K53TA.. The best deal ever... could be!

[HTWingNut]

I just called asus and they only offer the 6-cell battery that comes with it. Not sure if there's any third party battery though. I'll have to look.

[link626]

The AMD laptops have switchable graphics through the drivers. You can set each program whether it uses dedicated or integrated video card all through the drivers. No BIOS switch required.

but the asus doesn't have the explicit option to switch.

I thought HP came out with a bios update that allows you to switch off the integrated graphics or something.

in the asus, to use the integrated only, you have to turn off crossfire and set low power.
to use dedicated, you turn off crossfire and set high performance.

but i think they used to have an explicit option to pick integrated or dedicated.

[link626]

I just made my purchase from bestbuy.com other than the screen banding is there any other issues with this thing? Ill mainly be using this for web browsing, streaming videos, homework, and iracing race simulation. I hope i made the right choice.

there's another issue.

hibernation turns off the left usb ports.

after you wake from hibernate, the left usb ports still don't work.
they start to work again ~10 minutes later.

[FFZERO]

How does the K53TA's GPU compare to a 5650m or 5730m? Looking to get a laptop for my sister who plays Left 4 Dead 2 (Most demanding game she frequently play), Free online Korean games (S4 League), and some free MMORPG. Hoping the GPU can handle medium-low @ 1920x1080. Thanks.

[ryanlecocq]

I also just bought one of these, so far I'm really happy with it. I'm currently tweaking my CPU clocks/volts. I picked up Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the same trip. Hope I can get decent performance.

QQ: Where are you guys getting video drivers? Asus doesn't list a VGA driver on their site and AMD doesn't even list the GPUs in their drop down menu. Does the chipset driver install for both GPUs or am I just missing something.

[HTWingNut]

@ryanlecocq - Chipset driver is EVERYTHING AMD/ATI, including video.

@FFZero - Were you planning on running an external monitor or swapping out the screen? Because it only comes with 1366x768. In any case it should be better than the 5730m with crossfire.

[ryanlecocq]

So it will install the driver for the 6650 as well as the 6520?

[HTWingNut]

So it will install the driver for the 6650 as well as the 6520?

Yes.

[ryanlecocq]

Yes.

Damn I'm old. That sounds like shenanigans and tomfoolery to my old ears. Intelligent bundled drivers.

Too bad Deus Ex probably doesn't have a crossfire profile yet. It's supposed to be optimized for AMD so I would guess it works well with these new dual graphics setups.

[HTWingNut]

You're old? I'm 38 almost 39. Almost got that rock to the peak! (based on your photo if that's you assuming you're probably ten years younger!)