graphics is Intel® HD Graphics.

    Questions:

    1. How do I find out if it's compatible?
    2. Is it particularly difficult to swap out the processors on VAIOs?
    3. Would going from i5-460M to i7-477K even be worthwhile? Would any other processors be better?

    Thanks in advance for your help
     
    sfax, Jun 14, 2013
    #1
  2. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

    Reputations:
    5,398
    Messages:
    12,692
    Likes Received:
    2,717
    Trophy Points:
    631
    Can not do that upgrade.

    You need a new platform/motherboard for the newest processors.

    (You are asking to upgrade from Arrandale to Haswell - 3 or 4 generations apart...).


    Sorry.
     
    tilleroftheearth, Jun 14, 2013
    #2
  3. TANWare

    TANWare Just This Side of Senile, I think. Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    2,548
    Messages:
    9,585
    Likes Received:
    4,997
    Trophy Points:
    431
    What MAY be viable is the same generation i7-640m. That would give you quite a good jump in CPU grunt power. You would have to research this further though.
    i7-640m | eBay
     
    TANWare, Jun 14, 2013
    #3
  4. sfax

    sfax Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks both for your replies. I've started to fish around for checking compatibility with an i7-640m and can use this http://processormatch.intel.com/compdb/ to check motherboard compatibility. Can't find the motherboard name on my order sheet and sony support don't recognise my model name (perhaps as it was a custom build). Are there any websites where you can look up motherboard names from model numbers or will I need to open the case?
     
    sfax, Jun 14, 2013
    #4
  5. sangemaru

    sangemaru Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    758
    Messages:
    1,551
    Likes Received:
    328
    Trophy Points:
    101
    The jump would not be THAT big, seeing as how they're both dual-core CPU's. If the laptop had dedicated graphics and supported booting without iGPU he could have considered a quad-core model such as the i7-720qm or above, but I have my doubts on that machine.
     
    sangemaru, Jun 14, 2013
    #5
  6. TANWare

    TANWare Just This Side of Senile, I think. Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    2,548
    Messages:
    9,585
    Likes Received:
    4,997
    Trophy Points:
    431
    The first gen I-Cores unfortunately all have fairly low clocks. There is no Super huge jump even in quad cores as they are fairly low clocked. Good thing is as they all are clocked low any bin increase is large compared to IB's etc. Once you are over 3.0 GHz 100 MHz is very little, at about 2.0 GHz 100 MHz is at least 5% more CPU.

    You could spend more if compatible and get a QM though as it may help with all those threads. Be warned even this may not get you where you want.
    Intel Quad Mobile i7 840QM 3 2GHz 8MB 1066MHz 7330381372391 | eBay
     
    TANWare, Jun 14, 2013
    #6