intel core i3-330m cpu upgrade help

[D1Y4B]

I have a toshiba satellite pro l650-166
intel core i3-330m
4gb ram
AMD radeon mobility 5650 1GB
and i am running windows 7 ultimate 64 bit

I am considering on upgrading my cpu and ram and need a little help and advice please. From what i know i can upgrade ram to 8 GB because of limitations by cpu and to upgrade cpu it has to be socket 989 rPGA and has to be same chipset. All i need is a little guide for me to choose the right cpu

 

[xomm]

What will you be using the laptop for? IMHO, upgrading a laptop that old isn't worth the time or money. Most laptops aren't very user-servicable, anyways, other than RAM hatches.

If you're just using it for casual/office use (web browsing <100 tabs, MS office), you're not going to see very much of a performance increase from upgrading the CPU. I'd imagine it would be hard to find a compatible CPU to buy anyways.

If you multitask quite a lot, I can see a RAM upgrade maybe being viable, check task manager every now and then to see if you're close to 4GB of RAM usage.

Gaming-wise, you'd want to upgrade graphics more than CPU/RAM, but you can't do that on laptops - not unless you've got a very high end machine.

An SSD would probably net you the most performance increase but again, not really worth the time or money upgrading for a laptop that old, especially if it doesn't have a spare slot open.

 

[D1Y4B]

As you said there upgrading a laptop that old isn't worth it, but I'm using for a little bit of everything, I game every now and then and I use office quite frequently too. I can play most games on med-low settings with textures on high so I thought that maybe it would have a effect on gaming like nfs most wanted I get like 18 fps on everything low so I thought the CPU was the bottleneck there.

If upgrading isn't worth doing then what would be a right laptop for me (I need laptop as I'm a student). Something under £500 or $600. Or should I go for ps4 and stick with my laptop?

 

[bungz]

Still a pretty decent laptop.

How about upgrading the slow HD to a SSD? Be like new then That is where the bottleneck is not the CPU.

 

[xomm]

The hard drive is indeed where the bottleneck is (actually the HDD is the bottleneck in almost every computer...), and the SSD'll help drastically with boot times, load times, etc.

The only issue I have with recommending that is that there is probably only one drive slot, and a larger SSD to compensate ($150-256GB, $300-480GB) might not give the best returns, since OP mentioned gaming.

It's also kind of hard to recommend a good laptop since prices across the pond are so different. This one occasionally drops to $600, and is great value for money, but I don't think it's available in the UK: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231238

 

[D1Y4B]

Thanks for recommendation. But I don't think I can get it in the uk. Are apu with dedicated gpu any good.

 

[xomm]

Thanks for recommendation. But I don't think I can get it in the uk. Are apu with dedicated gpu any good.

They're not great, but they're not bad either.

Head to http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html
Hit ctrl + f and type 0G.

The ones that end up highlighted are the ones on APUs.