T61 CPU Upgrade, Professional Advice Needed Please

[deadzoo]

I have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7100 (1.8 GHz) and I`m considering upgrading it with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7700 (2.4 GHz). Will I see a big enough increase in my PC`s performance to justify the time and expense invested in the new CPU? I don`t play graphic intensive games, but I do multi-task often eg: simultaneously running apps/tasks like uploading/downloading files, MS VisualStudio, streaming video, Adobe Photoshop, Sony Vegas Pro, running a virus scan, playing poker in an online casino, communicating through a video chatroom or instant messenger etc.

My machine is a Lenovo T61 7663-11U, 4GB DDR2-667 SDRAM 4-4-4-12 cl-rcd-rp-ras, Intel Crestline-PM PM965 Mobo Chipset, nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M Video adapter, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I`m guessing this is more than enough info but if you need to know anything more please tell me, I`ll post it asap.

I will appreciate your help, advice and/or opinion, thank you.

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.

FYI: you do'nt have a Crestline motherboard, that's the mobo with Intel graphics. Yours is nVidia.
ThinkPad T61 (7663-11U)
T7100(1.8GHz), 1GB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1440x900 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11agn(n-disabled), Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, WinVista Business

Seeing you have 64-bit OS, you would benefit more from upgrading your RAM to 6GB (4+2) or 8GB (4+4).
The T7700 costs about the same as a 4GB PC2-5300 RAM module ($40-45).
But your best improvement would be an SSD.

[deadzoo]

Thank you RealBlackStuff for this information and for the friendly welcome. The specs I posted were taken from an Everest report, honestly I would`nt know the difference between the motherboards if I viewed them side by side.

Much of the machines hardware must have been replaced before I got it, because some of it does not match the specs documented on Lenovo`s support section. Some examples being: DVD-RW, 4GB G.Skill Ram, Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

As you mentioned a solid state drive will boost performance substantially, but I have not seen a 250 GB SSD cheaper than $300 and I`d like even more storage capacity. The SSD cost more than the machine. I can score a T7700 for less than $50 that`s why I wanted to pick the brains of people smarter than me concerning the CPU upgrade being a good or bad idea.

Overall this T61 seem to be a good, solid machine, it`s just a little too slow for my needs. I love Thinkpads, I`ve had several. My first laptop was a 600 Win95, I still have it. I ran Linux on it for awhile but now has XP Pro.

[TuuS]

I have a T7700 if your interested and will consider taking your old cpu in trade, shoot me a PM if interested.

Although I agree that ram and SSD will help the most, your CPU speed is still the heart of the system, and back in my "drag racing" days we had a saying... "there's no substitute for cubic inches", meaning that you can do all the tricks in the book, but you can't make a small engine perform like a big one, so if it was me, I'd consider upgrading your CPU. It might not be the most bang you can get from your bucks if your on a budget, but I think you'd get your $50 in the pleasure you feel seeing your favorite laptop perform better, and the pride you feel for the learning experience.

I'll also refer you to an article I authored jointly with Mark (Hopkins) Lenovo, who runs Lenovo community forum. It specifically addresses CPU upgrade on T61/T61p models.

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-pri ... a-p/550533


ps. One thing that WILL make a big difference on a CPU upgrade in this case besides a vast increase from 1.8 to 2.4ghz is the L2 cache size going from 2mb to 4mb. A T7300 would be a less costly upgrade, with a speed of 2.0ghz but more improtant, you'd get the 4mb of cache.

[underclocker]

Here is a nice Penryn T8300 2.4GHz 800Mhz bus 3M cache CPU for $33 shipped (several available) --> http://www.ebay.com/itm/280781544346

If your board supports it, then it's a good upgrade option.

[deadzoo]

One thing that WILL make a big difference on a CPU upgrade in this case besides a vast increase from 1.8 to 2.4ghz is the L2 cache size going from 2mb to 4mb. A T7300 would be a less costly upgrade, with a speed of 2.0ghz but more improtant, you'd get the 4mb of cache.

