Budget gaming laptop suggestion

[Maxime506]

Hello folks,

I am looking for suggestion on buying a gaming laptop for my brother. He has only 600-700 dollars in budget. Right now in Canada we have a couple of option but I have a hard time decide one over another:

1. Acer V3-472G-59XN: http/www.softwarecity.ca/item/NX.MMYAA.001.html?utm_source=shopbot&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopbot
CAD $640, i5-4210u + Nvidia 840M graphics

2. Acer E5-551G-T430: http/www.amazon.ca/dp/B00KW66MQ8/ref=asc_df_B00KW66MQ83583141?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&linkCode=df0&creative=395381&creativeASIN=B00KW66MQ8&tag=shopbotca-20
CAD $560, A10-7300 + R7 M265 graphics

3. Acer V5-561G-6407: http/store.acer.com/store/acerna/en_CA/pd/productID.304728800/parentCategoryID.65613200/
CAD $550, i5-4200u + R7-M265 graphics


The morst important criteria I am looking for is graphics and CPU. I scrutized the review on notebookcheck.com a couple of times for the comparison of R7-M265 and Geforce 840M graphics. Both has 384 shaders, however 840M adopts Maxwell architecture and it seems perform far superior than M265, while having only 64-bit wide graphic memory that will not be able to feed the graphic processor.

M265 is modest and it seems perform only 20-30 percent better than my overclocked 6650M by standing alone. (I get this conclusion by looking into shaders, texture and pixel fillrate on both the card) However, the second option seems promising as I could possibly use modded 14.12 driver to achieve hybrid crossfire (r6 igp+r7 m265) and deliever better gaming fps, in some cases, than 840M

I know A10 performs just on par with ulv i3 but the 4 threads should compensate a bit in gaming, considering the graphic potentials in dual graphics array. ( and I would like someone to confirm that dual graphics in a10-7300 and r7 m265 works)

What do ya guys think?

 

[rkumaran]

i suggest you to buy Acer V3-472G-59XN.

im not sure AMD dual graphics still works. but as you said if you can use modded drivers it may work.

but i5-4210u is slightly better CPU compared to A10-7300.
so GT 840M is a good GPU combined with a i5 processor it will perform great.

but price is important, you can sure choose Acer E5-551G-T430. its value for money.

 

[Maxime506]

Thanks @rkumaran

I am just unsure how better 840M will perform over R7 M265 alone (or the combination of dual graphics if it works). It seems like notebookcheck.com biased 840M over M265, but if 840M has 128 bit memory bus I will choose option 3 in no time. That is where I get stucked while choosing. My old laptop has HD 6650M graphics along w/ A6-3400M (6520G graphics, CPU OC to 2.6ghz) and it performs a bit better than another laptop which has i5-3210M and GT 630M GPU, especially in some cases when dual graphics is supported by some games.

 

[jaguarskx]

Unfortunately, notebookcheck is probably the only site I consider reliable for laptop GPU performance since they provide actual game benchmarks.

I assume they are manipulating the numbers to show that the GT 840m outperforms the Radeon R7 M265 even though the GT 840m only has a 64-bit memory bus width.

 

[velo3100]

Definetly get this one: http/www.softwarecity.ca/item/NX.MMYAA.001.html?utm_source=shopbot&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopbot#itemSpecs

 

[Maxime506]

Final thought: if gta v pc hits the market, does it favor a lot Nvidia gpu over AMD ones? And how well could either and or nvidia handle the game at 1366 by 768 resolution? I am really not convinced by the narrow bandwidth placed in 840m.

I know 600 bucks could get a far better of gaming barebones desktop by putting the components ourselves, but he needs mobility too too since this laptop will be used in notes taking, assignments and so on.

 

[jaguarskx]

Considering the large performance gap between the GT 840m and the R7 M265, GTA V will run better on the GT 840m even if the game is optimized for AMD,

 

[Maxime506]

We've decided to go with 840m, thank you folks for the help! (actually the third one is only 14" and lighter compare with the others)