General Laptop Advice From An Old Pro.

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I'm interested in the new AMDs but once again its a contest of Intel vs AMD for me. I'm a gamer but this laptop won't be primarily for gaming, it'll just be a bonus. How well do A6/A8 perform in games compared to i5+discrete card for around same price?

I see AMD A8s and i5-2410+GT550m laptops at around $700. A6s are about $100-200 cheaper. How much performance increase will the first tier choices give compared to an A6, is it worth the $200?
 

Absolutely I would recommend AMD's A-series APUS! That's is my general recommendation for 99% of laptop users today. The A6-3400M seems to be more than most people need and it's not expensive at all. Good call there! :sol:
 

Well here's the good news. NOTHING you do is considered high-end and you shouldn't be paying more than $500 for a laptop that can do what you want it to do with ease. Again, the AMD A6-3400M is the sweet spot for you. WoW? It can play Starcraft II with ease! Movies? We've been watching those on PCs since the days of the Pentium-III! DL DVD burners? That's all they've made for the last 3 years and they cost about $20 for a desktop version. There are no non-DL DVD-RW drives around anymore and there haven't been for years! Trust me, you're good at $500 or less with an AMD A6-3400M laptop. If you want to upgrade later, save the $900 you would have otherwise spent and get something that makes even today's top laptop look like a netbook! :sol:
 

I don't think it's worth it for what you want. I think that the A6-3400M is the sweet spot right now and the fact that it's selling for under $500 is icing on the cake. Sure, the Intel CPUs are faster but their graphics are horrible. The overall performance of the AMD A6 is very well balanced and is far more versatile than anything Intel makes. The really big advantage is the fact that it lasts for about 6-8 hours on battery alone because of the power savings achieved by having the CPU and GPU inside the same chip. The fact that AMD is a much more honest and ethical company than Intel not only means that you get the best deal but that you get to feel good about the purchase as well! :sol:
 


i think you missed the fact that it is a a6 vs a 15-2410+gt550
i have had a cpu bottle neck with an i7 and a gt540m is a select few games so i could imagine the i5 and even more so the a6 bottlenecking the gpu.
 

I think you missed the fact that I posted a video of the A6-3400M playing Starcraft II perfectly. I also think you missed the fact that the battery life of the A6-3400M is literally DOUBLE that of the i5 with a discrete card. Very few people need an i5 in a laptop and for what these good people have said that they want their laptop to do, the A6-3400M is more than enough. As a result, battery life becomes important and the i5 just doesn't have it. End of story. :sol:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=m8RUTrlpEHg&gl=US
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-550M.42264.0.html
thats playing it on low setting with low res.... the gt550m will play it with double the frames and will even play it with decent frames on high. i also believe that a i5 + a 550m will get 5 or more hours of battery life(i get 4-4.5 with i7 2630qm 540m) so if an apu can get substantially better life then that ill be surprised.

the 550m is a much better solution and sense he says he is a gamer i seriously doubt he will be satisfied with low res and details.
 
also pc mark vantage scores at 1024 x 768 for both gpus are 4925 for the Radeon HD 6520G graphics and 7291 for the gt 550m. thats a huge difference and not to mention the huge difference in cpu power.
 
Not so much. Doing a little fact checking I found out a few things.

Just on the chance NewEgg might have screwed up I checked Gateway's NV55 webpage to see what they said. Looks like NewEgg got it right.
ss530.jpg


4400mAh battery is about average these days. In fact the Acer Aspire AS5750G-6496 also has a 4400mAh battery for it's i5-2410M / GT 540M mobile power source. With a 4.5hr battery run time. I peeked at the Acer webpage just to make sure NewEgg got that right too.

What a conundrum. How could this be? Hasn't anyone noticed this before now?

Turns out it's not quite been overlooked and the guys over AnandTech were checking it out: Battery Life: All Day Computing
In that example they were looking at the higher end A8-3500M / HD 6620G vs Core i7-2360QM / GT 540M, with a few other models thrown in the mix as you'll see.

Setting aside the issue of difference sized batteries and looking at relative battery life (minutes per Watt hour) it's pretty clear AMD has improved greatly over the days when they trailed far behind in battery life. Still...

To claim the A6-3400M is double the battery life of a Core i5 w/ discrete card there needs to be a much larger disclaimer about under what conditions that might occur. And maybe an acknowledgment where A6-3400M might still falls a bit short in battery life thrown in too.
 
