HP Spectre x360

From: http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/inde...s-520-mobile-vs-intel-hd-graphics-5500-mobile

 

According to Wikipedia:

HD Graphics 5500, GT2 – 24 execution units, up to 364.8 GFLOPS at 950 MHz
HD Graphics 520, GT2 – 24 execution units, up to 403.2 GFLOPS at 1.05 GHz

The game debate number is for the base clock which is irrelevant to gaming... also the skylake GPU supports DX12. Besides the above, the other useful features are the additional texture shaders and pixel shaders - resulting in faster performance.

Here is the best side by side performance I can find: HD5500 vs HD520 - so about a 10-20% difference in performance.

 

Thank you so much! Honestly I am thinking in terms of the new Rise of the Tomb Raider game coming out for PC in Spring 2016. Will this laptop be able to handle the game on low settings but with the textures set up to high so the detail doesn't look like crap?

 

Given the game isn't released yet I don't think anyone can definitively say.

Here is the HD520 running Tomb Raider (2013) - 20 fps and I would say barely playable.

I think you are looking for a gaming laptop.

 

Honestly I had HP's Omen gaming laptop, and I returned it.

The only difference in specs is a quad core vs. dual core and the graphics card. To me the 2 hours of battery life while gaming and an awesome looking game vs. 8 hours gaming with the graphics turned down is an obvious choice.

The Spectre is the best of both worlds if I get the i7 8GB of Ram 512ssd model. Plus this has a quad HD screen and the other one didn't. I was very disappointed in the Omen.

 

Here’s a crazy one – something for you all to try!

First note, I have crazy good hearing!

Regarding the “whine/electrical noise” from the Spectre x360, here are my observations:


With power supply plugged in:

Keyboard backlight on, screen backlight on low – buzzing from keyboard
Keyboard backlight on, screen backlight on 100% – very little buzzing from keyboard
Keyboard backlight off, screen backlight on high – buzzing from keyboard
Keyboard backlight off, screen backlight on low – some buzzing from keyboard


Off battery usage (mains unplugged):
minimum noise, regardless of screen brightness or keyboard backlight

It seems to me that the power supply is having some effect on the circuits, creating some degree of fizz / crackle in here linked to the light emitting parts of the laptop.

This isn’t a major thing, hell, many electronics make some noise. Indeed, the fact that the fan on this machine is whisper quiet (when it even activates!) means I hear the sound when I otherwise wouldn’t

Anyone with some tech knowledge about to chime in one this? Google tells me this is a known thing with laptops and backlight keyboards

PS Twitter still crashing display drivers in Edge. Grr!

Otherwise, a happy Spectre owner one week in
James

 

Ok, 5th cycle done....Battery Time of 11:30, estimated runtime average is 9:00. This is ROCKING!!!

VERY PLEASED.

 

Hello all. Has anyone had any issue with the evenness of backlighting of the screen? On mine (QHD) it seems brighter on the side of the screen furthest from the hinge, and the inch or so at the edge of the screen is a slightly whiter/bluer white. It's not too noticeable when viewing the screen straight on, but is more so when viewing at a slight angle or in tent or tablet mode, particularly in portrait mode when the gradient is left-right (I like to use portrait for reading while lying on my side). I tried taking some pictures with my camera but they don't seem to come out very well.

The brightness (of whites particularly) also seems very directional. When you're viewing straight on, it's bright, but move your head or tilt the screen a couple of degrees, and it's like a shadow passing over the screen. When web browsing in portrait mode, it's like a 3-D effect since my eyes are seeing different bright areas... is this normal?

I'm thinking of returning the unit, but maybe I'm being overly picky. I'll post my other impressions of the machine in another post...

 

οκ

 

So as of 22nd December,

In regards to my laptop giving off a high pitched “whine” from both the power socket area and the transformer itself when turned on, plugged in and fully charged.

HP Sent me a new charger. Fantastic customer service from UK customer phone line. Straight to a technician! They claim a “whiney” AC transformer is not a known defect. They tried a full reboot of the BIOS over the phone first, which didn’t help, and decided that this was the easiest course. She had even heard of coil whine and listened carefully to my thoughts and google findings.

The new transformer is a slightly different shape. Same voltage, amp and watt rating. And this one is silent. HURRAH! The only noise I get from my laptop now is the fan when it kicks in, and a super faint “ticking” sound at all times, which I think is standard on CPUs. The number of these clicks is dependent on load. Scrolling in Edge or Word, I can hear a super faint ticking. This is at least a non-intrusive noise - the high pitched AC whine, while quiet, was super high pitched and thus super annoying!

Interestingly:

The day before the charger arrived I managed to silence the laptop using my old adaptor!

The trick: in Power Saver setting, I changed minimum CPU load to 25%. My theory – the power saving abilities of Skylake processor (C states, or whatever they are called) mean that the processor goes into a super low voltage/power mode when it is Idle. This means that, when the laptop is plugged in AND the battery charged, the Power supply is providing too much power, which is causing some kind of conflict which creates electrical noise.

(Interestingly, device manager still reports my laptop dropping to 2% when idle… no idea why!)

Madness

This tweak does tally with my thinking that the load on the CPU affects the sound. This explains why no noise off battery. This explains why there is no noise when plugged in but the battery is charging, as the power is actually DOING something.

This is ONLY a workaround. My new charger works on all power settings without tweaking. So something was either broken or badly designed in the old one

Now this noise issue is sorted, My ONLY niggle now with the laptop is the synaptic pad: on roughly 4/5 times the laptop wakes up with three finger swipe motions turned off. Methinks synaptics and/or windows driver issues which will be sorted.

Oh. And display drivers crashing in Edge. But that is very well documented and will be patched. Apparently the Beta drivers are great – I’ll wait for HP to put them out though!

Regardless. I am now super happy with my shiny Spectre.

Hope this wall of info helps someone!

James