AMD Llano Graphics

[jmsellars1]

Hey guys.

I'm thinking of buying a laptop sometime in the next few months or something, i was just wondering how good the integrated graphics in those chips are. I like the idea of not having a dedicated graphics chip and still being able to run mid range games on medium settings, assuming that's possible? For example, does anyone have any idea how the HD 6620g and HD 6520g might compare to say a desktop 7800GT. I'm hoping for that sort of graphics power in a nice and small 13-14'' portable dual core laptop at <£400/$650. (Without destroying the battery life)

May seem like i'm asking a lot but i usually wait it out for bargains and i have seen some stuff that has come close to what i ask already.

 

[jaguarskx]

The 6620g is probably about as powerful as the desktop version of the Radeon HD 5550; probably a little more powerful actually. But definitely not as powerful as the HD 5570. The 6520g would be between the desktop version of the HD 5450 and HD 5550.

See following review which compares the 6520g to other mobile GPUs. Unfortunately, some of the CPUs are more powerful than others so that can skew the benchmark results. A laptop with a quad core i7-2820QM + Intel HD 3000 gives better results than a dual core i5-2520M + Intel HD 3000.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/11

 

[jmsellars1]

So i would be right in thinking that one of those GPU's with a dual core ~1.8Ghz CPU and 4GB of RAM in a laptop should be able to play pretty much anything at a sensible resolution and medium-low settings?

EDIT: Actually, presumably it will fail at games like Starcraft and Battlefield seeing as though theyre more CPU intensive?

That's pretty good, finally some laptops with more balanced specs.

So am i also right in thinking that these integrated GPU's will suck less power than dedicated ones too? I'm hoping for half decent battery life out of this thing too. Over 2 hours of heavy use (Movies/Games) would be great.

 

[jaguarskx]

Based on the following benchmarks from the same review I linked to above, a Llano A8-3500 seems to have very good battery life compared to other laptops. The most stressful test is video (H.264) playback.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/7

If you haven't done so you should read the entire review which may answer some other questions you have about Llano. It will probably raise more questions as well.

If you want a laptop that's good for CPU intensive games like StarCraft 2 then you should look at the quad-core A8 series, not the dual core A6 series. Additionally, only the A8 series like the A8-3500 has the faster 6620g graphics core.

 

[jmsellars1]

I'm not actually all that bothered about CPU intensive games, i was just speculating. I will take a look at that link and consider a quad core though. Thanks a lot for the replies.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Yeah... I'd really consider a quad core A8, although they seem to be a bit hard to find at the moment. I feel like you'd be a lot happier with it than an A6.

 

[jaguarskx]

The HP Pavilion dv6 can be configured with an A8 APU.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Processor&v1=AMD&series_name=dv6zqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/AMD/dv6zqe_series

 

[jmsellars1]

That's a U.S. link and i'm in the U.K. Do you have a U.K. link? I googled and can't find one.