Thanks TuuS, this is the type of tech info that I needed help with. I don`t understand it well enough to make an intelligent decision, but I knew I could get help here.
I`m definitely interested in your T7700 and I`ll PM you soon.

Here is a nice Penryn T8300 2.4GHz 800Mhz bus 3M cache CPU for $33 shipped ........If your board supports it, then it's a good upgrade option.

Thanks underclocker, I`ve read this is possible on some T61`s, not sure if my board is supported. I do remember a bios update or tweak is involved. I will have to research this or better yet, anybody reading this thread know?

[TuuS]

Odd are slim to none your board has native Penryn support. Also, the T7700 has 4mb of cache, the T8300 penryn has only 3mb. If you were to go with a penryn, I'd recommend the T9300, it is 2.5ghz and has 6mb cache.

The T7700 is about the most cost effective upgrade for a Meron board.

A hacked bios will prevent the false thermal error if you do install a Penryn, but it won't give full penryn support, you'd need a new board for that. Also the thermal error would appear if you, or a new owner were to install a Lenovo bios.

I can tell you that many people are running Penryn on meron boards with no complaints, and the middleton bios also enables sata2 speeds, so you may want to consider it even with a meron chip.

Also consider that updating your bios is a risk in itself. A failed flash will render your board unusable.

[underclocker]

A hacked bios will prevent the false thermal error if you do install a Penryn, but it won't give full penryn support, you'd need a new board for that.

I found your earlier post about this.

The problem using a Penryn chip on a Meron board is one of the thermal circuts doesn't work. The bios fix disables the warning, it doesn't correct the problem.

Is this a real issue for concern, or just more informational? Have people run into issues due to this?

[TuuS]

Is this a real issue for concern, or just more informational? Have people run into issues due to this?

My understanding is that the Penryn chip has a more advanced thermal protection system. When your Meron board cannot understand the data, it thows up an error. This is probably more of a "data out of range" type error, not an overheating error. If it was overheating, then it would probably fail to boot.

I don't know of anyone that has had any problems, like a board failing to shut down and causing damage, so I'd consider this more of a warning that you're not going to get all the thermal benefits of the Penryn without a board that fully supports it. If you already have a Meron board and a Penryn chip, I'd go ahead and use a hacked bios, but if I had the chose between a T7700 and T8300 chip and my board was a Meron, I'd go with the T7700 chip. They both have the same 2.4ghz clock speed, but the T7700 has 4mb of cache and will out perform the T8300 that only has 3mb, and the thermal advantage of the T8300 is "probably" nullified by your lack of full penryn support.

On the other hand, if I had a T9300 with it's 6mb of cache, then I'd be inclined to use the bios. 6mb of cache really can wake up one of these C2D chips and makes a huge difference.

However, I'd ask one of the engineers at Intel if you need anything more specific. I don't have intimate knowledge of the differences and the effects of disabling the warning in the bios.


Edit: I also noticed this post by Richk, regarding the error generated by a Penryn chip running in a Meron board. I tend to agree with him, but I can't say exactly what would happen in such a situation.

Some people ignore the error. (Hit ESC at first sign of fan error message) My guess is that the board will not correctly recognize an overheat condition

[underclocker]

Sounds good. I wanted to check becasue I'm prepping an R61 14" widescreen for a T8300 upgrade.

...the T7700 has 4mb of cache and will out perform the T8300 that only has 3mb, and the thermal advantage of the T8300 is "probably" nullified by your lack of full penryn support.

I actually remembered from way back that the Penryn was supposed to be a slightly better performer than the Merom, even at the same clock speeds. Generally 2MB of cache is big enough that even more matters very little. This seems to be true by looking at the benchmarks for both. The T8300 is nearly 10% faster than the T7700. Either way, I doubt anyone could notice the difference in use! However, Penryn chips also run cooler and use less power. If you're OK with the modified BIOS, I'd say the T8300 is a better choice.

