I'm thinking now I wish I had bought a more powerful model. I knew all along I'd upgrade the memory and install a larger hard-drive. That's done, and I had no problem and am glad I did it. But........is it possible to buy a more powerful Intel processor and install it in the MBP? Is it something a person with average skill could do himself?
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Can I upgrade the processor?
- Thread starter dwillie
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There, I fixed it for you.
I personally upgraded the processor in my old Dell Inspiron from a Celeron to a P4. Shoot, with Apple it should read: Well, some you can... I'm still bummed that the new Mini is soldered, too.
There, I fixed it for you.
Well, some you can... I'm still bummed that the new Mini is soldered, too.
Why do they solder them in? Is it an Apple thing or laptops in general?
They are generally soldered in laptops in order to save space. Adding the socket mechanism adds a lot of thickness to the laptop.
Soldering takes less space, is cheaper, and gives better and more reliable connections.
I'm sure you could replace it if you had some Über soldering skills, but I highly, highly doubt it. Even trying to reflow solder in chips with the solder balls is hard enough (I've tried it with a heat gun a couple times and only succeeded once).
Even if you could upgrade it, you're not going to notice the difference unless you're running a render farm or something.
Usually with laptops, processors are the worst upgrades you can make in terms of bang for the buck. RAM and HD are the two big ones, which you have already done... maybe a SSD down the road?
Usually with laptops, processors are the worst upgrades you can make in terms of bang for the buck. RAM and HD are the two big ones, which you have already done... maybe a SSD down the road?
Assuming that your current notebook is the base-spec 15" MBP, I would suggest the following upgrades:
- 4gb RAM
- Faster (7200rpm) HDD
These upgrades don't cost much (when you're not buying from Apple ) and the machine will feel faster and more responsive than with any CPU upgrade possible since most everyday tasks you do on your notebook are not CPU-limited. Most of the time, the CPU is sitting there idle (waiting for data), except when you do heavy number crunching (rendering, video encoding and stuff like that).
If you want to spend more, get an SSD drive.
- 4gb RAM
- Faster (7200rpm) HDD
These upgrades don't cost much (when you're not buying from Apple
) and the machine will feel faster and more responsive than with any CPU upgrade possible since most everyday tasks you do on your notebook are not CPU-limited. Most of the time, the CPU is sitting there idle (waiting for data), except when you do heavy number crunching (rendering, video encoding and stuff like that).If you want to spend more, get an SSD drive.