Thinkpads Forum

Hi all-

I have a T60 (2007-BH8) that has a T2500 processor (2GHz, Core Duo). I'd really like to upgrade to T7200 (Core 2 Duo). I can get one of these off ebay, but I need to be sure the mobo won't complain if I change the processor over.

Does anyone know if this is possible? Are there any settings that need to be changed first?

Also, out of interest, what does the 'BH8' refer to?

For those interested in knowing why I'm doing this, I need a 64-bit test machine for work.

Cheers,

radsdau

Yes, it can be done. It takes about 5-10 minutes. I might suggest the T5500 or T5600 as they run cooler and are less expensive. The performance difference between those and a T7200 is very small.

T5600 should perform about the same as T2500. T5500 will be slower.

Here is a link to a very good reference pages for CPU performance;

--> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/midlow_range_cpus.html
--> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

Some related scores for CPUs that work in T60's;

1.66Ghz T2300 --> 791 & 803
1.83Ghz T2400 --> 880
1.66Ghz T5500 --> 920
2.00Ghz T2500 --> 933 & 952
2.16Ghz T2600 --> 993 & 1000
1.83Ghz T5600 --> 1004
2.00Ghz T7200 --> 1143
2.33Ghz T2700 --> 1144
2.16Ghz T7400 --> 1234
2.33Ghz T7600 --> 1337

According to this, a T5500 and a T2500 are roughly equivalent, while a T5600 is rougly equivalent to a T2600! Nice!

Guys- thanks for your input! Very speedy, knowledgeable, and thorough.
I'll report my results when it happens.
Cheers.

Hmmm... turns out I can get hold of a T7300, which is not in the list of available options for T60... how compatible would this be? Am I pushing my luck here?

T7300 in a T60? It will fit perfectly, but the machine won't turn on. The T60 requires a Socket M CPU and the T7300 is a Socket P CPU. It won't work, they have the same number of pins, but a different pin-out.

Other than a couple of Core Solo and Celeron CPUs, that's your upgrade list.

underclocker wrote:T7300 in a T60? It will fit perfectly, but the machine won't turn on.

Glad I checked- thanks for the advice, er sorry, info.

So, who has put a 2.33Ghz T7600 in their T60p, and is happy they did?

I did... Moved from a T2600 to T7600.
I have to say... the upgrade from 7200RPM HDD to a SSD (I've got a Vertex 1 60GB) had a bigger impact on the performance than the CPU upgrade.
But I could get the T7600 relatively cheap so I have no regrets

[quote="Backslashnl1"]I did... Moved from a T2600 to T7600.
I have to say... the upgrade from 7200RPM HDD to a SSD (I've got a Vertex 1 60GB) had a bigger impact on the performance than the CPU upgrade.
But I could get the T7600 relatively cheap so I have no regrets [/quote]

Just out of curiosity, what "percent" quicker is the T7600
over the T2600?

As I have a 2623DDU, my cpu is a T2500.

Personally, I think the 7200 is the best "value" way to move to a Core 2 Duo. It's the slowest of the Core 2 Duos with a 4MB L2 cache, but it's also considerably cheaper and easier to source than the 7600.

That said, unless most of your workload is CPU-bound (or unless you really need to be able to run 64-bit code), I'd save the money and get a good SSD.

taichi wrote:

Backslashnl1 wrote:I did... Moved from a T2600 to T7600.
I have to say... the upgrade from 7200RPM HDD to a SSD (I've got a Vertex 1 60GB) had a bigger impact on the performance than the CPU upgrade.
But I could get the T7600 relatively cheap so I have no regrets

Just out of curiosity, what "percent" quicker is the T7600
over the T2600?

As I have a 2623DDU, my cpu is a T2500.

If you compare the scores from PassMark, the increase is 34.5%. However, it "feels" more like maybe 10%.
A SSD will really make your T60 fly.

I am a bit doubtful towards these benchmarks. It makes no sense to compare 32 bit CPU vs 64 bit CPU running with 64 bit OS - and I see there no indication whether 64 bit CPUs were run on 64 bit OSs or no. To be exact - someone running 32 bit WinXP might not notice any improvement switching to 64bit CPU running at the same speed. I have read that 4MB cache for 64bit CPUs are used solely with 64bit OSs, otherwise only 2MB are used. Somebody correct me if I am wrong here (no time to look for the article I read about it - and I have forgotten where I found that).

I put a solid state drive in my T60 and found a huge improvement over the original 60gb 5400rpm drive. I currently have a 500gb 5400rpm drive in this computer and I see a big difference over the 60gb.

The SSD is probably going to go back in, I just wanted to see how it performed with this drive. I'd like to toss in a T5600, but I'm finding the 2400 I currently have to be plenty of speed for what I do.

ziemeck wrote:I have read that 4MB cache for 64bit CPUs are used solely with 64bit OSs, otherwise only 2MB are used. Somebody correct me if I am wrong here (no time to look for the article I read about it - and I have forgotten where I found that).

Where did you get that assumption? That article was definitely not the most competent piece of writing.

I use 32bit W7 on my desktop E8200 (6 MB L2) and the performance difference vs 2 MB Conroe is huge compared clock by clock.

ziemeck wrote:I have read that 4MB cache for 64bit CPUs are used solely with 64bit OSs, otherwise only 2MB are used. Somebody correct me if I am wrong here (no time to look for the article I read about it - and I have forgotten where I found that).

Uh... Ok, I will. Even running 32 bit code, all 4MB of L2 can and will be used.

It is possible that a 64-bit binary of some app will perform better than a 32-bit binary on identical hardware due to the use of the extra registers available to code compiled for an amd64 target. Possible. Personally, I really, really doubt that the difference would be observable under anything less than absolutely ideal conditions -- but it is *possible*. (Of course it's also possible that a compile might emit more or less optimized code for a particular target for a host of other reasons...)

radsdau wrote:I'll report my results when it happens.

Chip replaced; PC boots, no magic smoke escaped! No special anything to do either (settings and such), it just worked.
64-bit Win7 now works fine. Good result- thanks everyone for your help.

Ok, the next thing: I'd really like to keep my existing XP-32 on a separate partition (dual boot). I'm pretty sure it'll whinge about the new processor, so can anyone tell me what's involved in making this work? Do I need to do a repair install of the XP partition? Is there an easier way?

radsdau wrote:Ok, the next thing: I'd really like to keep my existing XP-32 on a separate partition (dual boot). I'm pretty sure it'll whinge about the new processor, so can anyone tell me what's involved in making this work?

AFAIK, it shouldn't care at all. The CPU is a small change.

XP doesn't bother what CPU is installed as long as you don't go from single core to multi-core or vice versa.

Confirmed- works fine. After some initial boot problems, EasyBCD helped me out. Now it dual-boots sweet.
Thanks for your help all.