CPU upgrade to Lenovo R61i

Hi,

According to this web page, an Intel T9500 is compatible with my lenovo R61i. However, searching for "T9500 Intel" on Amazon finds me this CPU, which seems correct but is listed as "P9500" rather than "T9500".

Can anyone confirm whether that is, in fact, the correct CPU?

Thanks

 

The "T" and "P" are optimzed for slighty different things. The T is optimized for performace and the processor cares less about battery life. The P doesn't care as much about performance as they do about battery life,

 

No, that is the incorrect CPU. The Amazon link is the Montevina-generation P9500, which runs at 2.53GHz with a TDP of 25W and a 1066MHz FSB. You need the Santa Rosa-generation T9500, which runs at 2.60 GHz with a TDP of 35W and a 800MHz FSB.

The P9500 will not be compatible with your R61i, whereas the T9500 will be.

 

I say upgrade the hard drive to a faster drive before doing the CPU. If you're just doing everyday stuff it's likely the drive is the bottleneck, not the CPU.

 

You'll be wanting to do your CPU search on Ebay rather than Amazon.

ZaZ also has a good point --what are you doing with your laptop, and in what tasks does it seem slow? Often, the CPU isn't an issue; it could be you don't have enough RAM, or could use a faster hard disk. Even base Core 2 Duo processors are competent for a large number of tasks.

 

Thanks guys - I'll try eBay.

A new HDD is also on my upgrade path (after the CPU - I've already done RAM) but I'm holding off a little until SSDs mature a bit more (and hopefully drop in price) and O/S support is improved somewhat.

I understand that CPU is not my bottleneck for tasks such as email/web, but I often do some CPU intensive tasks like encoding videos.

Thanks

 

You're R61i has a SATA controller that is throttled to 150MBps. The best drives - Intel X25-M, the OCZ Vertex and Samsung SLC won't reach anywhere near their full potential because they're being choked by the controller.

 

Hmm, that's a little annoying. Is it possible to unthrottle via a BIOS upgrade/tweak? Or is it a limitation of the hardware?

All the same, I tend to agree that HDD access is likely the biggest bottleneck of my machine. Even if the SSD isn't running at full potential, I bet it'd still kick butt compared to what I've got.

Thanks

 

No, it is not possible to "unthrottle" it by flashing the BIOS. Even so, an SSD upgrade would definitely boost your performance quite a bit. But with those limitations, there's not much point in buying the fastest SSDs, as then you'll be limited by your SATA controller.

 

Not unless you care to re-write the controller firmware. I had the Samsung SLC drive, which is probably the best choice for your R61i. I couldn't tell much of a difference between it and my Seagate drive. It was slightly faster in a few things, but hardly worth the money I paid for it or the space I gave up.