Recent content by dscudella

Good to see that people can turn to Tom's for answers to their hardware questions. Glad I'm a member of the community

The main purpose will be for mobile computing (web browsing - Chrome, HD (1080p) streams and video - YouTube & Twitch and word processing). As far as games go I will probably throw some games on it like Torchlight 2, Starcraft & Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. Nothing too...

I've finally decided to retire my old HP 8510p (Core 2 Duo @ 2.2ghz, 2gb DDR2, 120gb HDD, ATI HD2600 256mb) and get something new but I don't have that much money to spend. I'm looking at two models one with an i3-3227U & HD4000 (Dell $369)and the other with an A8-4500M & 7640G (Asus $379). The...

Also Tom's Hardware does not support or condone Piracy in any shape and it's against the forum rules.

So what if your internet goes out? Are you not able to play games (I'm looking at you Sim City)? Didn't skim through all the comments, sorry if it's been asked already.

Going off the fact that (already mentioned by COLGeek) A8 laptops are readily available now under $500, I have two recommendations. HP Pavilion $399.99 OR Asus K-Series $449.99 Best Buy also has free shipping.

There are a couple more options that have A8's that are around this price point. Best Buy is really pushing them at a good price. Check out this search HERE.

"On average, the performance of the HD 7640G GPU is comparable to a dedicated Radeon HD 7610M and is even faster than the HD Graphics 4000 as found in Intel’s Ivy Bridge." Quoted straight from Notebookcheck.

I personally don't like HP, but that's just a preference. The A8-4500M is a very stout CPU. The main reason people get the A series CPU's is for the APU. An A8 for $400 is a great buy. I picked up my Toshiba Satellite A8-4500M for $380 from Best Buy and invested another $50 for new RAM.

If you have two different modules of varying speeds / timings then the BIOS will clock the fastest module to match the slowest. Slot 1: 4gb 1333 Slot 2: 2gb 1600 RAM Speed: 1333

I bought an HP 8510P Laptop from eBay (Government reseller) which came with Win Vista and the Win Vista COA sticker. I installed my retail version of Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit on it and used it until I got a new laptop which came with Win 8. So my questions are: 1. How do I check which...

For gaming, the A8-4500M with the Radeon 7640G wins hands down. Actually, I would say the better deal would be the Acer. For $380 Best Buy has a Toshiba (which I'm currently using) with the same specs (640gb HDD). Toshiba Satellite A8-4500M $379.99 The graphics processor is the HD 4000. It's...