Can I upgrade CPU by swapping motherboard with stronger CPU

[rasovisnjic909]

Hello folks. I have Dell XPS 15z l511z and I wanted to upgrade my CPU i5 2410m but soon I discovered that I couldnt do that because my CPU is BGA. Then I saw on Ebay motherboard from same laptop but with i7 2640m. So I was wondering if I could replace my old motherboard with the motherboard with better CPU and does that laptop have 16x PCI e slot because I want external gpu. Thanks a lot

 

[hang-the-9]

You can see if there is a free mini PCIe slot by looking at the motherboard. If it's the same model laptop and the motherboard looks to be the same, there is a chance it will work. Not guaranteed but if you really want to upgrade, try it and see what happens. I would not bother with an external GPU for it since it will run at PCIe 1x speeds and generally the pain of having a cable sticking out of the system, along with a power supply and monitor for the card is not worth it.

 

[R4DIO4CT1VE]

In regards to swapping motherboards that will probably work if its of the same laptop model.

I don't know about the external GPU though, you wouldnt be running 16x speeds, and i imagine you may run into other issues as that is not a very common setup.

Money would be better spend a newer laptop.

 

[rasovisnjic909]

R4DIO4CT1VE I know that a newer laptop would be better but I dont have money for 1k laptop, instead for just 400€ (with laptop) I would have laptop with same specs as the laptop for 1 k or 1.5k €...

 

[Prostar Computer]

It's doable, but only if the layout of the board is identical (same screw locations, same ports and port locations, etc.).

 

[rasovisnjic909]

Prostar Computer can I use external gpu without connecting laptop to external monitor to game??

 

[Prostar Computer]

Prostar Computer can I use external gpu without connecting laptop to external monitor to game??

Built-in monitor or external monitor doesn't matter. Using an eGPU is very much up to the hardware, firmware (BIOS), and whether you have a Thunderbolt port to connect the eGPU or not.

 

[R4DIO4CT1VE]

R4DIO4CT1VE I know that a newer laptop would be better but I dont have money for 1k laptop, instead for just 400€ (with laptop) I would have laptop with same specs as the laptop for 1 k or 1.5k €...

an i7 2640m is quite dated at this point, almost any new mobile CPU will beat it (by a lot). if you have 400 to spend right now you are pretty close to a laptop with an MX150 and 8th gen i5 processor.

 

[rasovisnjic909]

R4DIO4ACT1VE You are right I can get mx 150 for 400 laptop but with nvidia 350 dollar upgraded laptop i get around 30% better performance...

 

[Prostar Computer]

R4DIO4ACT1VE You are right I can get mx 150 for 400 laptop but with nvidia 350 dollar upgraded laptop i get around 30% better performance...

Your CPU will still be a bit of a bottleneck. 30% is very subjective, you probably won't see that kind of performance gap in real-world applications.