Good idea?

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Is this a good idea? My brother has a Inspiron 5150, which is a good 3 years old. It's still got a kickass CPU in it. Today, my brother contacted me and said he wants to upgrade it for gaming. I know this laptop has no gaming future due to all that time at Dell.

I offered this to him. I said to take the CPU and put it into a desktop. The CPU is a 3.06GHz 533MHz FSB P4. The motherboard I put into this hypothetical PC was an Asus board that was S478 and supported both AGP and PCIe. This way, he has a graphics future. The CPU is still way good for anything he uses, even if it is gaming.

So that means he'd need to buy a case/PSU (Sonata II), memory (1GB of DDR333 runs approx. $90), hard drive and DVD drive (approximately $100 together), a graphics card (I chose 7600GT by eVGA for $100), a new cooler (like $30), and the said motherboard ($90 at ZZF).

Total is about $500 (rough estimate) and need to allocate about $50 for other stuff like a PCMCIA to PCI adapter (for the Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card he has). He just needs a monitor, which we have CRT galore at home, so that's no issue.

Now, the questions:
1. Is this a good idea/worth it?
2. Is it worth ripping apart a laptop, which is pretty useful?
3. Can you build another system for about the same price (add like $100 more too)?

Thanks guys.

[Reloadron]

You may want to do some homework on the Mobile Pentium4 M. I am not sure the P4M used in laptops is a socket 478 processor. Just something I remember about a socket 479 being in there? Not sure but hopefully someone else has a thought on it.

Ron

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Yeah, but this isn't a Pentium 4 M. It's a straight-up Pentium 4 w/ HT. I'll have my brother run CPUZ and find out.

[fps justin]

that sounds fine, although it might be better to find some DDR400 ram.

[gvblake22]

I don't know, I think it might end up being more hassle than it's worth. the only PCI-Express s478 motherboard I could find was the MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R but it doesn't seem to have very good user feedback. You might be better off just saving another couple hundred dollars and getting a cheap LGA775 or AM2 processor/motherboard and 1GB of some basic DDR2-533 memory. I honestly wouldn't even bother with AGP as you need a motherboard anyway and PCI-Express gives you a lot more options, especially for the future. Plus he could still use his laptop for other things if he wanted to. Or he could sell the working laptop as-is and use that money for an AM2 or LGA775 desktop system. That's my suggestion...

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

I don't know, I think it might end up being more hassle than it's worth. the only PCI-Express s478 motherboard I could find was the MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R but it doesn't seem to have very good user feedback. You might be better off just saving another couple hundred dollars and getting a cheap LGA775 or AM2 processor/motherboard and 1GB of some basic DDR2-533 memory. I honestly wouldn't even bother with AGP as you need a motherboard anyway and PCI-Express gives you a lot more options, especially for the future. Plus he could still use his laptop for other things if he wanted to. Or he could sell the working laptop as-is and use that money for an AM2 or LGA775 desktop system. That's my suggestion...

Right, I wasn't going for AGP though. This motherboard I was looking at supports PCIe and AGP, so that's why I chose it.

The thing about that board is that it's for C2D mobile CPUs. I don't know if actual desktop S478 CPUs fit. If you can remember, all the mobile CPUs so far (starting from like Dothan) use the S478/S479 socket.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by wtcnbrwndo4u

The thing about that board is that it's for C2D mobile CPUs. I don't know if actual desktop S478 CPUs fit. If you can remember, all the mobile CPUs so far (starting from like Dothan) use the S478/S479 socket.

Well, I guess we'll just have to wait for the CPU-Z results to be sure then, eh?

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Sure enough, it is a mobile CPU but it has a S478 socket.

EDIT: Hey, um, anyone know why that CPU is running at 1600MHz?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by wtcnbrwndo4u

Hey, um, anyone know why that CPU is running at 1600MHz?

Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology (EIST)
Basically the processor is lowering the multiplier and throttling back the core speed to save power and reduce heat while the processor is idle.

I still say build a new desktop on LGA 775 or AM2 and keep the laptop for whatever use or sell it to fund the desktop build.

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology (EIST)
Basically the processor is lowering the multiplier and throttling back the core speed to save power and reduce heat while the processor is idle.

I still say build a new desktop on LGA 775 or AM2 and keep the laptop for whatever use or sell it to fund the desktop build.

Yes, I know about SpeedStep, but I lack any of the above chipsets.