List of compatible CPUs for Aspire X3990? (Also a question about SSD fitting)

Mum has an old pre-built Win 7 Acer (upgraded to Win 10) and is in desperate need of more speed. She won't let me build her a new one

I'm doing the next best thing and upgrading the CPU, and moving from HDD to SSD (after finally finding the SATA ports hiding behind the HDD). The question was also asked last year: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/602849/gen-3-i5-cpu-for-aspire-x3990?breakffcache=b1cd5 but I'm hoping someone can offer a better CPU than the i5-2500, which is only a little bit faster than her current one (i3-2120). I know the SSD will make the biggest difference but a 22% improvement is not worth the expense. I was hoping to get closer to a 100% increase in effective speed.

Will a Samsung 870 QVO comfortably sit inside the case or will I have to find a way to secure it?

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LimeyRon

Change of plans. She's letting me build her a new one

Can a moderator please delete this post?

billsey

No need for a delete, we will likely have someone camp out on it eventually with the same question.

A potential solution for her would have been a SSD install instead of a CPU upgrade. You will get a significant system speed boost with a SSD. The next step after that is to maximize the memory. The Aspire X3990 supports up to 8GB and when running W10 you likely want at least 4GB and 8GB is going to be much better. The biggest way to slow a system down is to have a HDD with system memory having to swap out. My guess is she was running into both issues...

LimeyRon

Thanks for the advice. She changed her mind again and now we're back to the upgrade

I went with the i5-2500 3.3GHz quad core after some old post on another forum pointed me at the manual ( https://www.manualslib.com/manual/232907/Acer-Aspire-X3990.html?page=96#manual ) because my brain neglected to think of that in the first place. Also the 870 QVO. Pretty sure I can make it sit right. She gets a little boost in processing and a much better drive, and I get to partially scratch the itch. Better than nothing, I suppose. Maybe I'll build myself a spare, just for the fun of it

The first thing I did when I bought her the PC in 2014 was shove some of my (not so) old RAM into it because I'm a filthy little hoarder (you never know when you're gonna need it). This was back when it was running Win 7, and when I only knew the basics. Win 10 really doesn't like mechanical hard drives and she insisted that it wasn't much of an issue. Mine was SO much better after I could afford to swap out my drive.

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