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Looking to upgrade from ancient times

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C

Chass1s

Member
​
Joined
Apr 2, 2013
Location
North Carolina
Good Evening all,

I currently have an issue. I am away from home for work for awhile and am stuck without the luxury of having my desktop with me. I am unfamiliar with these lap computers and could use some help.

My criteria is very simple. A sub $500 laptop that can run newer games (not "next generation" per say) but something like minecraft or CS:GO with good framerates. I really have no idea what to look for as I have only built large, heavy and spacious desktops.

I would like to splurge and get something nice, but in the past week i have had to deal with hail damage to my new car and a completely flooded apartment, both of which i have been away from longer than i have owned/rented.

Any suggestions for a poor soul missing the comforts of computing would be graciously welcome. I'm not sure if I'm even in the right price range :/

Thanks all.
 
Go used and you can buy above your weight class. A rrefurbished laptop with a warranty (I.e. newegg).

You want something in the 840 m range for cs go. I'll poke around a bit aand if something cool pops up
 
Thanks bob,

I'll have to check them out. The laptop I have right now is "refurbished" kind of. It's a Gateway T6321 and I got it for $20 and it just needed a new hard drive and i put Windows 7 on it. But it's horrible.
 
Man, sorry about the stuff going on. One of our neighbors got their entire basement flooded, and their weapons locker was down there! Expensive sump-pump failure.

About that laptop-- with that price range, you're down to the commodity range, I just want to warn you. Anything you get will probably have a fan speed locked bios (with throttling issues), really cheap build quality, and a terrible trackpad.

With that said..... there are options for minecraft. Probably not CS:GO, but minecraft is workable.

I'll go take a look...
Ah. There's, like, a grand total of one good option. Allow me to direct your attention to:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K2O4QO0

I got my info by looking on anandtech, because AMD's apu naming scheme is really really confusing. Here's where I was reading to get this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8305/amd-kaveri-laptops-sighted

EDIT: I personally wouldn't buy a cheap, used, gaming laptop from ebay, no offense to bob :p
 
I'm kinda skeptical of a laptop with a dent in it. :/

So it looks like CS:GO is out of the question and if I remember correctly, Minecraft isn't optimized for multicore processors. So the quad core AMD might not be much better than my dual core intel. The AMD is 1.8GHz per and my intel is 1.7GHz per. Or am i missing something here?

BLEHHHH, I liked my last job better! At least I was home and didn't need to rely on a laptop to keep me entertained. This thing is bad, so bad I can barely watch twitch without issues. lol. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to bump up my budget.
 
Ooh! Ooh! Something I have direct experience with!! lol

Minecraft has no support for multi-core. Minecraft modded with optifine, however....
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...ptifine-hd-a4-fps-boost-hd-textures-aa-af-and

That will fix things up nicely. Also, also, look! I found a direct performance measurement for that laptop!! Look at these benchmarks....
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8119/amd-launches-mobile-kaveri-apus/4

And now multiply it by about 55%. This laptop might actually be able to play CS:GO, on the lowest settings, that is.
 
My cell phone has a bigger battery than that thing lol.

Check out the link for the dented one.


Edit : phone took an hour to post. One sec


Edit 2: well if you're shy of that, don't expect too much "performance". Maybe with all settings turned down it may be playable.
 
I'm not too worried about battery life, it will typically be plugged in all the time.

I, too, am familiar with Optifine. I used to dabble a bit in adding shaders and 512x512 packs and needed the extra boost.

I am curious on how you know that processor (the A8 listed in the amazon link) is the same one in the anandtech link. EDIT: Nevermind i found it in the article.

This one seem interesting. It's a little high on the price tag than i would like, but maybe it is worth it?
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPa...psdc1_t2_B00K2O4S6G_B00HIYA4F2#productDetails
 
Sorry, I know this was flowing nicely, but I was just complaining about console backwards compatibility with someone. I'm back at the keyboard now, lol

So, uh, about that lenovo? It's running a richland apu, and you can actually see it's performance in that anandtech article. It's faster than the other one, but will run way hotter, and only be about 10% faster. If you factor in throttling.... it might be the same speed for more money.

If you're really really trying to stay under $500, the acer is probably the one to go with. Here's my endorsement: I'd buy it for myself, with the same monetary restrictions you have.

EDIT: I've found that the Faithful texture pack for minecraft is wonderful. It's just higher res normal textures, and I love it dearly. Have you tried it?
 
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2386984

I wouldn't. I'm really sorry, but my ability to provide specific criticisms about that processor are almost non-existent :( All I can say is, it'll be slow. Really really slow.

You see, the architecture of that chip is totally different than the llano/richland/kaveri chips. It's built and designed for tablets, not laptops. A good red flag? Take a look at the battery. You see the 4-cell battery? That shows you it's a super super low power part.

Really. So sorry I can't show direct benchmarks :( :(
 
Open box's don't scare me from a reputable vendor... Microcenter is fine.


I WOULD do some research, see if you can upgrade to 8gb of ram. Off the cuff, at 1366x768 resolution, an 8400 SHOULD be able to play CS:GO with low graphic settings without having horrid frame rate lag.
 
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