upgrade my HP ENVY 17t-j100 Quad Edition

[sayou]

Hi,

I would like to make my laptop faster (RAM) and increase the disk space. What are my options?

Here are my  specs:

HP ENVY 17t-j100 Quad Edition (CTO Notebook PC)

-• Windows 8.1 Pro 64

-• 4th generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4800MQ Processor

-• NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory

-• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080) Non touch

-• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)

-• 24GB flash Hard Drive Acceleration Cache

-• 2TB 5400 rpm Dual Hard Drive

-• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Batteries

-• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner

-• Backlit Keyboard

-• HP TrueVision HD Webcam w/ integrated digital mic

-• 802.11b/g/n 2x2 WLAN and Bluetooth(R) [2x2]

Thank for your help

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

There is not a lot of upgrade headroom...you are very close to the top of the curve. You might consider 16 gigs of RAM but for many people that is disappointing as 8 is plenty and if you are not fully using 8, going to 16 will not make a noticeable difference. 

The processor can be upgraded to an i7-4900MQ to provide another .1 ghz which is not justified for the cost. Same for the video. There is a motherboard with the nVidia 750M video but it is not a lot better than the 740 you already have and the cost of a new motherboard would be very high.

The single best upgrade you can do is to remove the mechanical hard drive and the 24 gig flash mSATA disk and install a 2.5 inch SATA SSD. Samsung Evo 850. You would have to remove one of the 2 x 1 TB 5400 rpm drives but that would be no great loss as the difference in boot time and application launch time will be very, very noticeable. 

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