AMD Processors (A8)

x00065954

So guys, I am looking to purchase a new laptop and I would know quite a bit of the intel chips in the market but know absolute nothing with AMD chips.

Seen quite a few laptops that do have AMD chips now. What are the AMD chips like? And what are they like compared to the i3 or i5 chips? Have my eye on this laptop here from harvey norman

http://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/hp/hp-pavilion-sleekbook-15-b181.html

What you guys think? Nearly forgot to mention, I will be using my laptop for general browsing, downloading, playing the odd game, video editing, that kind of stuff really. Wouldnt be using it for real heavy duty tasks like computing administrating/management. Thanks

Joshua J

Well judging by this it doesen't even outperform the I3. An I3 laptop can be bought online for about €150 less that what you linked. Seems really overpriced.

x00065954

Jeez, I always kind of knew Intel chips were better than AMD better never realised by that much. So long story short, stay away from AMD chips then?

Joshua J

Well I'd say so I think the A10 is the only AMD worth thinking about. For example you could buy this for €140 less. The one you linked had more RAM and memory but sure they're cheap enough and I'm sure the laptopsdirect would install extra RAM if you enquired.

Overheal

A8/A10 makes sense if you want better integrated graphics on a budget but AMD hasnt spiced up the product lineup in about a year now. Intel really started catching up with Sandy Bridge and with Haswell the A8/A10 really aren't all that special. I'd reccomend the A10 or A8 to someone on a budget who plays games but other than that no. For that purpose, I don't like intel+dedicated GPU combos because of battery performance hits - and thats where A-series APUs stand out and make sense, the battery life.

Saying that, I had an under-informed nerd-geek person insist on buying an AMD Desktop, and then he proceeded to buy an SSD and an extra 16GB of RAM for it, bringing his $500 A8 PC up to 24GB of RAM. For "Heavy Photoshop" and he was overly sold, somehow, on the graphics performance of the fusion APUs through online truth-seeking. I tried to briefly sell him on a more apt intel i5 + GPU combo for a desktop (where energy consumption matters not in sacrifice of churn and burn) but he was having none of it. He could have at least asked me to try and order him in something with an FX Bulldozer, I mean sh*t.

TerrorFirmer

The A10 is decent enough for light gaming versus older gen i3's and i5's, but to be honest, the newest gen of Intel processors have decent enough integrated graphics that render the A10 pretty pointless.

Overheal

pretty much.

ED E

My brothers in need of a new laptop and he's between an i5 and an A8. A single set of benchmarks arent a totally accurate picture but just using videocard benchmark and cpubenchmark you get an idea of the trade off:

Radeon HD 7640G - 618 Pts Graphics
AMD A8-4500M APU 2714 PTS CPU

i3/i5 Intel HD 4000 461 Pts Graphics
Intel Core i5-4200M @ 2.50GHz 4,448 CPU PTS

25% more GPU heft but 40% less on the CPU. He's addicted to League Of Legends so gamings up there for him and it might be worth it to get the A8.