is upgrading t5500 to t7400 in laptop worthwhile?

happyhelper

Senior member
Feb 20, 2002
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I just got a IBM/Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop which has a T5500 Core 2 Duo CPU (1.66Ghzx2) with 2MB cache.

I see that I can buy a T7200 Core 2 Duo (2Ghzx2) with 4MB cache for about $300 and can sell a new (or barely used) T5500 for between $100 and $150.

Is it worth $150-200 to upgrade my CPU from T5500 to T7200? I would go for the T7400 which occasionally goes for nearly as low a price as T7200 but not too sure if the laptop can support a T7400.

How noticable would the difference between 3.33 and 4Ghz be? I use the laptop for general multitasking with lots of office apps (including PS CS2, Outlook, Excel, Word almost always open), lots of IE and FF browser windows and a few IM apps running all the time. Usually 70-80 processes running Vista Ultimate. I don't use the laptop for games. Would such an upgrade make a noticable improvement to my computing experience?

Also, does anyone know if Lenovo 3000 N100 can support T7400 or T7600 CPUs?

Finally, does anyone know if upgrading the CPU of a Lenovo notebook invalidates the warranty?