Intel hd 4600 graphics card

richy

Hi I bought this laptop http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00H7911TQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 recently for college but I also wanted to play games on it so I done a bit of googling and found youtube videos of people testing this graphics card with battlefield and some other games. Ops received it today and used a site called systemsrequirementlab which tells you I'd you can run games or not and so many games are coming back with a no because of hone graphics card yet it says my graphics card is in the 94th percentile. I'm not sure what to think as I saw youtube videos of people playing using this graphics card. I know this isn't pc building but I thought it would be best suited here because ye would know the nots about graphics and gaming etc. should I return it? According to the site it won't even play some of the total war games. I'm not really interested in games like bf4 etc as I have a xbox one for that but was looking forward to playing company of heroes, left 4 dead 2, cs source even won't play on it according to the site. thanks for reading.

5uspect

Try a few demos, and paragraphs.

EoinHef

What you have there is an IGP(Integrated Graphics Processor),latest version iirc correctly but you could not class it as a graphics card,essentially it is a part of the cpu that is dedicated to graphics. Rather than a dedicated "processor" for graphics.

Its not a bad laptop,a little pricey but ok,its just its not designed for gaming. In saying that there are games that will play on it. Just not games like Battlefield,L4D etc

For the money the laptop cost you,you could build a desktop that will give you a lot more performance in games and just general use? Something to consider

If you are determined to get a laptop instead you would need to start looking at AMD APU laptops or something like and Intel dual core and a dedicated gpu. Not easy to get good performance at the price point of the laptop you already have

5uspect

In fairness Source games like L4D should run fine. If you can run (free) TF2 you can run most any Source game.

ED E

CoH2 will butcher an integrated though.

Get a netbook for the classroom and a desktop for gaming.

TerrorFirmer

Company of Heroes 2 will run like crap on it, as in, not even playable really, though the first game would be totally fine. Left 4 Dead 2 and CSS run fine on the HD4600.

If you'd spent another 100 you'd have gotten something like this, which is literally 4 times as fast.

Or something like this which is actually a bit cheaper, and although it has a slower processor but would be modern decent for games as well.

richy

Thanks for all the replies guys. Couple more questions if ye don't mind.

@terrorformer
I wouldn't mind spending an extra 100 if it made a big difference. Can you explain to me how it's four times faster. It has only 4 gbs of ram and the same processor as the one I bought. I know nothing really about computers so if you could explain that would be helpful p. I read in the review of the one you showed me that you can add another 4gb of ram if wanted but I have no idea how to do this and wouldn't want to be tampering with a new laptop although I wouldn't mind getting a professional to do it for me in a couple of months. Is 4 gb of ram enough to game with?

The second one only has a 1.8ghz processor. Is that not really bad. I was always under the assumption that you needed a good processor as well as lots of ram for gaming as well as the graphics card obviously.

I bought it was getting a really good deal with the one I got as I done a lot of research in terms of comparing the stats of the laptops and checking reviews and the one I got won some award and was the no1 seller on amazon with probably the best reviews of the lot as well. However the sound on it is terrible(which I knew) the build quality doesn't feel great and when I was playing civ 5 it stalled a couple times and I had to ctrl alt del to get me out and clicked back in straight away and worked fine then. Is this happening because of the graphics card or what? I contacted amazon and they said I can get a full refund even on return shipping fees(which is amazing and why I bought with them).

See I work doing deliveries for a Chinese and spend a lot of my time sitting in the restaurant waiting for deliveries so ideally I'd like a laptop that could play games to pass the time while being mainly a college laptop. Realistically at work I'd be playing mostly single player strategy games with the odd game like l4d2 (which I checked and works fine unlike that website told me it would)

I was looking at this laptop as it got a review saying that the returned a toahiba satellite which is what I have and got this instead and are happier with it. If I got this I could probably put 500 towards a gaming pc for all my other needs for home. Would this play the games I mentioned do you think?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-15-6-inch-Pavilion-Notebook-Revolutionary/dp/B00I8KFPHM/ref=sr_1_9?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1405268759&sr=1-9&keywords=Laptop

Thanks again

TerrorFirmer

Graphics card is much more important for games than processors, generally speaking.

The Laptop that's 499 pounds has a GT740M, which is a good mobile card that would play most new games at medium-high settings at 720P. The HD4600 by comparison cannot play many new games even at lowest settings and lowest resolution.

4GB of ram isn't a problem for the vast majority of games right now, and ram is very easily upgraded in future, so don't let that be a decider.

A 1.8Ghz i3 is a slower processor, but a 1.8Ghz i3 + GT740M is still way, way faster for games than any Intel processor using integrated graphics, no matter how fast.

That other laptop you've listed there is no better than the one you bought for games, i.e effectively useless.

If you want a happy medium, I would just go with this one for 395 pounds.