I have to agree with WR2, llano APUs only made it possible for AMD to compete with the new sandy bridge lineup, not beat it outright. The main focus of llano was to beat out i3 and in that regard they did a good job, typical i3 laptops don't have dedicated GPU juice to match llanos, but if we move to higher end of i5 and i7 with dedicated cards, APUs come very short in terms of graphics performance. I think they are a good budget choice for small form factor like 14" with 1440x res or so, but if you want good graphics in 1080p, dedicated card is still better than llano.

@WR2
I'm not entirely sure why people like anandtech bother to take different laptop models and then compare CPU performance across the board. It's very poor choice since battery power capacity is not directly proportional to total run time (mAh/kW != minutes) you have to look at total system consumption. ATech did mention all this in the article but then they did the comparrisons anyway, I honestly fail to understand their purpose for admitting error and unfair comparrison criteria between the tests and then publishing the results anyway to have it post at some face value... In my understanding if one wanted to compare SB to llano, one would get a barebones laptop that could take either of the processors, pop them in and then run the tests, that way at least you got a chance of having accurate results. While they doing lets take some 11" and compare them to 14", umm hello?, the LCD screen eats battery power too you know...
 
@AntiZig
I don't think AT is trying to exactly measure some exotic 'apples to apples CPU thing' but did demonstrate what real consumers can expect with real products they might end up purchasing. And then going on to show system power consumption relative efficiency.
Kind of had to do that to explain and support their conclusions like 'Overall, for the first time in a long time, AMD is able to offer battery life that competes with and even exceeds what Intel offers with their current mainstream offerings'.

As for not testing every possible combination available? Some times you just got to cook with what you have in the kitchen. And I don't think they intended to do much more than show AMD battery life is competitive.

Total system consumption was measured. First in system battery endurance (Battery Life) and then in system power consumption efficiency (Relative Battery Life).

As an informed consumer that article has the type of information that is most useful to me. It showed the correlation of battery capacity to endurance in common tasks. It gave some insight into total system efficiency. And it can help people make informed purchase decisions and not get overwhelmed by marketing hype, pushy sales people (or contradictory forum opinions).
 
Well to the 2 hijackers, here is what was said by this very site concerning battery usage and life span. Feel free to argue with tomshardware all you want. Also keep in mind that the mule tested is the A8 which is more power-hungry than the A6.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959-22.html
I don't really know what you two are trying to achieve with all of this but everything I've said has been confirmed by the very site we are posting on. If you have problems with that, please see to it that you take it up with Don Woligroski as I really don't want to waste the effort. You're talking about gaming performance when not one person here said they needed gaming performance. They said they wanted something that was a good all-rounder with good battery life for tasks that are really quite simple. If someone said that they wanted a mad gaming machine, I would have been saying what you're saying (with more tact probably). I pointed out that the A6 CAN run Starcraft II with no trouble as proof that it can do everything below that level with even more ease, not because I'm calling it a gaming monster. I made this thread to help people, not to argue with people who want to dispute tomshardware's own findings. Thank you. :sol:
 


hijackers? just cause you sell laptops or did doesnt make you all knowing. last time i went to look at laptops the sales person was an idiot. what we are trying to achieve is to prevent bad recomendations and you gave one based on bad theology.
 
also it looks like that graph shows power consumption at max load. if that is the case, it could be misleading because the i5 will not have to be a full load nearly as much as the amd.
 
No need to talk to Don. He got it right. For some reason you're ignoring what he wrote or don't understand the implications.
And so why did you talk about the one battery test (3D Mark06 loop) that simulated gaming performance?
THG says: The implications of this are profound: a Llano laptop user might be able to play a mainstream 3D game for an entire two-hour flight with decent frame rates, while the Intel Core i5-based platform would only last for half of the flight with choppy performance.

-> The other chart - RLUMark2011 the one that didn't simulate gaming - had the Core i5-2520M using less power over the entire test, although it was a close run thing. Does the A6-3400 uses less power than A8-3500? Yes, and so do the i5-2410 and i3-2310 use less power than the i5-2520M.

Then we have you telling people "battery life. The Llano platform has answered that in spades". And so you recommend bypassing a Dell Vostro 3400 ($469 w/ 4800mAh battery) for the Gateway NV55S04u ($499 4400mAh battery).

This isn't wrong - just misleading. The really big advantage is the fact that it lasts for about 6-8 hours on battery alone because of the power savings achieved by having the CPU and GPU inside the same chip. You don't disclose that to get that amount of battery life you need a bigger battery.

If you had added 'while gaming' in this sentence you'd have been right. I also think you missed the fact that the battery life of the A6-3400M is literally DOUBLE that of the i5 with a discrete card. As written, and especially for non-gaming operation that is wrong.

