Which new laptop?! Please help with Ram v Graphics card!!

Edif

Commendable
Aug 26, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi, looking to buy a new laptop - portable but fast enough for games. I found 2 good offers, both with i7 processors and 256GB SSD drives:

asus zenbook ux303 (about £30 cheaper)
12GB ram and Intel HD 520 graphics

Yoga 510
8GB ram and amd radeon r5 m430

Been looking for hours but I cant find any comparisons online for the r5 m430... which is the more powerful laptop? Is the extra 4GB ram going to make more of a difference than the graphics card (presuming the Radeon is better than the Intel?) Thank you SOOOO much

PS
I have just noticed that the 12GB says in small print:
12GB DDR3L 1600 MHz SDRAM
Configuration OnBoard 4 GB + 8GB DIMM

Thank you so much!
 
Solution


The Yoga has a larger screen that is also a multi-touch screen. The Asus Zenbook's isn't a touchscreen. A touchscreen can be a really useful feature.

Their CPUs are the same ones. The Yoga has the R5 M430 + Intel HD 520. The Zenbook, on the other hand, only has...

compprob237

Distinguished
Best I could find: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R5-M430.160119.0.html
It looks like the M430 is so new that they've had to guess what it's got. Judging by their guess it's probably about the same as the Intel HD 520. That basically means it's about the same as a GeForce 820M.

That Yoga 510 has multiple models. Can you link to the one you're looking at? Also link to the Asus Zenbook. This way I can see the important bits: Battery and CPU.
 

compprob237

Distinguished


The Yoga has a larger screen that is also a multi-touch screen. The Asus Zenbook's isn't a touchscreen. A touchscreen can be a really useful feature.

Their CPUs are the same ones. The Yoga has the R5 M430 + Intel HD 520. The Zenbook, on the other hand, only has the Intel HD 520. I can't really say if the performance of the R5 M430 will be better than the Intel HD 520 that's already in both laptop's CPUs. There's no hard data on it that I can find.

The Zenbook has a 50 Wh battery (3 cell) and the Yoga has a larger 52 Wh battery (2 cell). Though, the Yoga might have a shorter run time on battery than the Zenbook given the touchscreen and additional GPU.

The RAM capacity in either laptop is not really anything to worry about. Anything above 8GB is not going to find typical use on a laptop. Given the performance limitations of the GPUs in them you're not going to appreciably benefit from extra RAM. There's some edge cases where it can be beneficial but I don't think you will typically run into them. Although, the Zenbook has DDR3L and the Yoga has DDR4. The DDR4 should be more power efficient and slightly faster than the DDR3L.

The Zenbook has 3x USB 3.0 while the Yoga has 2x USB 3.0 + 1x USB 2.0. This could be a determining factor if you plan to have multiple external hard drives attached to the laptop and transferring lots of data.

The Zenbook has two display-out ports (HDMI and Mini Display port). Gives you more flexibility but I'd call it a draw.

The Yoga's 300 grams (0.66 lbs) heavier than the Zenbook. I honestly wouldn't mind the extra weight but I'll just point it out.


This really boils down to features. If you want a bigger, multi-touch screen then I'd suggest the Yoga. The GPUs might be significantly different, which would lean to the Yoga's favor, but I cannot say for certain.
 
Solution

Edif

Commendable
Aug 26, 2016
3
0
1,510


Thank you so much! Really appreciate the help. Will try and decide and hopefully will have made the purchase by next week! Cheers!