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First alienware, cpu upgrade question

post #1 of 5
9/17/06 at 5:13pm
Thread Starter 
I've been needing a new laptop for quite some time now, and was planning on ordering a dell e1405. I've always liked alienware, but could never justify paying so much to myself. Well, Friday I did and ordered a 3450 . I've read pretty much most of the posts in the sentia forums here and knew I made the right decision. The one thing that is bothering me is I opted to only get the baseline cpu, the T5500 (1.66ghz). I know the 2.0ghz is the best price/performance cpu for the sentia, but I just couldn't bring myself to shell out the extra cash. I'm a semi-broke college student :/. I went totally baseline for the sentia because I knew it's cheaper to upgrade the RAM and harddrive myself. I've been fighting myself over whether or not to call and have the cpu upgraded on Monday. I'm sitting at phase 3 and knowing how popular that cpu is, I'm willing to bet there's a good chance it'll be out of stock . My question is this: has anyone here upgraded a laptop cpu themselves? I know it is not a difficult task; I've built around 14 desktops myself, but is it harder than replacing a desktop cpu? Also, I'm 99% sure it would void my warranty but can anyone reaffirm this belief? The mobile core 2 duo's wont be on sale for retail till January I believe, and I'm willing to wait to buy one for upgrade if it's worth it. Anyways, thank you for reading this and hope to hear anyone's thoughts, opinions or any knowledge you have to share with me about this. Thank you. (First post )
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post #2 of 5
9/17/06 at 6:58pm

Re: m3450 base system

fluidity,

Congratulations on your purchase! You got yourself a great machine. I wouldn't sweat it. I remember when I was in college buying a computer was a luxury since the prices were much more expensive than they are now.

Going back to your question, I would ask you what software are you going to be running on your machine. If you write down what you're going to do and think about it, you'll probably discover that the processor you've selected is more than sufficient for doing those tasks very well. Many of us who've chosen a faster processor, besides willing and able to spend more money for it, have probably done it for very specific reasons. I, for one, need all the processing power in order to run some highly memory intensive applications that I work with. Even then, I didn't opt for the fastest processor possible since I didn't think the dollar price justified that extra speed. Would I have liked to have it? Sure!!! But it wasn't worth it to me.

Nevertheless, the machine you've purchased is upgradeable and you will be able to upgrade your processor if you choose to do so. Would I do it immediately? Probably not. If anything, I'd wait for the warranty to at least expire since you'll probably benefit from better pricing for the processor when you purchase it later and you'll also benefit from the experience of others who will probably post pictures and steps on how they accomplished the upgrade.

If anything, I would update your RAM memory or hard drive prior to updating the processor since they will immediately improve your workflow by allowing you to run many more applications simultaneously and give you more hard drive space as you begin to accumulate more files of different types.

I think you've chosen wisely considering your circumstances. Enjoy your machine when it gets there.

I hope this helps you for what it's worth. Good luck.
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post #3 of 5
9/17/06 at 8:32pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it. In all honesty I'm sure you are correct and I really wouldn't notice a performace difference anyways. The most cpu intensive thing I would use the laptop for would be compiling in Linux. If you've ever compiled gnome you'd understand how attractive cutting down that compilation time can be I tend to try out distro after distro out of curiousity. Gaming is not a concern, since I have my desktop for that. I found myself thinking: "I'm going to be dragging my alienware to class, all the geeks around me will definitely give me the 5th degree about it's spec's and such, don't want to disappoint them" But that's really not worth $200 to impress my fellow comp sci classmates. I plan on upgrading the ram and hd as soon as I get the machine (gotta love newegg). The cpu I will upgrade sometime in the new year when they become available and hopefully a special appears

On a side note, has anyone tried installing osx x86 on a sentia? I've read its quite possible although dual booting wouldn't work, but hey, I'm not really all that attached to windows anyways :P. And if anyone mentions vista, I really have no interest in it ;/. Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I'm sure I'll love my sentia even if it won't break performance records.
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post #4 of 5
9/17/06 at 10:58pm
i got mine with the 1.66 core duo, and installed the 2 ghz core 2 duo. an aw rep walked me through it so i wouldnt void my warranty. i bought mne for $100 from a friend of mine, which saed me some cash. it was nt that hard to do and would recomend it if ur tight on cash
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post #5 of 5
9/18/06 at 4:26am
Thread Starter 
I've decided to definitely hold off on ordering the 2.0ghz cpu (thank you both), but I just realized I forgot to upgrade to the dvd-rw . I'm in phase 3 right now and I'll call 9am sharp on Monday to have them change the order. I really hope that doesn't add too much time to my wait. If they say the dvd-rw's are on backorder...I'll just get the cd-rw and upgrade later (hopefully I can, don't see why not). I'm really excited to get this machine in and even an extra day's wait is painful. Again, thank you both for your posts and opinions. Cpt. I thought the retail mobile core 2 duo's wouldn't be out till the end of the year, how did your friend have one to sell you? I've checked on newegg and tigerdirect and neither had any for sale. If you know where to get them, I'd appreciate the info, just so I can check up periodically to see if there are any deals or specials on them. Anyways, its late and I need some sleep. Thanks again.
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