T400 P8400 to T9600 worth it?

[Unknown_K]

I have a T400 with a P8400 CPU and was wondering if an upgrade to a T9400 would be worth it (figured 6MB cache compared to 3MB would be worth it alone). Also how bad does the 35W CPU affect battery life compared to the 25W one?

[thinkpadcollection]

Go with T9800 for about 32 dollars on ebay or T9900 for about 65 dollars. Not T9600, too lame.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[TPFanatic]

I didn't see much difference going from P8600 (2.4, 3mb) to P9700 (2.8, 6mb) except for more heat so I would advise an 8GB Ram upgrade instead. The number of programs you can have running at the same time goes up a crazy amount. Browsers eat so much RAM nowadays, it's making 32 bit laptops obsolete!

More CPU power won't be found in the Core 2 Duo lineup, you'd need a new laptop.

[Unknown_K]

The T9400 was all of $4.65 shipped. I figured when I get some more RAM for that machine I will clean out the heatsink fan and try the new CPU out.

[jaspen-meyer]

More CPU power won't be found in the Core 2 Duo lineup, you'd need a new laptop.

I've been using the Q9100, $22 and free shipping on ebay. It's a huge upgrade over the P8400. I'm in the middle of preparing some machines with this upgrade and will post them in the marketplace in day or two.

Going from the P8400 to the T9400 is enough of an improvement that you can feel it, if you use the machine often.

[TPFanatic]

That's a Core 2 Quad, not a Duo. Can it be done without a modded Bios that loses support for features and will it work with Windows? I would be very interested in putting a Quad Core in my T500.

[TonyJZX]

yes, I think Jaspen already posting in another thread that there's a German sourced bios that allows 500s to use the Q9100.

Does it work in the 400?

I think even if it does work, something in the 1st or 2nd gen Core i5 class would still beat it however as a curio I would like to see a 400/500 running the Q9100.

I beleive this is the 1st quad core Intel laptop cpu.

[jaspen-meyer]

Does it work in the 400?

Yes.

Performance feels to be between a T410i i3-370m and a T420 i5-2520m, closer to the T420.

[Unknown_K]

Well I had a P8600 (2.4ghz) not a P8400 (2.2ghz). Anyway stuck the T9400 in and Windows 7 Experience Processor went from 5.8 to 6.1.

Fan needed cleaned anyway and it wasn't much work or expense.

[AlphaKilo470]

Funny enough, with a Dell laptop I had about a year ago, I did the opposite. I went from a T9600 to a P8400 in hopes of making the machine run cooler. If it made a difference, it wasn't obvious as the culprit was actually the nVidia Quadro chip it had and a heatsink that clogged easily and quick. That aside, in actual use, I never noticed any difference in performance. I think with a lot of the Core 2 Duo chips above 2ghz, the placebo effect (possibly aided by benchmark) numbers has more effect than anything else. If you get a chip for cheap then go for it. While the 6mb cache can be nice, I also find it to be overkill. 2mb is adequate on these chips. That said, your money would be better spent upgrading the RAM and, if you are using a hard drive, replacing it with an SSD. Those are bigger bottlenecks than the CPU.

EDIT: I just noticed the last post is from OP. I'll leave this here anyways for sake of having another one of my opinions out in the open.