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HP Pavilion dv6-6b50sa 15.6 Laptop - good enough for TOR ?
rawhead_123
Member Posts: 2
in Hardware
Hi all, you'll have to excuse my hardware ignorance - i build websites for a living but pc hardware just isn't in my remit. I want to get in to TOR, so i'm looking around at new laptops but i'm not sure if they've a good enough spec (i'm in the UK btw). I've got a budget of around £600, and am looking at a HP with the following spec at PC world
Processor |
Intel® Core™i3-2330M processor (2.2 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache) |
|---|---|
Operating System |
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 |
RAM |
6 GB DDR3 |
Graphics card |
AMD Radeon HD 6490M |
Screen type |
HD LED BrightView Infinity Display |
Screen resolution |
1366 x 768 pixels |
Screen size |
15.6" |
Screen features |
HP BrightView LED |
Hard drive |
500 GB SATA 5400rpm |
Optical disk drive |
SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support |
Memory card reader |
Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader for Secure Digital cards andMultimedia cards |
USB |
3 USB 2.0 ports |
Modem/Ethernet |
Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN |
WiFi |
WiFi802.11 b/g/n |
Bluetooth |
Bluetooth with WiDi |
Video interface |
HDMI output |
Audio interface |
2 x 3.5mm audio out 1 x 3.5mm audio in |
TV output |
VGA output |
Sound |
Beats Audio system |
Is that going to allow me to run the game at a decent evel of graphics, or will it be a bit of a dog.
Thanks in advance, Pete
Comments
Looks good, only thing i would change is the harddrive with 5400 rpm and get a 7200rpm instead.
Because if i understand coorectly it helps your loading time greatly and cutscenes, im not sure though
Thanks man - everything else in the price range seems to have an Intel HD graphics card which i'm presuming is no good...?
To bad you dont live in DK, then i could find you a good one :P
maybe in low setting!(or if you can run it in 1080i30 or 1080p30(12.1 preview amd support 1080p30)make sure you re system does it first.you wont be able to use ss,adaptative or mlaa(in gpu)
Ive just ordered a new laptop for TOR but i went for the HP Pavilion DV6 6b08sa. Im also not the most knowledgeable when it comes to hardware but it seems a slightly higher spec laptop than the 6b50sa and was only £449 at the HP website.
If your going to go for a HP (like I always do) I would recommend buying it from their website direct and stay away from PC World. They've got a sale on at the moment and as long as you input the discount code on their site, you could save yourself quite a bit.
Hi Jaerow,
I myself am currently looking at building a new PC, with my main goal being able to play TOR. However I was initially looking at purchasing a laptop to play the game instead of a desktop.
So my question is how does that laptop run TOR? On what settings and how stable is the frame rate? If you have not yet received your laptop yet, if you could let me know how TOR performs I would be very greatful thanks!
I only ordered the laptop a couple of days ago and i expect it to arrive tomorrow or the day after, but i'll let you know how it runs as soon as possible.
That will probably run the game pretty well at low settings. But it's not a sensible hardware configuration at all.
Try this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/288852-lenovo-ideapad-z575-laptop-m75d7uk
As compared to what you got, this one has a faster processor, as four slower cores beat two faster ones in programs such as SWTOR that scale pretty well to four cores. It also has faster graphics, as Radeon HD 6620G integrated graphics are considerably faster than a Radeon HD 6490M discrete card.
It also has lower power consumption, in part because it gets by with integrated graphics, rather than needing a discrete card. This saves power in a variety of ways; not needing to power separate GDDR5 memory is a big one.
And yes, the integrated graphics really are meaningfully faster than the discrete video card. They're similar architectures, but 5 SIMD engines at 444 MHz (in the 6620G) beats 2 SIMD engines at 800 MHz (in the 6490M)--and does it while using less power.
Not needing discrete switchable graphics means that you won't have driver problems. The laptop you picked will probably try to run the video card when you need decent graphical performance, and shut it down when you don't. That's nice when it works, but what if it doesn't switch when it should? And relying on both AMD and Intel video drivers to play nicely together is risky, especially considering that Intel has never had functional video drivers. The Lenovo laptop with Radeon HD 6620G integrated graphics uses AMD drivers only and never has to switch between anything.
Now, the laptop I linked is hardly going to let you max settings, either. But it will run SWTOR more smoothly at higher settings than the one you picked. The processor should be able to get you over 40 frames per second, and then you can experiment with video settings to see how high you can turn them before the graphics become the limiting factor rather than the processor.
Actually, that's an interesting option, too. The basic idea is that it has both Radeon HD 6520G integrated graphics (same as 6620G in the laptop I linked, except with 1 of the SIMD engines disabled, so you lose 1/5 of the shaders and TMUs) and a Radeon HD 6490M discrete card. It mismatches the memory channels, which will cripple the integrated graphics considerably unless you fix it yourself. (It will come with 2 memory modules, one of which is 2 GB and the other of which is 4 GB; figure out which is the 2 GB module and replace it by a 4 GB module that you buy elsewhere.)
