Google Spreadsheet Link of Most Intel Laptop CPUs

Version 1 guide made in 2018
Version 2 guide made in 2021

The only thing added in this guide is prices of compatible RAM. Otherwise its just updated pricing, and maybe some info on soldered CPUs. I don’t have all processors listed in here either, mostly the faster processors you could get for your system. NO CELERONS OR PENTIUMS 🙂

Yeah I guess I should have made a post in 2024 but I was busy touching grass for the first time in 10 years and that threw my autism schedule away from this pointless website So I actually needed to try to be a decent person in real life, and then when I DID have time, it was on playing League of Legends getting hella hammered on beer (like a Goose Island Beer Hug IPA, or Alesmith Speedway Stout, & followed by Pizza Port Chronice Ale, or Thorn Brewery Bear Runs Ale).

This price guide is just for fun, most of the processors are going to be available from China, and they’ve probably gone up in price because they are old and “rare”. Most CPUs have stayed the same price, some are cheaper… like it is a bit mundane now that I have even done this guide, but prices fluctuated probably 2 to 10 dollars or so for most CPUs. Right off the batt the fastest Core 2 Quad QX9300 went up almost thirty bucks, but the other C2Q went up $30, yet the Core 2 Extreme X7800 stayed a similar price, but the X7900 went cheaper if you bought from china, more if you bought from EU or USA…

CPU Upgrade Paths

Not all of these CPU are drop ins. Here is what I can gather without going thru hardware or pin modding.

• Some CPU upgrades will need a BIOS update first
• “Napa” Core Solo/Duo (Yonah CPU) laptops that run 667MHz FSB can upgrade to “Santa Rosa” Core 2 Duo (Merom CPU) with 667MHz FSB
• “Yonah” Core Duo are 32 bit only CPUs
• Some sources say you can upgrade “Napa” Laptops to 800MHz FSB Core 2 Duo Meroms but the FSB will limit to 667MHz & it may downclock its power.
• Laptops with Socket P CPUs can’t be upgraded to Socket M. The pins just fit but the socket electrics are different.
• Some Merom laptops can be upgraded to Penryn CPUs w/ 800MHz FSB. This depends on the motherboard revision from your laptop.
• Some Merom laptops can be upgraded to Penryn CPUs w/ 800MHz FSB.
• Check the T61 Wikia! You’ll see if your system can be upgrade to Penryn if it’s Merom based, however you can install Middleton Bios & can get more compatibility opened, but not all CPUs will be avail to use.
• Core 2 Quad & Extreme upgrades depends on motherboard revisions/BIOS & the CPU cooler. Additionally if the laptop never offered these CPUs, extensive hardware modding will be required.
• T61 and T500 can handle Quads with extensive pin solder modifications… check the ThinkPad Forums it has been done and documented.

Also I’d like to add… when I inscribed passmark scores in previous guides, they are different than the current scores that passmark has listed now. I will not be updating the scores, as it is moot and through many online forums there are recommendations on which is the best, great or all around nice upgrades. A rule of thum is that higher clocked chips run hotter and will require much more cooling, there’s always that discrete GPU heatsink to buy even if you only have integrated graphics!

Price Guide Titles / Abbreviations

CPU – Your processor name
Base clock – not overclocked or down clocked, the base clock
sSpec – Specification Number. Sometimes these had specific core stepping, which I think was like a revision number… idk. Some laptops were pick on what stepping you had, so certain sSpec CPUs could only be used… weird yeah!
eBay – I link eBay searches on the text, so click it. Makes it easier for me to research, makes it easier to you to find that chip.
Avail – How many listings are available during my search. Unlike looking at sold prices of laptops… chips are more common and less unique. So I look normally at the price you would pay, on some I have looked at sold listings, but not for C2D.
China – Price of a cheap CPU from mainlan China, it will include Taiwan and Hong Kong (normally same sellers)
Low – Low price you’d find in America
High– High price from America, but could be from Canada or other countries
Yorup / EU / Europe – Normally the 1st to 4th price I see coming from across the Atlantic. Sometimes it may be an Australian, South Korean or Japanese price. Sometimes shipping is $25 to USA… but if youre in Europe, I mean it shouldn’t be that expensive.
bullet points after the table – Whenever I research prices, I might have something to say about it, so itll have whatever I was looking at, and my thought at the time. On some its completely irrelivant to what I am looking at (literally music i like, a show, some shit that just happened that day/hour).

