AMD APU based laptops Any good?

[mikee]

My current hp dv 6700 is on its death bed from overheating I think and I am thinking of over christmas break buying a new laptop. I mainly do web design and light video editing stuff but would like to play the odd game like minecraft or gta4 or something on low settings. I am by no means a hardcore gamer and I don't game often but what I am wondering is how are these AMD APUs like the A4 , A6, A8 and A10 with radeon graphics in terms of playing low settings or something with games compared to intel i series with intel graphics. Basically I want to know what would be a better deal for me since I see the AMD laptops are usually cheaper and I have had bad luck with intel graphics in even light casual gaming in the past.

 

[steve10765]

Whats your budget?

for $750 this is a great laptop
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...9392571&CA_6C15C=600003960000005055#customize
you can turn off the keyboard light easily.
the only downside is its a 14 in screen, maybe you can customize it before you buy

$650 this is a great laptop
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231455

$540 heres a great laptop
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_sp=&AID=10440897&PID=3332167&SID=u00000626

READ MORE http://www.anandtech.com/show/7553/best-budget-laptops-holiday-2013

 

[mikee]

I'm looking to spend about 500$ give or take 100 but I will likely be in canada when I make the buy. That is a good deal for that lenovo but its a little overkill for what I will be doing plus its 14inch I'm looking in the 15-17 inch since my eyes aren't so good

 

[Spartan109]

I have an ASUS K75de, my model in particular has an amd-a10 Llano apu with a build in 7660g, but it also had a dedicated 1gb video card which is the 7670m, so Im running them in hybrid crossfire. The pic attached is my cpu-z and gpu-z screens.

Overall they arent bad for light gaming, I can play battlefield 3 on low at 1600x900 smoothly, though medium looks better, Im managing about 20 fps on medium, it'll handle any source engine game with ease, as well as diablo 3, dishonored, bioshock 1, just keep in mind these arent top of the line cpu-gpu combos - you get what you pay for. Its a 17" laptop and a bonus with this one in particular I found is it has 2 hdd bays, so I have a 256gb ssd as my primary and a 750gb for storage, and it was $599 on sale, here in Canada

So when it comes down to it, you just gotta realize that for $600 you're not going to get knock out performance, but its far superior to an i5 with "intel HD graphics", but the i5 is a better cpu, so it depends what you want.

I hope this helps you any questions just ask

 

[Spartan109]

I also found one for you here in Canada that you might be interested in, not sure how you feel about toshiba though

Toshiba Satellite S50D 15.6" Laptop (AMD A10-5745M / 1TB HDD / 8GB RAM / Windows 8) - Silver : Laptops - Future Shop

 

[mikee]

yeah I don't mind not having knockout performance I just want to do web design and play minecraft mostly and skype at the same time and currently I cannot do that on the laptop I have now due to only 3gb ram and crappy intel gma x3100 graphics.

 

[Spartan109]

The APU's would be perfect for that then

 

[mikee]

I keep hearing that CPU isn't as important as GPU for gaming, what about video editing is that more CPU or GPU based so yeah the APU would be great for me and I like the looks of that toshiba might ask my dad for it for christmas or a christmas present to myself.


I just took a trip to walmart and for s***s and giggles I started messing around with a 298$ hp and I looked at the experience index ( even thought its pretty much irrelevant for benchmarking) but the computer had a amd e-300 processor ( I heard the e series should be avoided) and on that laptop it scored like 5 point something in graphics and only 3.2 in the processor. Meanwhile my crappy 2008 HP scored 5.0 in the processor department and only 2.9 in the graphics. I just can't believe they sell computers with crappier processors than a 5 year old laptop. I think it was this laptop actually
HP Winter Blue 15.6" 2000-2d49WM Laptop PC with AMD E-300 Accelerated Processor, 4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive and Windows 8: Computers : Walmart.com

 

[Spartan109]

yea, the e-series are garbage, and if you're doing video processing, the amd's arent as strong as intel cpu's so thats a tough call, what will you be doing more? video editing or gaming? if video editing, spend more, get an intel with a dedicated gpu, if you're doing more gaming, get an amd apu

 

[mikee]

mostly web design and watching videos and a small amount of not very complex video editing. just the occasional gaming video on my youtube channel