New laptop, wondering about the processor

[firegremlin]

I'm starting university after the summer and got a new laptop for uni work and such. I'm also planning to use it for gaming as well. Looking at a couple of games on Steam, the specs seem good enough but I'n not sure about the processor.

It's an AMD Quad-Core A6-3430MX 1.7GHz processor and I was wondering if I'll be able to play most games on it.

If it helps, here are the rest of the relevant specs;

Memory
RAM Size: 8 GB
Computer Memory Type: DDR3 SDRAM

Hard Drive
Hard Drive Size: 750 GB

Graphics
Graphics Card Description: AMD Radeon HD 6520G + 7690M Dual GPU
Graphics RAM Type: DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Card Ram Size: 1 GB

[harland555]

Originally Posted by firegremlin

I'm starting university after the summer and got a new laptop for uni work and such. I'm also planning to use it for gaming as well. Looking at a couple of games on Steam, the specs seem good enough but I'n not sure about the processor.

It's an AMD Quad-Core A6-3430MX 1.7GHz processor and I was wondering if I'll be able to play most games on it.

If it helps, here are the rest of the relevant specs;

Memory
RAM Size: 8 GB
Computer Memory Type: DDR3 SDRAM

Hard Drive

Hard Drive Size: 750 GB

Graphics
Graphics Card Description: AMD Radeon HD 6520G + 7690M Dual GPU
Graphics RAM Type: DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Card Ram Size: 1 GB

According to notebook check your cpu turbo function OC to 2.4ghz you could confirm this by using cpu-z on a game and watch mhz change. If it does then a quad core will be fine (what games are you looking at playing and settings?) The gpu is good it a sli gpu so it be good for gaming =D

[HL2-4-Life]

Originally Posted by harland555

According to notebook check your cpu turbo function OC to 2.4ghz you could confirm this by using cpu-z on a game and watch mhz change. If it does then a quad core will be fine (what games are you looking at playing and settings?) The gpu is good it a sli gpu so it be good for gaming =D

Huh? SLi? Not on AMD cards you do! I believe it's using a Hybrid CF system, or when the leptop's being used for surfing, watching movies, office productivity work, the HD6250G's used, but when a GPU intensive program, like games, is being run, the HD7690M kicks into gear. Not 100% sure as laptop's not my thing.

[firegremlin]

Originally Posted by harland555

According to notebook check your cpu turbo function OC to 2.4ghz you could confirm this by using cpu-z on a game and watch mhz change. If it does then a quad core will be fine (what games are you looking at playing and settings?) The gpu is good it a sli gpu so it be good for gaming =D

Ok, I probably should have mentioned that I'm new to PC gaming because I really didn't understand the first sentence. What does the 'turbo function OC' do?

I play a wide range of games, not really sticking to any specific genre but I can leave the ones needing a more heavy duty processor to my xbox.

[harland555]

Originally Posted by firegremlin

Ok, I probably should have mentioned that I'm new to PC gaming because I really didn't understand the first sentence. What does the 'turbo function OC' do?

I play a wide range of games, not really sticking to any specific genre but I can leave the ones needing a more heavy duty processor to my xbox.

Turbo means it overclocks the cpu to make it run faster when your playing games or mutitasking. A turbo boost goes like this they made the card for 2.4ghz but the underclocked it to 1.7ghz for battery but it can still reach 2.4ghz when underload.

Not some thing to worry about.

Originally Posted by HL2-4-Life

Huh? SLi? Not on AMD cards you do! I believe it's using a Hybrid CF system, or when the leptop's being used for surfing, watching movies, office productivity work, the HD6250G's used, but when a GPU intensive program, like games, is being run, the HD7690M kicks into gear. Not 100% sure as laptop's not my thing.

I am not sure either but looking what he put . a little like nivdia optimus?

[firegremlin]

Originally Posted by harland555

Turbo means it overclocks the cpu to make it run faster when your playing games or mutitasking. A turbo boost goes like this they made the card for 2.4ghz but the underclocked it to 1.7ghz for battery but it can still reach 2.4ghz when underload.

Not some thing to worry about.

So I don't need to go into any settings and change something? It'll overclock to 2.4GHz by itself?

[ACJCLIGHTNING]

Originally Posted by firegremlin

So I don't need to go into any settings and change something? It'll overclock to 2.4GHz by itself?

Nope, does it by itself.

but the switchable graphics is different.
there are 2 modes, fixed and dynamic.

When its in fixed, you have to open up the graphics card option(appears when you right click on desktop) and pick which mode you want. This mode it required for you to overclock you GPU, if you wanted to of course. It is also helpful on Canyourunit.com... or org or net, not sure. It will actually detect your dedicated GPU insted of always detecting the low powered one.

In dynamic, it will change on a program by program basis. you can go into said graphics options and change the GPU each program uses. although if you have never used the program before it will automaticly select the best match. Almost all games will use the high powered by default, except maybe things like minecraft which use java. you will need to set it to use the high powered GPU on all java programs.

You can normally change these 2 in the bios. Its one of the few things I could change in my bios.
there you go.

[Zodiark1593]

In games that are threaded well, you should have few issues even with a slower clocked processor. Single or double threaded games may struggle with the slower cores though, that is on a per-case basis.

[firegremlin]

Thanks for the tech support guys, you've all been really helpful.