Vostro 1500 with 8600mGT and T5470 1.6

[lavaheadache]

Looking for some help here.

8600m GT ddr2
4 gigs 667
t5470 1.6

Been rocking this lappy for 2 years now for light gaming on the go and work use with satisfactory results.

For work the CPU is plenty but I'm wondering if there is a gaiming benefit to going with a faster CPU with this DDR2 8600m GT.

I already know a lot of you are gonna come in here and bash my card and bash the vostro and bash laptop gaming. If so you can check yourself right out of my thread. I have already have a kickass gaming pc. My lappy is sticktly to get me through vacations and while I've got time to kill at work.

My 8600 overclocks like a mother. Does a 200 ish overclock on the core and 100 on the Ram. Like i said monster overclock and picks up some good performance. i was wondering if there is much benefit in getting a faster cpu. 5-10 fps to me is worth it in minimums and/or averages. Will I see these kind of gains going to 2.2 ghz or something similar?

It seems rather easy to get these faster cpu's on fleabay for a reasonable cost and could sell mine for some money back. I care not however to throw my money in the wastebasket if there is no gain to be had

 

[toyota]

a faster cpu would make nearly zero difference in gaming with that 8600m in the mix. that 1.6 core 2 duo is not the limiting factor here. also I sure would not be seeing how far I could oc a laptop gpu.

 

[lavaheadache]

a faster cpu would make nearly zero difference in gaming with that 8600m in the mix. that 1.6 core 2 duo is not the limiting factor here. also I sure would not be seeing how far I could oc a laptop gpu.

Well I have been doing it for 2 years. Proper airflow is key to any OC

 

[lavaheadache]

well, I said what the heck and bought a 2.0 ghz chip for the vostro. It was 56 bucks shipped. I'm sure I can get $30 for my 1.6 cpu. $25 is worth it to experiment. Even the full price is worth it. I have a feeling I'll get a little bump in performance.

 

[toyota]

well, I said what the heck and bought a 2.0 ghz chip for the vostro. It was 56 bucks shipped. I'm sure I can get $30 for my 1.6 cpu. $25 is worth it to experiment. Even the full price is worth it. I have a feeling I'll get a little bump in performance.

whats to experiment about? anybody with any video card and cpu knowledge knows that the 8600 is the limitation here. its your money and time but you certainly just wasted it.

 

[lavaheadache]

whats to experiment about? anybody with any video card and cpu knowledge knows that the 8600 is the limitation here. its your money and time but you certainly just wasted it.

I'm kind of offended with your tone here. How is $30 a bad investment in my system for a 400mhz boost? I will be happy if a get an occasional 3fps boost in a few areas. How is this not feasible? I realise an 8600 GT is not a powerhouse by anymeans but certainly not as bad as you think it is.

1.6 ghz is definately on the low end of cpu speeds when it comes to gaming. I know some games are sensitive to it. Maybe I can exploit it. Also, This is for fun you know!

 

[CurseTheSky]

You might see better performance while playing RTS or similar non-3D games. If you're playing shooters, the "occasional 3fps boost" is all you're going to get.

For the price, though, it's not a bad experiment.

 

[lavaheadache]

You might see better performance while playing RTS or similar non-3D games. If you're playing shooters, the "occasional 3fps boost" is all you're going to get.

For the price, though, it's not a bad experiment.

yeah, I'm gonna post some before and after benchies

I'm putting together the before benchies as we speak and will post the rest when i get the cpu

 

[toyota]

I'm kind of offended with your tone here. How is $30 a bad investment in my system for a 400mhz boost? I will be happy if a get an occasional 3fps boost in a few areas. How is this not feasible? I realise an 8600 GT is not a powerhouse by anymeans but certainly not as bad as you think it is.

1.6 ghz is definately on the low end of cpu speeds when it comes to gaming. I know some games are sensitive to it. Maybe I can exploit it. Also, This is for fun you know!

so you dont wont anyone to reply unless they agree with you? you asked if it would help your gaming and with an 8600m as you gpu the answer is no in 95% of cases. if you were going to get the cpu anyway and dont care to hear what anybody else has to say then why did you start the thread on a public forum?

I know EXACTLY what an 8600gt is capable of because I have had one since the week it was released. your gpu is almost every bit of the bottleneck here not your 1.6 Core 2. now if you had a 9600 or better then sure you would certainly see added performance with a faster cpu.

 

[lavaheadache]

RE 5 demo benchmark dx 9 No AA 1280x720 all medium settings- 37.8, 37.5, 33.1, 38.7 with a 36.7 average

Dirt 2 demo 1280x720 all medium - 30.2 fps Highly playable though, similar to how crysis plays at lower fps


I'll come back with a few more later




edit because i forgot to bump up my shader clock

 

[toyota]

RE 5 demo benchmark dx 9 No AA 1280x720 all medium settings- 35, 36.8, 31.4, 35.6 with a 34.7 average

Dirt 2 demo 1280x720 all medium - 28.8 fps Highly playable though, similar to how crysis plays at lower fps


I'll come back with a few more later

Crysis is perfectly playable at 1280x720 with all medium(water on high) DX9 settings on an 8600gt and any decent dual core. should be about 35 fps or so in most parts. DX10 is not worth the hit and looks no different while running medium settings anyway.

