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I currently have a 2nd Gen i5 which I feel like it is downgrading the motherboard, if I put a 45W i7 quad-core processor, do I have to replace the heatsink and power supply?

kfzhu1229 wrote:I currently have a 2nd Gen i5 which I feel like it is downgrading the motherboard, if I put a 45W i7 quad-core processor, do I have to replace the heatsink and power supply?

No I run a T530 with i7-3940XM and NVS 5400 from a 90'w PS without any problem. I did not change sink, just applied fresh cooling paste.
Works incredibly fine. It was originally an i5 machine.

Mine was a 2nd I3 machine... Salvaged an I5 from a broken computer. Now has 16gb DDR3L (I know I'm supposed to get DDR3 but this works too). I'm just worried about TDP

kfzhu1229 wrote:Mine was a 2nd I3 machine... Salvaged an I5 from a broken computer. Now has 16gb DDR3L (I know I'm supposed to get DDR3 but this works too). I'm just worried about TDP

As long as you have the latest BIOS, running the CPU is not a problem. 90W power bric works perfectly.
You need not to worry about TDP. Right now all my cores are maxed out at 3692GHz and temp is 45-55 Celsius s per Open Hardware monitor.

Edit: I was not aware of the existence of a T530i model, however an integrated graphics model should handle the i7 even better since no graphic chip sits and sucks power next to the cpu.

dol wrote:

kfzhu1229 wrote: Right now all my cores are maxed out at 3692GHz and temp is 45-55 Celsius s per Open Hardware monitor.

At full throttle that's amazing. That would be miraculous on my desktop pimped out cooling system. Even more so for a laptop cooling system.

dol wrote:Edit: I was not aware of the existence of a T530i model, however an integrated graphics model should handle the i7 even better since no graphic chip sits and sucks power next to the cpu.

Uh my model is T530i but I think it is a mistake as it does have the Nvidia NVS 5400M GPU.
And with the 2nd gen i5 it is already going to 90 degrees maximum but does not throttle, but the 2nd gens have a higher TDP than the 3rd though

dol wrote:

kfzhu1229 wrote:I currently have a 2nd Gen i5 which I feel like it is downgrading the motherboard, if I put a 45W i7 quad-core processor, do I have to replace the heatsink and power supply?

No I run a T530 with i7-3940XM and NVS 5400 from a 90'w PS without any problem. I did not change sink, just applied fresh cooling paste.
Works incredibly fine. It was originally an i5 machine.

Nice CPU. The i7-3520 is the bottleneck on my T530. I will probably look for one in ebay.

thinkreal wrote:

dol wrote:
No I run a T530 with i7-3940XM and NVS 5400 from a 90'w PS without any problem. I did not change sink, just applied fresh cooling paste.
Works incredibly fine. It was originally an i5 machine.

Nice CPU. The i7-3520 is the bottleneck on my T530. I will probably look for one in ebay.

I can take your CPU if you are planning to upgrade. It is MUCH better than the second gen i5

kfzhu1229 wrote:

thinkreal wrote: Nice CPU. The i7-3520 is the bottleneck on my T530. I will probably look for one in ebay.

I can take your CPU if you are planning to upgrade. It is MUCH better than the second gen i5

What CPU do you have on your T530i?

Upgraded from the lowest 2nd Gen i3-2330M into 2nd Gen i5-2520M...
How much do you want to sell?
I'm 100% sure it is T530 series because it has the non-classic keyboard

kfzhu1229 wrote:Upgraded from the lowest 2nd Gen i3-2330M into 2nd Gen i5-2520M...
How much do you want to sell?
I'm 100% sure it is T530 series because it has the non-classic keyboard

I do not intend to sell it unless I find a replacement CPU.

Yes I know I am really not in a hurry because I have 2 T43 machines as my daily driver instead of that. I think it would be much better using an i7 to run stuff like Adobe Premiere Pro