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

[link626]

This laptop looks like an amazing deal, I just have a few questions (and I really don't want to read through 51 pages).

1. According to PassMark, the A6-3400M APU would be superior to an i5 2410M and many other CPU's in laptops upwards of $800 (possibly more), correct? I'd also like just a small explanation as to how it performs in general, since I'm not very familiar with APU's.
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i haven't found anything that this A6 could beat the i5-2410m at.
that includes both 64bit and 32bit benchmarks.

it easily beats the core i3-2310m when overclocked, but doesn't quite reach i5-2410 levels without getting hot.

if you wanted a fair comparison, you'd have to run both the A6 and i5 at the same temps. Both are spec'd to 100 C.

[link626]

There isn't really a reasonably priced Intel-based machine to compare this to. Anything with a 540m (fairly comparable to the hd6650) is likely to have an i7, which will beat the A-6, but the laptop will cost twice as much.

.... which is really stupid. dunno what the OEM's are thinking.

in the US, we can't find any core i3-2310m paired with gt540m. This combo could easily hit the $450 price point, considering that basic core i3-2310m laptops now sell for as low as $380.

other countries have the i3+gt540 combo in abundance. All we get are core i3's with HD3000.

[Raikomaru]

Oh, right. For benchmarks at various settings, check this topic throughout, but overall yes the performance of the overclocked A-6 is equivalent to a high end i5 in most applications. For games that are optimized for more than 2 cores, the AMD is superior.

There isn't really a reasonably priced Intel-based machine to compare this to. Anything with a 540m (fairly comparable to the hd6650) is likely to have an i7, which will beat the A-6, but the laptop will cost twice as much.

Alright, thank you. So basically, the thread title isn't lying. I can get relatively amazing performance for something so cheap.

[joe_dude]

i haven't found anything that this A6 could beat the i5-2410m at.
that includes both 64bit and 32bit benchmarks.

it easily beats the core i3-2310m when overclocked, but doesn't quite reach i5-2410 levels without getting hot.

if you wanted a fair comparison, you'd have to run both the A6 and i5 at the same temps. Both are spec'd to 100 C.

Benchmarks tend to be heavily Intel optimized. If you look at games, the A6/A8 run basically clock-for-clock vs. i3/5/7.

For example, check this article:
AMD Fusion: A8-3500M A-Series Llano APU Review - HotHardware

A stock A8 can nearly keep up with a Core i5 + 525m. OC'ed, only the Core i7 would be marginally faster.

[Kukri]

i haven't found anything that this A6 could beat the i5-2410m at.
that includes both 64bit and 32bit benchmarks.

it easily beats the core i3-2310m when overclocked, but doesn't quite reach i5-2410 levels without getting hot.

if you wanted a fair comparison, you'd have to run both the A6 and i5 at the same temps. Both are spec'd to 100 C.

While I believe passmark is somewhat overblown in its rating of the A6, I've done my own testing (as have others here) with more accurate benchmarks like cinebench 11.5, and after overclocking the cpu it can OUTPERFORM an i5-2410. Still, when it comes to single or dual core apps/performance, it'll lag behind the i5. Expect that difference to become less significant over the years as everything becomes optimized to use more than 2 cores .

[HTWingNut]

Right. Quad core is where it's at and where it's going. You won't see much of a performance hit with 1 or 2 threads, but when you go to 3 or 4, a dual core can't come close to having a dedicated core for each, even with hyperthreading.

[AMD_Swole]

do we know what the max heat spread for the GPU is? I'm hitting around 75c and 86C, discreet, and integrated.

[saturnotaku]

what are you trying to accomplish with that? The K53TA already has Wireless N.

5 GHz capability for one thing. I'm going to pick up this notebook tomorrow, and it would be great to see if the stock one can be changed.

[HTWingNut]

A lot of times the BIOS has to whitelist the card. If not there then no go. I wanted to put an Intel wifi 5GHz N in my HP, but it's not whitelisted. Hopefully one day.

[saturnotaku]

A lot of times the BIOS has to whitelist the card. If not there then no go. I wanted to put an Intel wifi 5GHz N in my HP, but it's not whitelisted. Hopefully one day.

Well, that's HP. It's pretty well known, at least on this website, that upgrading a wireless card on most HP notebooks is impossible without a modified BIOS.

If you look at the Asus notebooks on XoticPC, you can upgrade the wireless card in pretty much all of them. I see no reason why this particular one would be any different.

Someone is going to have to be a guinea pig, though.