AMD Putting FreeSync Technology Into HP Laptops

[Chris Droste]

well, my knowledge of Iris graphics might be a little outdated; but I'm not seeing anything particularly impressive. you need to keep the context to which i said the APUs do better; and that's in the budget area. you just said i3-6100 skylake; which for $799 comes in a Dell latitide as a GT-520, not 530; but since i said $799 this isn't a bad baseline.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-520.149940.0.html
hum...almost all the game benchmarks showing unplayable framerates at Low-Medium settings. I guess the R7 Graphics in the APU is also unplayable; which is why i wouldn't recommend either machine for a budget gaming laptop; but the APUs are found in $400 laptops and not $799 ones. Let's just call this a wash because you wouldn't spend $800 and still not be able to play anything recent with anything more than the lowest settings;

Again; i said i wouldn't recommend anything under a GTX 960M.

now; nVidia GTX 950M i see a LOT more 'playable' results
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-950M.138026.0.html
that chip comes in laptops costing roughly the same as the integrated.

so seriously, unless you're way into playing fifa16 and Dirt Rally, would you honestly buy Integrated Intel graphics to play games for $800-900?

 

[quilciri]

would you honestly buy Integrated Intel graphics to play games for $800-900?

Try half that price:

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-34-297-401&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC-_-pla-_-Notebooks-_-9B-34-297-401&gclid=CjwKEAiA9om3BRDpzvihsdGnhTwSJAAkSewLfjwugzjrpuXWHXyZ9R1Jgxr5b0I8Wf4meH9_Bhbr0RoCtxvw_wcB

At 720p, it will run most modern titles at or above 30 fps on med-low settings.
http://laptoping.com/gpus/product/intel-hd-520-graphics-specs-reviews/

That makes it solid entry level, and at $430 for the laptop, it can't be beat right now. I might slap 8GB and an SSD cache in, but that's still super cheap for the performance.

*the desktop I3 uses the 530. Sorry, I didn't realize the mobile version used a different IGP

 

[mitch074]

The newest Iris Pro cost an arm and a leg; indeed, they do push more pixels than AMD's top offering, but for the price you'd pay for said Iris Pro you can get an i3 with a 950M and a beefier battery - so if you're looking for a laptop that is slim (thus making external GPUs cumbersome), not too expensive (around $1000) and still able to handle the odd game in 1080P with reduced details, AMD's APUs are pretty much the only game in town - provided laptop makers allow more than 15W, enable dual channel on DDR3 2100, and don't force crappy 720p panels on us. Unfortunately, very few do.

 

[quilciri]

AMD's APU's aren't the only game in town anymore. Like I just posted right above you, the Skylake i3 laptop is $430(with HD 520), and the system plays games as well as the a10-7850k, if not a bit better.

I'm looking forward to the polaris based APU's, though.

 

[mitch074]

AMD's APU's aren't the only game in town anymore. Like I just posted right above you, the Skylake i3 laptop is $430(with HD 520), and the system plays games as well as the a10-7850k, if not a bit better.

I'm looking forward to the polaris based APU's, though.

The i3 that can beat an R7 APU still cost more. Also, Intel's IGPs don't do variable panel refresh rate, while AMD does (FreeSync) - this is damn useful when your graphics card can't push enough FPS to make vsync work well, which is definitely the case for an IGP. But, yes, provided Polaris fulfils even half of AMD's promises, it will kick some arses.

 

[quilciri]

Please, show me an APU based laptop under $450 that can top the HD 520. I would honestly like to see it.

 

[mitch074]

Please, show me an APU based laptop under $450 that can top the HD 520. I would honestly like to see it.

There: ASUS X555DA-WS11

That thing rocks an A10-8700P, which kicks the ass of all iterations of the 520 on the (unfortunately few) 3D benchmarks I've found. And it's $449. Now, there's hardly any direct comparison between the two, for one reason which breaks the deal on Intel: Intel's graphics drivers SUCK at gaming.

 

[quilciri]

Your URL isn't quite right, you have 2 h's at the beginning.

That's a solid machine. Not a great start in that it took a week to find a comparable laptop, but ignoring that for now, let's examine it.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R6-Carrizo-Benchmarks.144290.0.html

In the artificial raw graphics benchmarks, it does edge out the 520 (and even the 530 in one case). However, in the full performance benhmarks, the 8700P sits around the HD5500, which is noticeably slower than a 520.

What could further cripple the 8700P system is the possibility that Asus uses a single stick of RAM. I've had 2 Asus notebooks and they both were sent that way. This is great from an upgrading perspective, as you don't have to toss out your stick to upgrade, but it's bad from a IGPU performance aspect. AMD's APU's have been treated poorly by manufacturers; most have been restricted to single-channel memory at least on shipping, which really hurts the graphics performance in AMD's chips. It affects intel's iGPU as well, but not as much.

AMD did have another advantage in budget laptops for people that needed 3+ thread performance (myself included, my laptop is currently an Asus phenom-based A6 with 4 physical). However, mobile I3's now sport hyper-threading, and the reviews on the skylake I3's claim their 4-thread performance is comparable to a desktop sandy-bridge I5, which is impressive.

 

[quilciri]

Your info on intel's drivers seems old as well. If the below review is any indication, intel's drivers are just about there (minor glitches in two games). I agree they could still use some improvement, but so could AMD's.

http://laptoping.com/gpus/product/intel-hd-520-graphics-specs-reviews/

That's a good laptop, especially with 8GB memory and a 1TB HDD, but the point still stands, Intel has closed the performance gap between their IGP and AMD's APU's. Now that you can get comparable graphics performance and better CPU performance from intel, the APU-based laptops are less appeaing. Add on to that the fact that the intel based solutions use less power, have a longer battery life, run cooler, and are much lighter (3.77lb intel vs. 6.9lb AMD in this particular case), and even at that price, the AMD based system is a tough sell.

I hope polaris gives the APU's a big bump, I'd love to see passable 1080p performance (or cranked 720) in a sub-$500 laptop.