And you said "The Llano's battery life is literally triple what AMD laptops used to do and has far surpassed Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture with regard to battery life."

That's wrong, just flat wrong.
(not the part about past AMD laptops though to be fair it's more like double what they used to provide).
 
You're wrong on a number of points and I don't mind pointing that out.

I should also say that I nearly always agree with the majority of your opinions. It's not like you to get it so wrong about battery life.

I've been suggesting Llano notebooks on occasion and will in the future. I won't try and mis-lead them about what they can expect in any facet of performance though.

You're welcome.
 

If you think that's what I'm trying to do, then you misunderstood. I never said it was going to be a Ferrari of a computer, I said that it would do everything they wanted it to do and then some with fantastic battery life and a low price. I got the battery life information from tomhardware's own review. I've never personally owned a Llano-based machine (I will soon enough though) and all I have to go on is what is said in reviews. I've always found tomshardware to be more or less on the money with reviews and when their review says double, I accept that as the truth. I gave you the link that made the battery life statement quite specifically so at least you know where I got my idea. As for the triple battery life compared to the old AMD systems, I think it was Guru3D that made that statement but I'll check up on it to be certain. :sol:
 


did you read the page you linked us too? cause if you did you would have read this.

"Based on the chart, you’d expect that the A8-3500M APU would have the advantage over Intel’s Core i5-2520M in general power usage.

But Intel’s processor dips into a low power state more often. This mode-switching results in very similar power numbers. The Core i5-2520M averaged 12.8 watts during Web browsing, 17 watts during office tasks, and 19.4 watts in movie playback. In contrast, the A8-3500M averages 15.2 watts, 16.3 watts, and 19.5 watts, respectively. And while the Core i5 demonstrates faster CPU performance in our benchmarks, that isn’t as much of a factor when you’re surfing the net, typing a document, or playing back a movie. The experience is the same."

looks like overall that the i5 beats the a8 in everything but gaming in battery life.
 






I do not actually know why you are looking at A8-3500M battery life, then Avro Arrow has actually been talking about the A6. if I were you I would start a fresh thread to discuss the relative merits of Battery usage of both AMD & Intel Processors. Thank you for your useful insight into topics not relating to this thread






 
I am mortified! I was notified by email when I had received your first reply, so made the stupid assumption you hadn't replied (quite rightly so..) to my rather inane further questions... oh I do apologize... and thank you, again, for your generosity in replying.

We leave for the UK in about ten days, and I will go - armed with your advice - to the computer outlets there. Notwithstanding my comments above, I shall continue to read your advice to others, and when the time comes for me to consider my own computer (laptop or desktop) I might even be so bold as to come searching for advice.. Have you written a book?!

Thank you so much.
 
AVRO RE-Laptop/PC Myths

I read with interest your comments about computer specifications and tend to agree. I'm currently specifying components for a new futures trading desktop which will essentially run upto 4 x 19" screens. being atrader I'm keen to ensure my system is dependable, reliable and able to run and display crystal clear 2D charts (since I look at these over extended periods) on a multi monitor setup. Although I'm receiving live streaming data its not that resource hungry but I want the sytem to be responsive. I'll also perhap be running a few spreadsheets and websites. rightly or wrongly I'm looking at the following components and welcome your comments / help as I don't want to over / under specify things.

Asus motherboard Sabertooth Intel P67
Intel CPU core i5 2500 Sandybridge
Gigabyte Graphics card GeForce GTX 560 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2.0 DVI
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 875W Modular PSU - 4x PCI-E 8x SATA
OCZ SSD 120GB Solid 3 SATA III 2.5"(S035302)
Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 2000MHz XMS3 Memory Kit CL9 1.65V

Note: I do own a matrox dualhead2go analogue graphics device as well as a matrox dualhead2go digital device so I could utilise these on a two out graphics card to achieve up to 4 monitors.

Thanks
Ian
 
Hi,
Thanks for your info. it's good to here there really isn't a huge difference between the brands as long as you compare their features.
My mother wants to buy my son (10 yrs old) a laptop to use at home. He has a small desk area to use. It will be plugged in usually, but may be taken elsewhere sometimes. He only does gaming on his Wii or Nintendo Gameboy or DSi. We don't have the funds to start buying additional games for the computer, so he'd probably get a new gaming computer when he gets older and if he really is into gaming. Right now he's 10, and needs to use the internet, and write homework assignments. Can you recommend a couple laptops for under $500.00 and a retailer? I've bought things from Tiger Direct before and Newegg, as well as retail stores in NJ.
Thanks in advance,
Denise T.
 
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