If you're willing to go the extra 100 pounds, the i5 with GT740M is a very good machine.

richy

Thanks for all the answers. I might go searching for other laptops with the same graphics card and see can I get better deals. If I don't find one Im gonna buy the one for 499.99 id say. Is it ok if I find a couple I think are as good or better as it and ask you to have a quick look?

TerrorFirmer

Work away, of course. You really won't find a better deal for a GT740 machine than 395 pounds though, really. As I said, if you can find a better deal on the i5/Gt740 combo, that's a serious winner in terms of being a good all rounder game machine, in that some games require CPU heft as well as GPU.

My laptop is an i3 1.8Ghz and GT640M, and to be hones the graphics card is bottlenecked by the CPU. But I've played Battlefield 4 on it, Company of Heroes 2, and a few others without serious issues.

richy

Thanks again terrorformer. So I was looking around and couldn't find anything the same or better in that price range so thanks for that. I'm curious about upgrading the ram. I done some researching on it and people were saying it's not easy. If I brought it into a local pc shop or whatever any idea what they would charge to install it? And how much would 4gb of ram set me back? These are the installation instructions. Don't sound terribly difficult but I'm worries coz I have zero experience and I read that maintenance of the z510 is difficult . Thanks again

Alike the Z500, the Z510 is not especially easy to maintain. In order to get to the hardware and the battery, you have to open the case. The first step is to remove the keyboard. For this purpose, loosen the three rear screws on the underside of the case. Afterwards, insert a screwdriver into one of the screw holes and carefully push out the keyboard with it. Please note: The keyboard is connected to the motherboard by a ribbon cable. Now there is limited access to the fan which allows cleaning it.

Removing the keyboard will uncover several screws. First of all loosen and remove the retaining screw of the DVD burner. Afterwards loosen the other screws. Attention: One of them is hidden beneath a Lenovo sticker. In the next step, remove all screws of the underside of the case. Three of them are at the front edge, three at the edge of the DVD shaft and four are hidden beneath the rubber feet, which can be easily removed as they are not glued. Once you removed all screws, you can remove the bottom tray. A putty knife can be used for this task. But be careful: The underside is also held by a number of plastic hooks, which break easily.

Once you removed the bottom tray, you will gain access to the RAM, hard drive, WLAN module, battery, and fan. The latter can be removed for cleaning. The IdeaPad features two RAM slots, which are both occupied by a 4 GB module. Only 2.5-inch hard drives with a height of 7 mm will fit into the computer. The battery can be removed too. It is fixed by two screws and connected to the motherboard by a plug. It is even possible to replace the CPU, which sits in a socket.

richy

Ok so I ordered the laptop you recommended but almost immediately found this one http://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/lenovo-z50-70-intelreg-coretrade-i7-processor-8gb-ram-1tb-hard-drive-8gb-ssd-wi-fi-156-inch-laptop-with-4gb-dedicated-graphics-silver/1409811882.prd . This seems like a far better deal. 672 euro is what the one you recommend comes to when irish vat and currency conversion comes into place whereas that one I showed comes with a i7 and a newer graphics card as well as more ram and an ssd. Am I missing something here. I done some research om the graphics card and the processor and they seem to be as good if not better than the one from amazon with only a 100 euro difference. Should I cancel my amazon order and order the z50-70 instead? I'll post the comparisons below

richy

http://www.game-debate.com/cpu/index.php?pid=2065&pid2=1941&compare=core-i7-4510u-2-core-2-0ghz-vs-core-i5-4200m-2-5ghz

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gt-840m-vs-gt-740m/

TerrorFirmer

The i7 and GT840 is going to offer you far better performance, the Z510 jumped in price though which takes a lot of the value of it, it was 499 at the time of posting.

Have a look at Pc Specialist maybe if you plan spending that sort of money. You can configure laptops to suit your spec's, and they offer the option to buy them without OS with takes a good chunk off the price.

It's hard to call sometimes, because offers on sites can change daily, and by the time you've settled on one, it could have gone up, while another could have gone down, etc.

richy

I had a look at pc specialist but I decided to order the new one I found on littlewoods. Thanks for the help

TerrorFirmer

It's a good machine for the money, wouldn't have thought of Littlewoods for laptops at all but it's a very competitive price that's hard to beat for that spec.

richy

Ya neither did I. Was just price checking the one you showed me and littlewoods came up with it so had a look through the other lenovos that came up. It was reduced from 1200 to 800 and as far as I can tell it's a brand new range out so either I'm lucky/they've made a mistake in pricing/it's actually **** and priced correctly. I'll find out either way haha. What does the 8gb ssd cache do? Will windows be installed on it to make it quicker? Couldn't really find any reviews online of it either or at least the exact model so that worries me a bit.

ED E

The SSD cache will pull the most commonly used files in the background so that they read faster. Typically it will mostly end up being windows files (helps with boot times).