Can i put an i7 processor in an i3 motherboard

[larrythefox]

so I have a gateway pc. I have made some upgrades to the tower since I purchased it. new power supply and a video card. I was wondering if my i3 530 processor could be upgraded to an i7 the pc came in all three processors. although the i7 was a special order due to price. any help would be appreciated. thanks.

 

[attackllama]

what motherboard do you have and which i7 processor is it?

 

[larrythefox]

what motherboard do you have and which i7 processor is it?

I got this from gateway the model is DX4831-01e. I'm not sure what the exact type of motherboard i have. I have done several look ups and cannot find an exact model number on my motherboard. the processor that i currently am running is an i3 530. I am looking to purchase an i7 processor. I was wondering what my options were if any. Again, thank you.

 

[JordoR]

... retracted comment.

 

[Emperus]

Run dxdiag. It will tell you the motherboard's model number. Assuming you are not locked down by the BIOS, you can upgrade to any i7 8XX processor.

 

[larrythefox]

Run dxdiag. It will tell you the motherboard's model number. Assuming you are not locked down by the BIOS, you can upgrade to any i7 8XX processor.

I tried dxdiag. IT did not give me the info I needed. I used cpu-z and got the model number and chipset. Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction. the help is greatly appreciated.

 

[larrythefox]

Best answer selected by larrythefox.

 

[wildman78]

I had that same Gateway dx4831-01e , you can use intel i5-750 or even i7 870 will work , make sure you do a bios update from Gateways website before upgrading processor