Would a CPU upgrade provide noticeable improvement?

[thinkpac]

I have a T60 with a T2500 2.0 GHz CPU and 3 GB of RAM. I have noticed a couple programs run slow, and I still have plenty of free RAM when they're running, so I'm wondering if a CPU upgrade would help. I've read the fastest CPU the T60 can take is the T7600 2.33 GHz. How significant of an upgrade is that over the T2500 2.0 GHz? I'm just wondering if I would even notice any improvement.

[ajkula66]

The short answer is "it depends".

Unless you're constantly maxing out your CPU usage, the answer is "not really".

With that said, you can pick up a T7200 for $20 or so nowadays which is a rather inexpensive upgrade even for an aging machine.

If you're not running W7 on a SSD, and *really* like that T60 of yours, that's the route I'd recommend.

[Saucey]

Looks like it is quite better, check out this link.

SSD loads stuff much faster and boot time.
The CPU would be better for processing e.g. rendering effects in Photoshop

[Johan]

How significant of an upgrade is that over the T2500 2.0 GHz? I'm just wondering if I would even notice any improvement?

An impression of the speed-improvement if upgrading your T60 from a Core Duo T2500 to, say, a Core 2 Duo T7600, may be found from one or more of the following threads: Need advice on CPU upgrade for T60 2623-D6U or T60 CPU upgrade - currently a T2300 CD, can a T5200 C2D work or T60 CPU upgrade question or T60 upgrade question. As you will read there, the improvement will be quite modest at best.

If you are still using an "old" mechanical, rotating hard drive (either a relatively slow 5400 rpm or a somewhat faster 7200 rpm), then you will for certain achieve a much faster overall T60 if upgrading the HDD to a SSD; see e.g. the following threads Latest Recommendations for SSD replacement to old 60gb HD and SSD choice advice for T60 upgrade and Adding an SSD to a T60.

Check you whether the bottleneck of the "slow running program" you mention is actually the CPU, and not perhaps the GPU? By the way, are you sure that your power-setting is perhaps not preventing the CPU from operating at max. clock speed?

Finally, consider upgrading to Windows 7 (if you haven't done already), not the least now that Microsoft has recently terinated the support of XP.

Johan