[SOLVED] i5 to i7 Upgrade on Dell Inspiron

[johnr283]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3670 with an i5-8400, 12GB DDR4 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz, and a 1tb HHD.
Is it possible to upgrade to an i7? I'd probably also upgrade to a 1tb SSD.
Would the 12gb be fine or should I upgrade the ram as well.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

I would start with getting an SSD instead of the old spinning rust. That will speed up your system massively.
Having 12GB of ram does not seem right. what sticks are in what slots ?

Lastly, what are you trying to achieve ?

 

[Rexer]

What's the motherboard? The upside is all Coffee Lake CPUs should be compatible with your board. Meaning Intel i3, i5, i7 8000 series CPUs will work.
The downside is Dell likes to prioritize their motherboards so it may be you won't be able to do an upgrade.
Years ago, I owned a Dell Studio XPS 435 mt. It came with an i7 920 2.6 CPU. I decided to upgrade to a i7 970 3.2. Nope. It black screened from the very start. Dell prioritized the motherboard/cpu bios so I couldn't upgrade it. And after several years, they stopped listing a newer bios for the i7 920.
It's like a owning a fixed cat. Because Dell likes prioritizing, I can't tell you if you can upgrade to an i7 8770k will work.
But by chance do you see a manufacturer's name and model number on the motherboard? If you can, you can look up the motherboard and get a bios for it.
Intel i5 8400 is 1151 (socket H4). which means it's a Coffee Lake cpu (not to be confused with older 1151 motherboards for i5 6000 Skylake CPUs) (the number 1151 refers to the number of pads on the CPU).

 

[johnr283]

I would start with getting an SSD instead of the old spinning rust. That will speed up your system massively.
Having 12GB of ram does not seem right. what sticks are in what slots ?

Lastly, what are you trying to achieve ?

Actually, I was thinking of getting the SSD last as I don't want to reinstall Windows, programs, etc. I know I have 2 sticks of RAM. So, I assume they're
8 and 4GB. I'll check this later. I know how Dell like prioritize things so I will check the mb later as well.

I just want my PC to be faster for some video editing. The only game I play is The Sims. Sometimes opening programs take longer than I'd like.

Question though: Will a system SSD help if the videos I'm editing are stored on a USB My Book?

 

[johnr283]

As I thought, the 2 sticks of RAM are 8 and 4GB
I found a spot on the MB that says 17529-1 H7MRM$FA. Does that mean anything?

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

You dont need to re-install windows to get a new SSD installed as you could clone your existing Windows HDD onto the new SSD, just so long as its a 1TB SSD.
AOMEI Backupper has a Disk clone function that could do it but you would need a spare sata port or a USB docking thingy to stick the SSD into for the cloning.

An SSD will hugley speed up bootup time and program loading.

If the USB My Book is USB 2.0 then its going to be really slow.
Also, if the USB My Book is plugged into a USB port or is using a USB 2.0 lead, then thats also not good.
If its USB 3.0 all the way then it's probably ok for video editing IF it too has an SSD in it. How big (GBytes) is the USB My Book ?

My take is that anything on an old HDD these days needs to be moved onto SSD for productivity, then move to HDD for long term storage if needed.

Lastly, I cannot really deduce anything from the MB number you posted, but its a DELL and its all cloak and daggar propriety stuff inside.

 

[punkncat]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3670 with an i5-8400, 12GB DDR4 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz, and a 1tb HHD.
Is it possible to upgrade to an i7? I'd probably also upgrade to a 1tb SSD.
Would the 12gb be fine or should I upgrade the ram as well.

OP, take a few moments to look up your specific model "cut sheet". There will typically be a color advertisement like page that lists your model and then down below will have sections showing what options were available for it.
You will want to see if this model was sold with the i7 and farther down the page should show if there were multiple power supplies made available for the model.

For instance:

Dell Inspiron 3670 – Specs and detailed information (hardware-corner.net)

This indicates that it came available with the full range of CPU from Pentium to i7, however this specific one is listing 9th gen, so likely a later revision. It mentions one available PSU.

Searching Dell's site can be a bit difficult the way they tend to obfuscate information, but you can type in your service code and gather info that way as well. Perhaps look to see if there is a BIOS revision available to update to 9th gen, etc.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

To answer your original question now that you have mentioned you do video editing, an upgrade from a 6 core, 6 thread i5-8400 to a 6 core, 12 thread i7-8600 "should" increase final rendering performance by upto 100 % (it should half the time it takes to render the final video).
I noticed this when I went from an i5-6600 (4 core, 4 threads) to an i7-6700 (4 core, 8 threads) when rendering video in VSDC. I cant comment on Premier.

The thing with video editing (I am a novice really) is if you are "scrubbing" along a time line, that will be treacle on an old HDD and or USB compared to an SSD.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3670 with an i5-8400, 12GB DDR4 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz, and a 1tb HHD.
Is it possible to upgrade to an i7? I'd probably also upgrade to a 1tb SSD.
Would the 12gb be fine or should I upgrade the ram as well.

