Is this Laptop's processor good enough for gaming?

[willyoke]

Hey.

I'm looking to buy this:
Acer Aspire F15 F5-573G
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GDAEK.003-Acer-Aspire-F15-F5-573G_2186600.html

However, I feel like the processor may not be good enough for playing games. I'm looking for a minimal performance, like 720/900p medium settings with 60 FPS, which I know the GPU can achieve. It's just.. .that processor.

Any advice?

 

[ron2456]

Nope, its a pretty low end processor

 

[Solandri]

Generally the GPU matters more than the CPU for 3D gaming. That particular laptop has an Nvidia 950m w/ 4GB VRAM. While not great, that's a pretty competent GPU. Here are average game FPS measured for that particular GPU.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-950M.138026.0.html

The 950M was highly customizable by the laptop vendor, so there's a lot of variability in the game benchmarks. The 4GB VRAM version was usually 4GB of DDR5 VRAM instead of DDR3, and performed better. There's a comparison link in the first paragraph of the above link.

While the i3 CPU is not ideal, it is clocked at a semi-reasonable 2.3 GHz, and has hyperthreading so can play games which require 4 threads. The CPU usually ends up being a bottleneck only on extremely large multiplayer games like MMORPGs or massive combat sims.

The price seems a little high for a previous-gen gaming laptop. But I don't really know what's available in the UK market, and it does come with a 128GB SSD + 1 TB HDD. A comparable modern GPU would be a MX150. Maybe you can compare to local prices for a modern laptop with a MX150?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html?type=&sort=&professional=2&multiplegpus=1&archive=1&or=0&itemselect_8000=8000&itemselect_6158=6158&gameselect%5B%5D=554&gameselect%5B%5D=536&gameselect%5B%5D=532&gameselect%5B%5D=526&gameselect%5B%5D=522&gameselect%5B%5D=518&gameselect%5B%5D=514&gameselect%5B%5D=510&gameselect%5B%5D=502&gameselect%5B%5D=484&gameselect%5B%5D=476&gameselect%5B%5D=468&gameselect%5B%5D=464&gameselect%5B%5D=460&gameselect%5B%5D=430&gameselect%5B%5D=424&gameselect%5B%5D=402&gameselect%5B%5D=386&gameselect%5B%5D=384&gameselect%5B%5D=377&gameselect%5B%5D=371&gameselect%5B%5D=366&gameselect%5B%5D=332&gameselect%5B%5D=329&gpu_fullname=1

 

[kraelic]

The desktop I3 6100 at 3.7 GHz ran games like a stock I5-2500K, but the U version is only 2.3 GHz. And of course it is soldered to the mainboard, no upgrades. Other than the cpu it is impressive specs for the price.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtFV0baRHAw 6100U and 940m, so that should give you an idea of performance
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-950M-vs-GeForce-940M shows the 950m is about twice the power of the 940m.

Looks like 720P should be good

 

[shmoochie]

It could probably handle what you are looking for right now, but it is not future-proof at all. As games start utilizing more and more cores, it will fall off quickly. Here's a pretty good analysis of the benefit of multiple cores in directx 12.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3039552/hardware/tested-how-many-cpu-cores-you-really-need-for-directx-12-gaming.html

 

[Solandri]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtFV0baRHAw 6100U and 940m, so that should give you an idea of performance

The 940m has roughly half the performance of the 950m.

Here's a (Ukranian) video review of an Acer laptop with the same 950m GPU and slower CPU (2GHz instead of 2.3 GHz), with a few game clips. As I said, this is the GDDR5 version of the 950m, so it ends up about 0%-7% slower than a 960m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuqv-1PMH3E

 

[willyoke]

Thanks for your answers.