I am looking to replace my aging Gateway 600YGR notebook. It's about 5 years old, but it was pretty kick-ass when I bought it. I have a minimal amount of money to spend, but that's OK because I only use it for work anyhow.

My question is this: The current processor in my rig is a 1.5 GHz Pentium4-M
CPU-Z tells me that it's a Northwood chip, and is running at 1.2 GHz at the moment.

I'm wondering if, to get the most out of my new laptop dollar, it would be feasible to get a barebones notebook and move my processor and RAM (768 MB) out of this machine into the new one. I don't know anything about notebook sockets, so I'm not even sure if the chip would be compatible with a newer motherboard.

My other question is: would this make any sense? It seems on the verge of silly to upgrade the notebook without upgrading two of the most central parts to overall performance.

Is the processor located on a socket & not soldered on?

TDR

@the_klamper: I could care less about the CPU itself, the issue is minimizing the cost of a new laptop

@TDR: Yes, it's in a socket. I think this is a picture of the mobo:


Haha all this thread is doing is spurring me to do more research myself. I see that a Northwood is a socket 478 processor. Off to look at barebone laptops to see if that matches

::EDIT::
Well, I see that the latest Pentium-M processors are listed as Socket 478/479, which seems a bit odd since you would think that a one-pin difference would cause problems.

The newer processors also have much larger caches, and tend to use a 90nm fab process

I must admit I've yet to see a laptop barebone... I guess they aren't that common here in the EU...
What is popular is mainboards/adapters to use the Pentium -M in a desktop environment...

It's just a thought... wouldn't a faster hdd fit your needs? I mean... older notebook hdd's weren't
exactly known for their speed... there were lot's of improvement on them, the last few years...

Don't know what you use the laptop for but a faster hdd would sure speed up booting, switching between
programs, disk swapping etc....

Just a thought...

TDR

Barebones laptops are becoming more common here.
I see your point about the HDD, but here are my comments:

• Since I have a fair amount of RAM, I really don't do too much HDD swapping
• There are other issues with the computer (dimming backlight, broken audio-out ports)
• My current battery life is 3 min at idle, no joke

Like I said, it's just an idea I had... not sure if it's really worth it in the long run