In need of a new windows laptop

[carnageX]

I still stand by the better Generic I posted as I'm sure Sims 4 will actually take advantage of an SSD.

Didn't notice the Generic one had an SSD. The SSD would definitely help with Sims and it's god-awful loading times.

Yea dude, desktop APUs are ok for light gaming like they are intended for, but Mantle enhanced titles really show where they lack. In BF4 the higher end APUs were getting a 70% increase in performance while using early activated Mantle and Mantle drivers. In case you didn't know what Mantle does, it takes care of most CPU overhead. For a 70% increase on the desktop variant to be had, one can only assume that a much lower clocked mobile variant is going to be extremely sluggish. I'd even take a Phenom 2 550 over any APU today.

Ahhh, ok. I've heard of Mantle (seen you talk about it in several threads) but didn't quite know what it was, and just never really took the time to look up any specifics about it.

Now, the R9 m290x is about on par with 7870 desktop performance and I believe is Mantle capable (as is Sims 4), if this person played any other game it would be pretty bottlenecked by the CPU unless Mantle accelerated. I also can't recommend because we don't know if Sims 4 will launch with Mantle or how much CPU overhead it'll actually take away. The m290x is quite a bit better than the 765m so I guess really it's up to the OP which one to go for.

That's what I was thinking as well - mainly up to the OP.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yup Mantle is good stuff, but DX12 will have the same down to hardware approach as Mantle making it moot by next year at the very minimum. Now, if only OpenGL would adopt this technique I would hope devs give DX and Mantle the finger.