Your laptop is what, 5, going on six years old? That's a good run, treat yourself to a new laptop for Christmas
Or....if you can stick it out with what you have until next spring/summer, look for a laptop with Haswell, power consumption should be much improved, even over the latest Ivy mobile chips.
I'm just not sure if it makes sense to spend money on an incremental (probably minimal) gain, when your laptop as a whole is getting long in the tooth, even for generic uses.