Note I don’t know what’s gonna happen with Trumps tariffs once they go to effect. I’m just looking at the price they have on eBay before its in the cart, shipping included (but chips are like maybe 2 ounces max, so its super cheap shipping. Also I am in America, from California to be specific, so sometimes some sellers have odd shipping prices… but free shipping seems to all be the same, I mean it might be a dollar difference in shipping from one coast to the other if you’re that far away. Sadly idk if this price is different for Alaskian, Hawaiians or Puerto Ricans, but considering processors don’t have any real hazmat or FAA hindrances, it should be shipped cheap via first class (ahem, ground advantage as its called now, ty USPS…) or even a letter rate. I am going off what I see that is shipped to me in SoCal, so if that isn’t correct for you… comment or make your own website 😛

Fastest Socket P, 1066MHz FSB

Fastest 800, 667MHz FSB, Socket P & M

RAM Prices

All of this is used RAM, no specific manufacturer.
Gaming RAM w/ heat spreaders may fall in this price range too.

Socket M CPUs – Core Duo & Core 2 Duo

• T2500 – Kek, added this selelr from elsewhere
• T2600 – No Europoors… only 2 american sellers i think, otherwise china.
• T2700 – Only china, no america 😡
• T5450 – most of these are from Europe.
• T5750 – eller listed here is from another search, CPUs come with thermal paste if its in the picture. Not too shabby for a lil higher price if you’re in a pinch.
• T7200 – Small seller listed :P, most items are from China. Was gonna list a Lativia seller, but they are new w/ 0 feedback :X:
• T7400 – Mostly chinese sellers, a few US and Europe sellers, but I’d wait for shipping from CN tbh
• T7600 – Only 2 sellers not from China. Also any T7xxx processor search will have Dell Precision T7xxx processors mixed in. Too lazy to -Dell w/ the search 🙂
• T7600G – All prices are from China. BIN Low/High are from sold listings, avail price is from China 😛 Only one seller w/ multiple CPUs

The T7600G has an unlocked multiplier from the factory, so some laptops can utilize this feature and I’m assuming, will game better than a “regular” T7600. Me personally, I never upgraded my T60p from the factory 2GHz T7200 running Windows 7 til about 2015, it honestly ran pretty good. I can’t remember if I had a 2.17GHz T7400.

Socket P | Core 2 Duo | Merom | 35W

• T5270 – why the fuck would I even have this here? A 1.4GHz????
• T5470 – LMAO idk how china is more expensive.
• T7300– Did not know Limerick was a town… imagine my shock!
• T7500 Holy shit, almost all of these are overseas… SAD. 91 from China, 34 Italy, 11 Germany. maybe 15 from USA, wild.
• T7700 – Holy shit, almost all of these are from shenzhen, China. kek maybe 10 US/EU sellers
• T7800 – Happy new year… this is taking longer than I thought 🙂 X7800 seller linked
  • rasukichi0929 Kanagawa, Japan
• X7800 – UK is $50 plus shipping.
• X7900 – mostly from China, some from the UK in the high end, and one from Japan.

Note, I have no idea why the X7800 is commonly more expensive than the X7900, other than its a slower RAM speed, so maybe it can be only used on a year older systems. It has been like this for a while, I noticed this on the first guide and then 2nd, still the same on the third, tho they have gone down in price since the previous guides.

