Upgradable i7 Laptop

[Clisbo]

Hi

I currently have a 4/5-year-old i7 G-series Lenovo laptop which over the years I have upgraded with 2x8GB DDR3 RAM and a 512GB SSD. It still runs blazingly quickly for everything I need to do (Photoshop, Premiere Pro, CAD) but it is prone to blue screening with different error warnings every time. I think due to age and the fact it is constantly powered somewhere in the hardware a connection is faulty (especially happens when the computer is moved). I paid around £550 for the laptop when I first got it.

Because of this, I've decided its time to upgrade. Currently, to get my current specs straight out the box it will be £1000-1200. However, I believe I can save a lot of money if instead I remove the RAM and SSD and put it into a new computer. Because of this, I believe I have two options:

Option one is to buy the cheapest i7 laptop I can find with hardware that won't be fried when I run it at a lot higher workload than expected.

Option two is to buy an even cheaper laptop with an upgradable CPU slot and install this https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/intel-core-i7-7740x-deal-on-overclockers-uk-19999-3175432 which seems to be a really good deal on a CPU and also transfer the RAM and SSD across.

My budget all in is around £700/800. Thanks for any help you can give.

Matt

 

[Rogue Leader]

Option two is to buy an even cheaper laptop with an upgradable CPU slot and install this https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/intel-core-i7-7740x-deal-on-overclockers-uk-19999-3175432 which seems to be a really good deal on a CPU and also transfer the RAM and SSD across.

That CPU is not a laptop CPU and will not work in any laptop.

Finding an upgradeable CPU laptop is tough. Even if the CPU is removeable, you are often limited by the fact that nobody sells them retail, so you're limited to the used market of takeoffs from broken laptops. Laptops made by MSI, EVGA, or Sager often have removable CPUs but sockets change, power requirements change, so buying a laptop with a plan to upgrade the CPU isn't advisable, because most of the time you can't get a replacement even if its removable.

 

[Clisbo]

Ok that makes a lot of sense thanks. Guess ill go down the computer with an i7 route rather than buying seperately.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Ok that makes a lot of sense thanks. Guess ill go down the computer with an i7 route rather than buying seperately.

Yeah thats your best bet. With Laptops its always buy the best thing you can afford, because they get outdated quickly, and anything low end, is gonna DRAG in a couple years.

 

[Clisbo]

Yeah thats your best bet. With Laptops its always buy the best thing you can afford, because they get outdated quickly, and anything low end, is gonna DRAG in a couple years.

Any idea whats the best laptop to get for around £700 with an i7, and as minimal RAM and Hard disk space as possible, whilst still supporting DDR3

 

[punkncat]

Well, to be fair in regards to the laptops...there are a couple of "workstation" branded laptops that do use some desktop procs. They are large, hot, and have nothing for battery life. This injection of power rather puts them in a weird place in that what you have isn't really good in either space aside from the ability to pick it up and move it more readily, along with it's screen. There are newer case designs that make at least a part of this easier from a desktop perspective. The ready availability of flat screen/HDMI TV go a long way towards ease in finding a screen too.

In my recent search for a (purely) laptop application, you have to look around and do some homework as to whether you can actually change or add anything inside it at all. Most often, if you are looking for something in the 13" field, you better purchase it with everything you want. Memory and Storage tends to be soldered in those models. When you get into the 15-17" field you will commonly find more options for open Memory slots, possibility to add/change Storage.
Keep in mind as well that many of the mobility chips offer almost no difference between the i5 and i7 variants.

 

[Clisbo]

They are large, hot, and have nothing for battery life

Yeah, my current computer is large and hot with no battery life but that doesn't affect me. For how often it needs to be moved around I definitely think a laptop is a way if I can get an i7 one for a decent amount of money (under £700) with 2 SoDIMM slots and works with DDR3. My current laptop suits my needs perfectly apart from the frequent BSOD problem.

Matt

 

[Rogue Leader]

Any idea whats the best laptop to get for around £700 with an i7, and as minimal RAM and Hard disk space as possible, whilst still supporting DDR3

Nothing worth buying today supports DDR3 anymore for many years. Unfortunately being in the US it would be hard for me to find the best deal for you. All new 8th gen i7 laptop processors are at least 4 cores which is good, but if I were you I'd look for a 6 core one. mind you they are likely over your budget a bit.

Well, to be fair in regards to the laptops...there are a couple of "workstation" branded laptops that do use some desktop procs. They are large, hot, and have nothing for battery life. This injection of power rather puts them in a weird place in that what you have isn't really good in either space aside from the ability to pick it up and move it more readily, along with it's screen. There are newer case designs that make at least a part of this easier from a desktop perspective. The ready availability of flat screen/HDMI TV go a long way towards ease in finding a screen too.

There are some Gaming laptops as well with desktop processors in them, but they are in the $2000+ range, and also oso huge they are barely portable.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Yeah, my current computer is large and hot with no battery life but that doesn't affect me. For how often it needs to be moved around I definitely think a laptop is a way if I can get an i7 one for a decent amount of money (under £700) with 2 SoDIMM slots and works with DDR3. My current laptop suits my needs perfectly apart from the frequent BSOD problem.

Matt

The BSOD issue you are experiencing is most likely some corruption in windows or something like that. have you considered wiping your drive and reinstalling Windows 10? If your current laptop suits your needs then that may well clear everything up and save you money.

Again, almost nothing new for at least the past 2 or so years had had DDR3 in it.

 

[Clisbo]

Unfortunately being in the US it would be hard for me to find the best deal for you

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for your help

 

[Clisbo]

The BSOD issue you are experiencing is most likely some corruption in windows or something like that. have you considered wiping your drive and reinstalling Windows 10?

Yeah, I've done that twice. The reason I think its hardware related is it happens mostly when I move the laptop at all and also its a completely different error code every time.

Cheers though

 

[Rogue Leader]

Yeah, I've done that twice. The reason I think its hardware related is it happens mostly when I move the laptop at all and also its a completely different error code every time.

Cheers though

Yeah that does make sense, could be bad memory or a bad drive. I'd say unlikely to be the CPU or motherboard, but no way to tell for sure, and IMO not worth throwing money at an older laptop. Unless there is a shop with a good return policy nearby that you can maybe swap the memory.

 

[Clisbo]

Unless there is a shop with a good return policy nearby that you can maybe swap the memory.

Thanks for all your help