 

[lavaheadache]

new benchies in with 2.0 cpu

re5

39.5 39.4 34.1 39.9

ave 38.2


Dirt2 Demo all medium 33

scores went up !!! I'm happy

 

[lavaheadache]

Secondly, I notice that things definately load a bit quicker and my WEI cpu score went from 4.7 to 5.0 which makes my lappy-peen bigger =)

fwiw my gpu gaming score is 6.2

all this is on windows 7 64 bit



I aslo want to make special not that. this is the first time i had this lappy apart and all the heat sink screws on the gpu and cpu weren't snug at all. I replaced the tim with arctic silver 5 and my gpu load tems went for around 73 load to 69 load using rivatuner. I'll check again after the paste sets in a little. Overall this has been a very positive experience.

System has more pop, gaming is a smidge better, runs a little cooler, and i even got around to tightening my lcd brackets so the screen doesn't wobble anymore.

ok, now I'm heading back out to the garage to finish my greddy intercooler install on the gti vr6 supercharger project

 

[happy medium]

Secondly, I notice that things definately load a bit quicker and my WEI cpu score went from 4.7 to 5.0 which makes my lappy-peen bigger =)

fwiw my gpu gaming score is 6.2

all this is on windows 7 64 bit



I aslo want to make special not that. this is the first time i had this lappy apart and all the heat sink screws on the gpu and cpu weren't snug at all. I replaced the tim with arctic silver 5 and my gpu load tems went for around 73 load to 69 load using rivatuner. I'll check again after the paste sets in a little. Overall this has been a very positive experience.

System has more pop, gaming is a smidge better, runs a little cooler, and i even got around to tightening my lcd brackets so the screen doesn't wobble anymore.

ok, now I'm heading back out to the garage to finish my greddy intercooler install on the gti vr6 supercharger project

Glad to here it!
I was gonna say go for the upgrade but just realized the thread was a little dated.
It should make you overall system feel a little faster.
Well worth the little money invested.

 

[ghost recon88]

Which 2GHz chip did you get up getting? T7250?

 

[lavaheadache]

nah, got a 667 fsb chip, t5750. I was reading about some vostro users having troubles with the 800 fsb t7series chips and didn't wanna chance it. Supposedly they were having to flash thier bioses with varied results.

 

[fffblackmage]

I thought the Vostro 1500 was pretty much a black Inspiron 1520. I would have imagined they were perfectly compatible.

The only thing that bugs me is the mismatched ram and fsb clock freqs., not that it's a problem anyways.

 

[lavaheadache]

I thought the Vostro 1500 was pretty much a black Inspiron 1520. I would have imagined they were perfectly compatible.

The only thing that bugs me is the mismatched ram and fsb clock freqs., not that it's a problem anyways.

I probably would have been fine with an 800 fsb chip but the price could not be beat on the one i got. Oh well, now my ram and cpu are running the same fsb.

It's nice to see your 8600m GT is a monster oc'er too !!!!

 

[TurtleCrusher]

It's unfortunate you couldn't get a T7xxx CPU. The T7500 in my Thinkpad is an absolute beast of a CPU. Especially for it's age. 2.2ghz, FSB800 with 4MB of L2 cache is great. It might be my chipset but it also overclocks itself when plugged in to 2.4ghz.

If only it wasn't paired with a piece of shit Intel G3100. I bought it strictly for school at the time.

 

[fffblackmage]

It's nice to see your 8600m GT is a monster oc'er too !!!!

I'm especially glad the DDR2 vram overclocked quite a bit, seeing how it's crippling the 8600m GT.

It's unfortunate you couldn't get a T7xxx CPU. The T7500 in my Thinkpad is an absolute beast of a CPU. Especially for it's age. 2.2ghz, FSB800 with 4MB of L2 cache is great. It might be my chipset but it also overclocks itself when plugged in to 2.4ghz.

Especially for a mobile cpu for the price at the time. The next step up was quite a steep one.

 

[skillyho]

so you dont wont anyone to reply unless they agree with you? you asked if it would help your gaming and with an 8600m as you gpu the answer is no in 95% of cases. if you were going to get the cpu anyway and dont care to hear what anybody else has to say then why did you start the thread on a public forum?

I know EXACTLY what an 8600gt is capable of because I have had one since the week it was released. your gpu is almost every bit of the bottleneck here not your 1.6 Core 2. now if you had a 9600 or better then sure you would certainly see added performance with a faster cpu.

I think he was more miffed at your tone and assholiness...which was pretty evident.

Gratz to you OP! Glad you're happy with your purchase! That's a good price for a 400MHz increase! I would have tried the same thing, in your shoes. My Vostro 1500 has the 2.2GHz / 4MB L2 Cache CPU with the 8600GT(m) as well...I sure wish it used DDR3 instead, though.

 

[lavaheadache]

yeah, who knows why dell chose the gddr2 variant. Furthermore it would have great for them to use the mxm2 standard so we could take our graphics even further

 

[fffblackmage]

DDR2 is cheaper than GDDR3. Damn cheap bastards!

It would be interesting if we could one day swap out GPUs like we can swap out CPUs... now there's an idea.... Same with VRAM. That probably wouldn't work out very well actually, so maybe not....

 

[lavaheadache]

Swapable Gpu's are on the horizon imho. Doubtful on the highend though. I hardly see ATi or Nvidia leaving it up to the consumer to place an hd8870 with 128 megs of gddr2. They are gonna wanna make sure the Gpu is utilized to it's fullest potential


Curiously Toyota vanished from this thread =)

 

[toyota]

Swapable Gpu's are on the horizon imho. Doubtful on the highend though. I hardly see ATi or Nvidia leaving it up to the consumer to place an hd8870 with 128 megs of gddr2. They are gonna wanna make sure the Gpu is utilized to it's fullest potential


Curiously Toyota vanished from this thread =)

I havent vanished. I gave you my opinion in the beginning and there was nothing to really add. I guess after you sale the other cpu it might be worth it but I would not have done it myself.