T7700 scores 1406 --> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup. ... 40+2.40GHz

T8300 scores 1534 --> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup. ... 40+2.40GHz

Good Penryn v. Merom review --> http://www.anandtech.com/show/2414/1

[TuuS]

I've always preferred the larger cache size to cpu speed. Back in January 2008 when the T9300 was first introduced, I special ordered one in a T61, specifically because of the 6mb cache and I love the chip. I have quite a few of them at the moment and they still meet the needs today. As for the T8300 out performing the T7700, I guess it's possible, but that page also shows celeron chips outperforming core2, so I suspect it's a straight processor speed, not a real-world test that would show how it reacts under load and multitasking. Most of the celeron and pentium chips made today have very little cache, but do have fast speeds, so they may look good on a benchmark, but fail miserably in real life.

I don't know enough about these to debate the study, so I won't... just offering some speculation to consider. I'd also be interested to see the difference (if any) between a penryn on a penryn board, and one on a meron board. I've assumed the only difference would be thermal detections, but it might be something to look at.

I do agree that if I had a choice of a T8300 and T7700, I'd definitely take the T8300 if it was cheaper and my board supported it, but you've made me wonder if it really can perform better with less cache. I wouldn't have thought that possible, but perhaps it is...

[underclocker]

See below (other articles echo similar sentiments)...

Penryn Core 2 Duos all share an 800MHz Front Side Bus, and have either 3MB or 6MB of L2 Cache. I'd hesitate to quibble over this; with 4MB of L2 Cache having netted diminishing returns over 2MB in the last generation, it's hard to imagine 6MB being that important. 3MB is probably a good sweet spot for performance and price.

From Guide to Intel's Penryn and other Current Notebook Processors --> http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4247

[TuuS]

Thank you for that link. I researched this in depth back in 2007/8, and when the penryn was released, I was among the first to get a T61 with T9300 cpu, had to actually wait a couple weeks for a penryn system board.

I wasn't however aware that there was tests showing that 4mb cache didn't offer a huge benefit over 2mb. What I read indicated that the cache size was more important then the cpu speed, and the main reason the Intel core2 line was superior to the AMD CPUs. When I saw the T9300 (2.5ghz 6mb) was selling $250 cheaper then the Meron (2.6ghz 4mb), I grabbed it and never regretted it.

Perhaps the cache is overkill, but I suspect users that run a large amount of ram and actually use it will find that the cache does matter, after all, these tests were done back in 2008 and the test machines no doubt had only 2gb of ram and sata1 drives. If you have 8gb, sata2 and running SSD, I suspect you may use that 6mb of cache.

This is just speculation for discussion of course, but in my opinion the extra cache was worth a couple hundred dollars back in 2008, so I'd say it should be worth the $30-40 difference today in the used CPU market, but I doubt we are going to see any in depth testing on 3yo CPUs using modern upgrades, so all we really can do is speculate, or do the testing ourselves.

Thanks again for the link, I'd still consider 3mb a min target for cache, but I'll probably downplay the recommendations to go for 6mb in the future.

[miro_gt]

use either T9300 or T9500.

I run my T9500 at 2.8GHz Dual IDA almost non-stop ...

[deadzoo]

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to share your knowledge with me. It was exactly what I needed to know and to consider before making my (informed) decision.

Speaking of my decision, I chose to go with the T7700. I think the T9300 and T9500 are superior to the T7700 in every way, especially in the price. If my MoBo had fully supported them without a BIOS hack, I believe the better speeds and larger L2 cache size would have been worth the added cost. In my mind here`s what I could see happening; I pay at LEAST twice the cost of the T7700 for the T9xxx and then I fry my motherboard trying to apply the hack. The deciding factor for the T7700 was the reassurance I feel in knowing that T61`s came out of the Lenovo factory sporting this CPU.