Socket P | Core 2 Duo | Penryn | 35W

• T6400 -Good amount overseas
• T6570 – Actually the high prices are mid prices, they just jumped up midway… dont pay that 😛
• T6600 – Again, people are trying to overprice these… fuck
• T6670 – Low price seller listed, WHATS UP LOS ANGELES, WHOOO WHOOOOOOOOO
• T6900 – CPU world has this listed, but its not on Intel’s website.
• T6970- Again from CPU world, I got a SLGLJ but it is a T4400 C2D which is SLOW :O
  • I think these are MacBook CPUs, so I accidentally put a BGA here 😛
• T8100 – Lmao I had the Swedish language for shipping option… but the rest was english, weird glitch. China will pricematch USA, and EU prices if you want to pay more 🙂
• T8300 – Almost everything is from china, and then the higher prices are lot listings.
• T9300 – All from china except a few.. I’d wait for a good deal in USA
• T9500 – There are a few units cheaper than the China price, but they are newer sellers w/ low feedback… so I would pay the extra $10 for a seller who has some reputation.

1066MHz FSB, 6MB L2 – Socket P Penryn

• T9400 – A lot from china, higher prices are overseas, only saw one USA seller. :O
• T9550 – Mostly from China, no Yourup sellers, soma USA and that one from Japan.
• T9800 – Good luck
• T9900 – All from china, high price is from China as well, no USA or EU listings.
• Rant – I fucking hate Windows 11 os pop ups… fucking wrote a shitton and i pressed ESC and it removed evyerhing i written in the cel. fuck off.
• E8135 SLG8W – Yorup, is actually japan price 😛
• E8135 SLGED – Jan 15th 2025… holy shit man, my job was busy as fuck and I stopped having energy for this.
• E8335 SLGEB – Prices are based on shipping to USA. If you’re in UK? Probably cheaper.
• E8435 SLAQD – I guess these are pretty cheap all things considered.
• E8435 SLGEA – Holy shit lol

Notes from Version 2 blog
T61’s can use these Txxxx CPUs but requires a BIOS & hardware mods. ThinkPad Forums Topic.
For the iMac CPUs, the SLAQD chip should work on laptops… at least it did with TuuS’ R500 frankenpad
I gifted my grandma a beat up iMac of this era, but i upgraded the CPU. It ran decently in 2021 except for facetime (but it might be from FT calls to El Salvador, so service sucks).

Socket P | Core 2 Duo | Penryn | 25W | Q3 2008 – Q3 2009

V2 notes
P9700 is the fastest Pxxxx but barely beats the third best Txxxx in benchmarks, but at it’s price point, vs those, it’s best overall.

• P7370 – IDK why this one so fucking expensinve, its nothing much.
• P7450 – Faster CPU for way less
• P8400 – A lot of these pretty cheap
• P9500 – Europe price has $18 shipping to USA, so it might be $25 in total to EU.
• P9600 – Mostly chinese sellers, like 4 from USA, nothing elsewhere.
• P9700 – Almost all of these are from China, the (Low USA) Price is actually from China. UK lising for Yorup price, High price is from Italy! Now I gotta look for a laptop that has this CPU. LOL cheapest laptop is a Dell E6400 for $89. I forgot (in hindsight I was just drunk and talking out my ass here) these systems require DDR2 RAM (Lenovo, I think HP and Apple at the time used DDR3 for the same CPUs) So upgrading that will be pricey.

Q9300 is known the QX9300, but there is a desktop Q9300 CPU that has an sSpec of SLAWE. The main difference is that it has that aluminum heat spreader, mobile CPUs don’t.

• X9000 – The only USA seller is linked who has multiple units available, the high price for USA is how high these things go for from China.
• X9100 – This CPU is still cheaper than the X9000 since the last time I had checked prices on them. Only one seller from USA (and it comes w/ thermal paste), and chinese sellers will go up to that price point. Checking the sold listings, most people paid for the China price, one person did buy from USA
• Q9000 – Japanese seller linked from Q9100 search
• Q9100 – High price is from Japan, Europe price is a sold listing from Hungary (seller linked). Prices from china will go up to the high price, None sold in USA!
• QX9300 – Sold listing from Europe is shown & UK seller linked. China will ask up to High USA prices & someone sold a unit this high from Germany, Otherwise most sold are at the china price. Hmmm gotta look to see what the Dell precision 6400 I got has… at this point that CPU might give me the profit if I were to sell the whole damn laptop…

Sellers

Here are some sellers that had a good price for the CPU or just happen to have a good amount. Yes there are cheaper listings from some of these listed sellers, but I like to mix it up and noted down sellers from different regions.