AMD A10-8700P with R6 Graphics + R7 M360 - Is dual graphics possible?

[Rangan Das]

I am planning to get an HP Pavillion 15-ab125ax. You can get some more details in the following link:
https://hpshopping.in/HP_Pavilion_Notebook_-_15-ab125ax_Laptop
Will I get AMD's dual graphics in this setup? AMD's site says that the APU supports dual graphics, but does not mention with which GPUs it does. The link to AMD's page is at the bottom of this article.

I am copy-pasting the specs here in case you cannot access the link.
Technical specs
Operating system Windows 10 64 bit
Processor AMD Accelerated Processor A10-8700P 1.8 GHz
Memory standard 8 GB PC3-12800 DDR3L-1600 (12800 MB/s)
Storage Hard drive description 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA
Graphics AMD Radeon R7 M360 Graphics (2 GB DDR3 dedicated)

Also, I am planning to get a better hard drive than the stock one, along with more RAM (16GB). So, please suggest what memory and what hard drive I should buy to get better performance.

AMD 6th Gen APUs: http://www.amd.com/en-gb/products/processors/notebook-tablet#
check out the table at the bottom of the page.

 

[utroz]

You should be able to enable dual graphics in the AMD Catalyst Control Center. It may or may not speed up gaming depending on the game. The built on gpu on the APU is very similar to the DGPU so they might work out ok but dual graphics is know for being like crossfire, sometimes it works great and sometimes you are better off just using one GPU.

 

[Rangan Das]

You should be able to enable dual graphics in the AMD Catalyst Control Center. It may or may not speed up gaming depending on the game. The built on gpu on the APU is very similar to the DGPU so they might work out ok but dual graphics is know for being like crossfire, sometimes it works great and sometimes you are better off just using one GPU.

I would like to know how much dual graphics affect programs like Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator. It would be great if I can access 2GB+ VRAM with the crossfire/dual graphics setup.

 

[basroil]

Lightroom, nothing, it uses only basic OpenGL. Photoshop depends on the filter, but pretty sure that they will only run on one card regardless.

Just remember that by going with that setup you'll actually be getting much lower performance in those programs than going with an i3 or i5 Intel chip. Even in some games you'll actually get lower performance.

 

[Rangan Das]

Lightroom, nothing, it uses only basic OpenGL. Photoshop depends on the filter, but pretty sure that they will only run on one card regardless.

Just remember that by going with that setup you'll actually be getting much lower performance in those programs than going with an i3 or i5 Intel chip. Even in some games you'll actually get lower performance.

Thanks for the heads up. I presently have access to an i5-5200U device for work and it is a very mediocre device, especially when rendering tasks are concerned. Plus, I played BF4, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3 on med-high settings on an older AMD A10 device with dual graphics (but only the dGPU enabled) and found the system to be pretty responsive.

Also, since you already have the link to HP India, can you give me a suggestion on an alternate device in 55K INR range?