I have`nt had the time to install it yet, but I will have time off during the holidays and I will do it then. I`ll also post any notable improvements.

[miro_gt]

if you dont want to flash your BIOS (which I dont see why but it's your laptop anyways) and you're using Penryn CPU (far superior than the Merom you have) then you'll have to press ESC every time the computer boots, or it will keep restarting. I've tried it with and without the middleton BIOS so I know that for a fact.

the the upgrade from T7100 to T7700 is not that big of a jump, unless you find the other processor dirt cheap. Most people at least go with T8300 anyways.

Penryn processors have two advantages over Merom (besides the speed that some offer) - they add video encoding instruction so that you play HD videos easier, and they run much cooler than Merom - priceless.

good luck with whatever you choose though

P.S. I upgraded from T7500 to T9500, and now I'm looking for even more .. hehehe

[markmorto]

Speaking from my recent experience, I swapped a T7300 out with a T9300, and my system works flawlessly - and a whole lot faster!

I had already added an SSD drive, so to get the performance boosts from that, I had to use Middleton's bios update. I have the rev "A", Merom-based motherboard, and considered the T7700, but what pushed me to the T9300 was the following:

• * More processing bang for my buck. I found a T9300 for just over $60 on Ebay, while the majority of T7700s I found were hovering at just below $60 to $100. I wanted a T9500, but for the extra MHz (2.5 to 2.6) it would have cost me twice as much.

• * Power consumption (wattage). Both series are rated at 35 watts, which translates into the same heat dissipated. With the smaller core build process of the T9300 (45nm), it runs cooler - and faster. This means that "frying" your motherboard is highly unlikely.

• * there's nothing but positive feedback concerning Middleton's bios update. If it were making problems or bricking systems, it would be all over this (and other) forums. So, thanks Middleton, and all the others that helped make the update possible. Because of you, my T61 is more awesome than it originally was!

Ultimately you have to do what you feel most comfortable with, but my experience has been very positive. My system is around 20% faster with the upgrade, temperatures are good - I played Doom 3 for over a half-hour and the fan didn't even kick on, and the battery life is the same or better (I get just over 4 hours with a 9-cell). From my experience, I would recommend the T9300/9500 upgrade.

[Radioguy]

That's my situation virtually word for word.

[deadzoo]

UPDATE:
First I swapped the T7100 with a T7700. There was a noticeable increase in performance, but far from what I was expecting/needing. There was also a substantial increase in temperature (up to 205 degree`s Fahrenheit) which at first I attributed to my lack of skill in applying thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5), but after a few redo`s and CPU temps unchanged I put the blame where it belonged, on the T7700.

Next I started seriously researching the Thinkpad W Series. During this time I discovered my motherboard had native Penryn support! The reason I decided to go with the T7700 in the first place was that I was under the impression I would have to modify the BIOS and I still would not get the T9x00`s full capabilities. I bought a T9300, I just could`nt justify a T9500 at double the cost for an extra Mhz and the same size cache. Incidentally, this was basically the same reason I initially chose the T7700 over the T7800.

I wished I possessed the literary aptitude necessary to accurately describe the difference between these CPU`s. It`s like trading in a Ford Focus for Mustang GT! Performance increased significantly, but equally, if not even more impressive was the dramatic drop in temperature! For example, as I`ve done many, many times before with the T7700, while simultaneously encoding some video for DVD, watching a Married with Children live stream on jtv and uploading files to online storage the temperature never rose above 126 degree`s Fahrenheit, 60 degree`s, more give than take, cooler than the T7700 would have been.

If you came to this thread in an effort to help you decide which CPU is the better upgrade. I`ve tried Merom and Penryn in the same machine, go with the Penryn no matter what mods have to be made, it will be worth it.

PS:
I`m still looking at the W Series, but only in admiration, not as a possible replacement for my T61!

[miro_gt]

or in other words you came to what I was saying, lol.

[deadzoo]

Came there to stay, I`ve established residence!