CPU Upgrade Question

[Synnocence]

Well my wife's CPU is running at 2.2Ghz...she's got a P6-2133w from Wal-Mart. We've got the specs of it here. I know it gives upgrade suggestions and the highest is the AMD A8-3850 (Liano) quad core. But I'm assuming that's an APU instead of just a CPU. Is there a CPU that could work that would be more powerful? She's using a GPU now instead of the integrated graphics.

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

It wouldn't be much of a CPU upgrade. While it's possible (upgraded a similar laptop from an A6-3420M to an A8-3520M) it doesn't give too much of a boost although the graphics will improve sometimes as AMD locked GPU cores on the A6/A4 models. And it isn't an easy upgrade. But yes, it is possible. Just difficult and not necessarily going to give much of an improvement.

 

[Synnocence]

It wouldn't be much of a CPU upgrade. While it's possible (upgraded a similar laptop from an A6-3420M to an A8-3520M) it doesn't give too much of a boost although the graphics will improve sometimes as AMD locked GPU cores on the A6/A4 models. And it isn't an easy upgrade. But yes, it is possible. Just difficult and not necessarily going to give much of an improvement.

So would that one be the only one I could use, cus I think those were all APU's for the integrated graphics. Would there be an FM1 CPU that could be used alternatively on that motherboard at all? If not, it'd just be a bandaid and we'd have to eventually upgrade the MoBo or just get a new rig.

 

[blazorthon]

The few Athlon CPUs for FM1 are not any better than the top A8 APUs with their graphics disabled (that's essentially what the Athlons for FM sockets are), though they might be cheaper. The motherboard has an FM1 socket, so it uses FM1 CPUs, not laptop CPUs.

Unlike the laptops, going up to an A8-3850 would be a decent CPU upgrade because the frequency goes up significantly. The mtoherboard's CPU support list doesn't include any Athlons, so they might not be compatible with the motherboard's BIOS, meaning the A8-3850 is your best bet.

Yes, it's basically a band-aid and the board or whole computer will need replacing if you want a truly big performance boost.

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

I'm sorry, I thought you had a laptop. Not an HP expert. But yeah, basically what he (blazorthon) said.