Hi,
I got a XPS1530 recently (the $599 deal at BB) and it is a great notebook - the only thing that I am disappointed by is the CPU - It came with the T5450. I knew that it was a low end CPU, but since it is supposed to be upgradable, I went ahead and purchased it. (other than the CPU problem, it has almost everything else that I need/want)

This notebook is not used for gaming, so I don't really need great GPU. But with the T5450, boot time is slow (I cleared out most of the crapware and reduced startup items as far as possibile) and when I open a few large documents or xls, I can notice a slowdown.

Looking at newegg, it looks like I can upgrade to a T8100 for about $200 or a T8300 (or T7500) for $245
I've dealt with desktop CPUs and usually build my own desktop. But with the mobile processors, I'm a little lost.

Will the performance gain from swapping the 5450 to 8100 be substantial? Or should I spend the extra money and get the T8300 (T9300 is a over $350, so leaving it off the list for now)

Thanks!

Based on your symptoms I'd be willing to bet that your "slowdowns" are from a 5400 RPM hard drive more so than the CPU. You would see a larger difference with a new drive.

Yes it would be a very large jump in performance, you are going from 1.66ghz to 2.1. The only problem I see is that the T5450 is a 65nm part so the motherboard in your laptop may not be able to use the 45nm T8000's and 9000's. It will however be able to use the T7500 that you mentioned before, which would also be a rather large performance boost. I am not 100% positive that you can't use the T8100, you may want to contact Dell support about it.

Disclaimer: Be warned that replacing the CPU will void any warranty you currently have on the laptop. If you mess something up, you are out of luck. I'm not trying to scare you out of doing this, just letting you know.

edit since Boonality beat me to it:
Boonality makes a decent point. The hard drive may also be suspect in your slowdowns. The other thing I should ask is how much RAM do you have installed?

Thanks for that idea. I must admit that it is something that I didn't think of. I'll look for a good price on a HDD and try that out. Since this had a decent amount of RAM (2GB), I thought I might be able to get by with the 5400rpm drive. Guess not

Thanks again.

lostandwandering, this notebook has 2GB RAM. I upgraded the BIOS and the latest bios is supposed to be able to handle even the T9300, so the T8300 should be compatible. I'll double check with Dell Tech support.
I looked at the schematics for the cpu and heatsink
http://support.dell.com/support/ed [...] #wp1084976
http://support.dell.com/support/ed [...] #wp1084976
and it doesn't look too complicated. Thanks for the warning about the warranty though. I will keep the original CPU around for a few months at least, so if there is any problem, I'll swap that back in

This seems like a nice choice.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822116043

What size would you be looking for?

I guess the most important things to consider are the interface and make sure it's 7200 RPM.

thanks for the suggestion boonality.
Any drive >= 120GB should be sufficient. I've got some BB gift cards lying around, so I'll check to see what offers (if any) they have this weekend. I'll try this out. Thanks!
So swapping the drive for a faster one should get me better performance than swapping the CPU out? (I realize the CPU upgrade is more expensive)
The reason I'm asking that is when on my desktop, I swapped out my 7200.10 (seagate) for raptor 150gb, I barely noticed any difference (well, there was a difference, but not as much)

Again, thanks for your input! Appreciate all the help I can get.

Upgrading the processor will make a noticable difference, don't get me wrong. But it's also twice as expensive and very painstaking.

With the hard drive you can be up and running after removing a screw, maybe 2; sliding out the cage; swapping drives; sliding in the cage; replace the screw, re-install windows.. good to go. and you have a drive you can slap into a 2.5" enclosure and make an external USB drive to boot.