Is there a specific reason you want to upgrade?

 

[johnr283]

I found info here: Inspiron 3670 Setup and Specifications (dell.com). It appears that this PC came with 9th Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 and one of 3 PSUs. Exactly which i7 model would be compatible? I have the 290 watt PSU would I need the 365 watt?

 

[Nighthawk117]

I found info here: Inspiron 3670 Setup and Specifications (dell.com). It appears that this PC came with 9th Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 and one of 3 PSUs. Exactly which i7 model would be compatible? I have the 290 watt PSU would I need the 365 watt?

Link just goes to sales thing for me. 8th and 9th gen use the same socket and compatible with each other. So the 8700 or 9700 would work. 290W is a little bit low for the i7, however it's difficult to say because it depends on how the CPU is configured.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

Is your USB My Drive plugged into the front or rear USB ports ?

 

[johnr283]

Is your USB My Drive plugged into the front or rear USB ports ?

It's in the rear, in a PCI-E USB 3.0 Hub.

 

[punkncat]

I found info here: Inspiron 3670 Setup and Specifications (dell.com). It appears that this PC came with 9th Generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 and one of 3 PSUs. Exactly which i7 model would be compatible? I have the 290 watt PSU would I need the 365 watt?

If your unit is configured with an 8400, be SURE to look for information about BIOS revision for the 9th gen. See my post #7.
If you install a 9th gen and the BIOS is incompatible the unit is likely not to start/post.

 

[william p]

You can look at that system at userbenchmark and see what others are running, and what those parts will do for you.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-Inspiron-3670/89372
Run your own there and see where you need help.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

According to the specs only USB 2.0 (black ports) are on the rear IO.
USB 3.1 (blue) on the front.
Your actual rear IO panel may be different to the spec and manual, but your USB 3.0 hub should go into a USB 3.0 or higher port, not USB 2.0.

 

[johnr283]

I would start with getting an SSD instead of the old spinning rust. That will speed up your system massively.
Having 12GB of ram does not seem right. what sticks are in what slots ?

Lastly, what are you trying to achieve ?

I just bought an SSD. I'll try AOMEI Backupper's clone function. What doesn't seem right about the 12GB of ram. Should I have 16gb? Any recommendations on 2x 8g sticks? My PC takes Dual-channel DDR4 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz.

I may wait a few months to upgrade to the i7, save some money first.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

Generally systems are 8gb or 16 gb (2 or 4 slots filled) . If its running ok on 12GB, then stay with it. The overall ram speed will be 2400mhz (the lowest value of the 2 sticks)
Good fortune with the cloning.

 

[Bob.B]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3670 with an i5-8400, 12GB DDR4 2400 MHz and 2666 MHz, and a 1tb HHD.
Is it possible to upgrade to an i7? I'd probably also upgrade to a 1tb SSD.
Would the 12gb be fine or should I upgrade the ram as well.

Run this and post a LINK to the results page.

PC Benchmark

 

[johnr283]

UserBenchmarks: Game 38%, Desk 86%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 - 83.6%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 - 40.2%
SSD: WDC WDBNCE0020PNC 2TB - 90.3%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (2016) - 93.8%
USB: WD My Book 1230 4TB - 20.5%
USB: WD My Book 25EE 3TB - 5%
RAM: Unknown HMA81GU6JJR8N-VK 80CE000080CE M378A5244CB0-CTD 12GB - 60.6%
MBD: Dell Inspiron 3670

UserBenchmarks: Game 38%, Desk 86%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 - 83.6%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 - 40.2%
SSD: WDC WDBNCE0020PNC 2TB - 90.3%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (2016) - 93.8%
USB: WD My Book 1230 4TB - 20.5%
USB: WD My Book 25EE 3TB - 5%
RAM: Unknown HMA81GU6JJR8N-VK 80CE000080CE M378A5244CB0-CTD 12GB - 60.6%
MBD: Dell Inspiron 3670

 

[Bob.B]

UserBenchmarks: Game 38%, Desk 86%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 - 83.6%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 - 40.2%
SSD: WDC WDBNCE0020PNC 2TB - 90.3%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (2016) - 93.8%
USB: WD My Book 1230 4TB - 20.5%
USB: WD My Book 25EE 3TB - 5%
RAM: Unknown HMA81GU6JJR8N-VK 80CE000080CE M378A5244CB0-CTD 12GB - 60.6%
MBD: Dell Inspiron 3670

UserBenchmarks: Game 38%, Desk 86%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 - 83.6%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 - 40.2%
SSD: WDC WDBNCE0020PNC 2TB - 90.3%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (2016) - 93.8%
USB: WD My Book 1230 4TB - 20.5%
USB: WD My Book 25EE 3TB - 5%
RAM: Unknown HMA81GU6JJR8N-VK 80CE000080CE M378A5244CB0-CTD 12GB - 60.6%
MBD: Dell Inspiron 3670

Run UBM again but this time reboot and wait a few mins then run UBM with the browser closed.

Just post a LINK to the results page no need to copy all that stuff.