Even apart from that the Radeon HD 6620G integrated graphics in the Lenovo laptop that I linked is faster than either the Radeon HD 6520G integrated graphics or the Radeon HD 6490M discrete card in the HP laptop you bought. However, you can run both the integrated graphics and the discrete card at the same time in "asynchronous crossfire", and sometimes get something faster than the 6620G integrated graphics that way. But only sometimes, as asynchronous crossfire often doesn't work.
The laptop you bought will require some tinkering to optimize the graphics, however. Sometimes you'll get the best performance by using the Radeon HD 6520G integrated graphics alone. (Actually, this one probably won't be very common in real games, but it would be trivial to make a synthetic benchmark where it would be the fastest.) Sometimes you'll get the best performance by shutting down the integrated graphics and using the Radeon HD 6490M discrete card. Sometimes you'll get the best performance by using both graphics chips at once in asynchronous crossfire. And it will vary wildly from one game to the next. AMD supposedly has application profiles to let you tell it to use this configuration for one game and some other configurationf or another game, and let you choose on a game by game basis. But that's not until Catalyst 12.1 or 12.2 or so, so it's not out yet.
All else equal, I'd rather have the Lenovo laptop I linked. But all else is not equal, as the HP laptop is a lot cheaper. If that's your budget, it will probably end up being a good purchase for you.
However, if you're not knowledgeable about hardware, it's far better to ask what to buy before making a purchase than to buy something first and hope you don't get stuck with a piece of junk. There are lots of vendors willing to sell junk to unsuspecting buyers, as they know that most people who buy a laptop and nearly everyone who buys a prebuilt desktop is pretty clueless about hardware. Maybe you know more than you're letting on, but if the asynchronous crossfire is a surprise to you, then you got lucky.
Those laptops seem mighty expensive, like 150 £ more than they would cost in Denmark, which really surprises me. I checked out Dell, because I know they just launched a cheap Dell Vostro 3555 with an A8-3500. And I can see that you can configure this with an A8 and 4 gb RAM and some extra perks and still land well beneath the 600£ mark.
http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/vostro-3555/pd?oc=n0155504&model_id=vostro-3555
Edit: With 4 gb RAM I thought you would be homefree, but they insist on being obnoxious and place all 4 gb RAM in one stick, I have no idea why.
That actually looks like a pretty good option. Unfortunately, you'll have to modify the memory yourself, as all of the memory options they offer are "whoever decided to offer that should be fired" stupid. Llano is very heavily dependent on memory bandwidth, and none of the four options they offer will match the memory channels. Memory isn't that expensive, though, so if you can do that yourself, you're set.
If you want to get that, then you should contact Dell to ask if the memory can be modified by the end user. HP has some business notebooks for which it can't. If you can't modify the memory configuration in the Dell laptop, then you should dismiss it out of hand.
Barbarbar - I am potentially looking for a laptop to play TOR myself and that Dell is an interesting find, thanks. Adding on additional perks I managed to get a laptop to £510 compared to the Lenovo at £575... however the dell has 2GB less RAM and a smaller HDD (although faster rpm).
Clifford1987,
I got the laptop this morning and tried SWTOR straight away. I set all the settings to 'High' and the game was running slightly slow. It was not game breaking and only just noticeable so i reduced the shadows to 'Medium' and it runs perfectly.
On my old laptop I was getting stupidly low FPS whilst in the Jedi Temple in the starter area, which made the game unplayable but now its fantastic. I think a lot of other people have been having issues with the shadows aswell so maybe its not a hardware issue and hopefully will get fixed soon.
This ended up moving over to this thread:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/336691/Question-concerning-midrange-laptops-esp-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Z575.html
So he's probably going to get something with a lower processor with performance in the same ballpark, a much faster video card (more than double the performance), and properly matched memory channels.
Also, you should mess with the GPU configuration. Try running off the integrated graphics only, the discrete card only, and asynchronous crossfire. Any of the three could give you the best performance, and it will vary from game to game.
Thanks alot for the advice, I will definately be giving it a shot.
Thanks a lot for posting your impressions Jaerow! Haha, good call, SWTOR would have been the first thing I tried as soon as my new hardware arrived. It's good to hear that the game is running well on the laptop
I didn't expect it to run so smoothly on high settings, really good news. I'm looking forward to playing the game myself.
As Quizzical stated, after a lot of research (and even more additional advice/help!) I have decided to go for the Lenovo IdeaPad Z575 laptop, which should hopefully play the game smoothly. Cheers again for posting your impressions, enjoy!