If I upgraded my processor, how much of a gaming performance increase would I see?

Question

I was thinking of upgrading my laptop cpu from a t5270 to a t8400 (1.4ghz to 2.4). I have a 8400m gs oced with 3 gb of memory. I know I would see an increase in my 3dmark score but would gaming performance actually increase?

Answer 1

how are you going to change the cpu in a laptop, besides you probably woudnt see much difference in terms of gaming realistcly you need a 8600m gt

Answer 2

That's a pretty decent upgrade, you'll need to find out if the computer can actually handle it (the BIOS won't let you use what the manufacturer hasn't approved so they'd better have been a version of your laptop with that processor in it).

Gaming performance for games that are CPU limited would increase (the CPU determines the maximum frame rate you can get while the GPU determines the resolution you can get that frame rate at) while those that are GPU limited will stay as they are.

Might be worthwhile for some newer games but you'll probably find the ones that were unplayable only become playable at low resolutions.

That's assuming your laptop even has a socketed CPU, some are just soldered onto the motherboard and even with socketed CPU's in laptops it's more for manufacturer convenience than end user upgrading.

Answer 3

Even if it were possible for you to upgrade your CPU, you are still bottlenecked by your graphics card. You will see a significant performance boost in some games, for those that require high GPU specs they will still lag, especially on higher resolutions.

(AFAIK, your CPU sockets have to match, and you will also need to update your BIOS to a version that supports a newer CPU. If your BIOS was made before the CPU was introduced, it will not work)