CPU upgrade, from T6400 to X9100. Because 3 GHz are way better than 2 GHz…
Daily use and conclusions
Benchmarks are certainly useful to verify, with meaningful numeric values that are comprehensible to external observers, the performance improvement due to switching to a higher-class processor. What however depicts the performance boost in a more effective manner is the everyday experience, opening the usual applications and utility software, Internet, games, multimedia. In the everyday practice an upgraded system shows both the best it can do and the worst as well, because more power means (especially on a laptop) that you must learn to deal with some drawbacks.
Let’s talk about the positive sides first: with the upgrade to the X9100 CPU, the application software I use the most have experienced a fair yet noticeable performance improvement. Word and Excel load and run even more faster and smoother than they did with the T6400 and the same can be said for ACDSee and Ulead GIF Animator as well; Firefox and Thunderbird have very fewer uncertainties when I load tens of tabs at the same time or I view some e-mail full of images and nasty HTML code (damn Play-Asia.com newsletter…).
If more demanding multimedia contents didn’t pose particular problems to the processor even before the upgrade (Adobe Flash aside), now the CPU usage has dropped below the perception threshold (10-30%) with high definition films at 1080p too (Blu-ray disks or Matroska rips it’s the same) granted I use VLC media player or PowerDVD. The operating system itself (Windows Vista SP1) is more reactive and lively, Aero GUI graphic effects are smooth and generally without faltering, loading the system components (from Event Viewer to Windows Media Center going through the Control Panel) is an essentially immediate affair.
The current system performance index
The impact of the new CPU on the games that were on the system before and short after the upgrade has been variable: Valve’s Portal remained identically enjoyable even with the addition of another 1.06 GHz and a faster memory; Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter identified the X9100 CPU with a higher performance level (”High” instead of “Medium”) in the advanced options but the GPU still is the bottleneck in real-time rendering; Braid was never particularly demanding over hardware resources, but the slight hitch the game seemed to show (and I repeat: it seemed to show) in its first moments (when the “hero” goes from the dark of the city roofs to the residence entrance) should be vanished; Capcom’s Resident Evil, a conversion from PS1 designed to run on Windows 95, must be slowed down to 30% of the processor speed (Mo’Slo courtesy) instead of 50% as before.
Contrariwise to what highlighted by the game’s internal banchmark, the new CPU provides Street Fighter IV the power needed to flawlessly manage the graphic post-processing effects exclusive to the PC version (”Ink”, “Watercolor” and “Posterize”). Before the upgrade their activation marked a noticeable hit on the game smoothness while now, from what I have seen, the 3D graphics goes to the max in 99.99% of the cases.
But where the upgrade effects impact the most, and the fact doesn’t amaze at all, is for the emulation of relatively recent video gaming platforms: the old MAME32 version I still use (0.90) is now capable of emulating Fighting Layer (a 3D arcade from 1998) at the maximum speed almost all the time, and some PS2 games that previously limped a lot on PCSX2 now run hugely better (Maximo is even faster than before, Saint Seiya is really enjoyable, Ico would run very well if graphics wasn’t still so messed up while the 2D beatm’em up Hokuto No Ken runs almost always to the max).
And let’s talk, in the end, about the upgrade drawbacks, the negative sides that balance the greater power and computing capability highlighted in the post: the first, plain difference between having a 2.00 GHz processor and a 3.06 GHz one is the drastic rise in power consumption, which because of the maximum TDP increase (from 35 to 44 W) drains the laptop’s battery very fast once the PC is unplugged from the power grid. From the more than two hours of the T6400, in normal use conditions (websurfing, Explorer usage and a little more) and high performances power saving profile, the battery duration is reduced to less than half and an hour. And it goes below an hour if I load some 3D video game or a HD video clip.
Another pretty “visible” drawback is the overwork the fan connected to the passive CPU-GPU cooling system has to bear. Now the poor thing makes a dreadful noise and always goes crazy when I load PCSX2, while before its presence was discreet and almost never noticeable. After a bit you become accustomed to that noise, that’s true, but there still remains the nuisance of distinctly hearing the fan spins (and decibels) increase in a system that would be much more quiet otherwise.
Related posts
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- The aftermath of a failed upgrade
- 3dfx Voodoo graphic cards emulation coming to DOSBox
- Snapshots #3: high definition, high emulation
- Finally the upgrade to Firefox 3(.5.2)
- PCSX2 0.9.6, PC emulates the PS2 way better than PlayStation 3
- Parallel computing and GPGPU, the super-PC genesis between universal libraries and proprietary platforms
- Intel, AMD and NVIDIA at war for high performances graphics cards
- Upgrade to Firefox 3? Sure, but quietly
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15 Responses to “CPU upgrade, from T6400 to X9100. Because 3 GHz are way better than 2 GHz…”
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Hey there!
I read your article because I am in the same situation with the T6400 that I want to upgrade. I noticed you choose the X9100 CPU and that you are complaining about the noise and battery the new CPU takes, since it is 44W (45?). I just have a simple question:
Why did you not try the T9900? I boasts about the same price, has the same speed but is only 35W?
Perhaps I missed something?
Cheers!
/Mehdi
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If I recall well, I chose the X9100 for the overclocking feats it has (unblocked multiplier).
The problem is: I’m still waiting for some decent update (or modification) for the crappy, crappy UEFI-BIOS my Acer Aspire has (ie I can’t change a fucking thing right now not even set the hardware virtualization on!!!) to exploit it.
