[SOLVED] Is the following Component upgrade reasonable?

[Anurag Trivedi]

Hello!
I have a laptop which i bought back in 2010. It is Acer aspire 4741z with following specs:
CPU: Intel Pentium P6000 dual-core @1.86GHz
RAM: 3GB DDR3 (2+1)
HDD: 240GB (works for me)

I wish to upgrade it to the following;
CPU: Intel Core i5 560m ($12.7 from AliExpress)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (4+4) (From a parts laptop)
HDD would be the same.

Is it a reasonable upgrade? Should i go for it ?
My main motive is just using office softwares and some casual games like GTA SA and NFS MW.

Thanks in advance!

 

[DrummerManSpike]

What's the overall cost looking like, and compared to your budget? If it's low enough, it should be a decent upgrade, however it may not be able to run those games well, if even at all. Compared to other laptop CPU's, the i5-560M is still on the lower end of the scale.

Here is a laptop CPU hierarchy article. Under the TLDR; Which CPU Do I Need? is a table comparing common CPU models. the i5 M series is more towards the bottom of the scale, labeled as "Super Thin (Mediocre Performance)". I would consider looking at one higher up on the scale if you intend to do any gaming, even basic gaming.

For Office software and anything similar though, it's definitely a reasonable chip. Those programs barely take up any resources.

Before doing any CPU changes though, double check that your CPU can even be separated from the motherboard. It's pretty common in laptops for the two components to be permanently fused together, meaning you may or may not need to purchase an entirely new motherboard along with the CPU.


Side note for the HDD. If that's the original hard drive, it's now about 10 years old, and is most likely causing your laptop to run pretty dang slow! You should definitely think about getting a new one. For the same storage space, there's plenty of cheap options available. If you can manage to do a complete data transfer of everything including your OS, it will run much faster than it probably is right now. Definitely do plenty of research beforehand though, to avoid any potential hiccups with the OS.