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hello
i have acer aspire 6935 and i was tried to use c2q q9100 but doesnt work becouse of bios.
are you sure that on this laptop qx9300 will work?
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It should work, yes. The chipset/socket should support it.
Anyway I suggest you not to touch your laptop’s CPU anytime soon: eventually the upgrade went bad and I was forced to switch back to the T6400 C2D.
I’ll address the issue with my next post, it should be up in the upcoming days so you can subscribe my feed to know what went wrong and why….
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Hey there! Wanted to update you guys with the upgrade that I finally did
I upgraded from the T6400 to the T9900 3.0Ghz and I’ve been using it for almost 6 months now!
The biggest difference that I noticed immediatly was that Windows works shitload faster and the apps start faster, the computer definetly feelt faster and I even did a few speed tests with converting and so on. To be honest, the difference wasn’t like day and night, but it sure felt good having a much more speedy computer. And I do not regret for not choosing a quad-cpu instead. I honestly haven’t noticed any difference in the fans running at higher speeds or that the battery runs out quicker, it feels about the same.
My tip is, IF you have a 2.0Ghz or slower, make the change to the T9900 and you WILL feel the difference, but otherwise it’s not worth the difference if you have faster than 2.0 Ghz.
A friend of mine bought a new computer with the “slowest” version of i7 mobile, and he paid about 50% more than what I did with the total price including the new CPU, and I’ve been testing his computer a little and it “feels” just like my computer when it comes to watching movies, surfing and listening to music, which both of us do a lot.
What this simply means is that C2D T9900 is still the shit!
Cheers
/Mehdi
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Hey guys,
Awesome to read all these successful attempts.
I really want to do the T6400 to T9900 upgrade, but im not too sure how to do the upgrade. Dont really have experience with laptop upgrades. I have done desktops though. Anyway is there anything i need to watch out for? How do i proceed this operation exactly?
Thanks alot guys
Peace.
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My advice is: don’t do it. I hope to blog about this in the upcoming days….
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Hello ! I have an Acer Aspire 8735G with CPU T9600 and I want to upgrade it to T9900. What about X9100 or even QX9300 ? Still, does it worth ?
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No, it isn’t worth at all. If you will follow the blog’s feed, I’ll explain why within the next days….
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Heyho,
just want to leave you a reply about the X9100. I have one in my 14″ Notebook too. All you need to use it, is Throttlestop. This tiny little tool lets you control the multipliers and also gives you the opportunity to select the VID for the desired speed.
Very important for battery use, because the X9100 has some disadvantages compared to the T9900. One is that it doesnt power down as deep as the T9900 and that it doesnt support VIDs lower than 1V.
If you know this there is no more disadvantage. Have fun!
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Hi guys!
A new update from my old trusty T9900!
I’ve noticed that yeah, my old trusty T9900 was getting a bit “slow” and I had a friend with a i7 portable that was faster than mine and I was thinkin’ about selling the old workhorse and getting a faster portable also….until….enter SSD!
Bought the Intel 320 model, and holy crap, my trusty old T9900 is on steroids!
If you’ve got a trusty Core2Duo and you’re thinkin’ buying new, just plug in an SSD instead, it works very fine with my Acer, since mine is a big model it has 2 slots for SSD (120Gb for OS) and an trusty HD (1TB) for all my music and films.
Seriously, it runs so much smoother than I think I’m gonna still use my T9900 for at least another year since it runs all programs well!
Anyone else who has made this upgrade? What are your thoughts?
I’m not saying the programs “work” faster, but really, it is a big difference when the OS runs boots much faster and programs start much quicker.
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Nope, I don’t like SSD technology (too much unreliable for my tastes) and I don’t value data transfer speed over every other thing.
What I need is more computational power (CPU and GPU), and as you can see from the update to this post I’m convinced I’ll effectively need a new computer (be it laptop or rather a desktop machine) to get it.
End of line
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I have been reading the posts. My current situation is that I purchased a q9100 to go into my toshiba l5o5, which has a T6400. I get a black screen when I boot (and no its not the screen cable!!!), I have looked everywhere online and found that it should be fully compatible, especially since both are penryns. Toshiba us does not have a bios update, and my laptop won’t take the UK updates. furthermore, under comparison the two chips are slightly different as far as 45w to 35w, and the Q9100 has no parity bit. Does anyone know the fix to the problem? By the way the windowa to the drivers, and I can see the screen in safemode. what is the fix im missing here?
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Has anyone read the last reply?
I intend to put a cooling system so Im not worried about the heating problem. and I will try the throttlestop program, but right now Im in ditches with this processor. I know that windows took the drivers I can see it through the back door. So something else is preventing the GM45 from operation. I have pursued motherboard jumpers as a fix to the 800Mhz to 1067Mhz FSB change and found no resolve there so I know its BIOS related. I would run Clockgen as an ultimatum, but am not yet convinced of its capabilities.
The BIOS Toshiba provided is proprietary at best and doesn’t have great functionality as the desktop Pheonix-Award BIOSs’ have…
So, if anyone knows the answer to this challenge it would be greatly appreciated. Even if it is a new BIOS download I could use? Im pretty positive that the Parity bit selection’ has something to do with it?
Awaiting comment…
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By the way-
The signaling logic to the clocking IC is
FSA FSB FSC
667Mhz 1 1 0
800Mhz 0 1 0
1067Mhz 0 0 0
,but no jumper is installed on the main board, so this would be a firmware related issue!
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