Acer Aspire AS5740g-6454 review and 1st impression!

This will be my first review on these forums so be nice and i will ad pics later!

Background:

I am a big Asus g-series fan since getting a g51vx-a1 gaming laptop needless to say i sold it and have a g73 on preorder and an m11x due both next month.
In the meantime they keep pushing EDD on both so I need to game right? and since I sold my beloved G51 (early Feb) and was currently using either a vaio fz470 OR an asus f3sv to game.
I wasn't happy with the results i was getting raidwise in WoW ,basically all settings set to low

I looked around for a cheap laptop with these specifications:

better than average cpu, gpu with dx11 support, HDMI and cheap

I looked at other offerings from Asus but many i was looking at N61/N71 were also on pre-order sad times indeed.

surfing the local comp store web I decided to search for something with the ati 5650 which i read got great reviews for gaming.
up pops the 5740 and its big brother 7740
since i wanted cheap i opted for the 5470:
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=25544
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50106&vpn=LX%2EPMB02%2E257&manufacture=Acer


specs:
2.26-GHz Intel Core i5-430M CPU
15.6-inch (1366 x 768) display
4GB of RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 GPU (with 1GB of video memory)
500GB HDD
8X Super Drive
Memory card reader
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
Webcam
Multi-gesture touchpad
Four USB ports and HDMI
15.1 x 9.9 x 1.0-inch body
6.1 pounds

while i wasnt happy with the resolution of the LCD upon looking at it there were great horizontal angles but the vertical left alot to be desired.
The colors were surprisngly rich and vibrant (to my eye) and truth be told i usually hook up my lappies to a 24" 1080p lcd for gaming
(hence the hdmi requirement and another reason why i didnt opt for the more expensive 7740)

keyboard layout is good and has a responsive feel to it, the left shift to me is only the size of a regular key, and would have been better served by shortening the right shift and giving that over to the left.
Nice power/wireless/bluetooth(notinstalled)/backup(useless IMO) button layout and the "p" button while convenient ( it opens up a program of your choice) was mistaken by a few including myself as the power button
placement of builtin mic(on keyboard) is different (to me) but i like it where it is above the f11 key rather than on the lcd bezel.

the multi-gesture touchpad is actually quite responsive and big. and has a great toggle button located just to the right of the touchpad and IMO a better location.

the vent is located in the back of the machine another great placement, and for those of you that don't use e-sata, pcexpress and the other ports w/e they are called,
this puppy has the line-in,mic,line-out(sp-dif) on the left side (great for gaming!) and moving back 2Xusb, vga, hdmi, ethernet, adapter port.

front left side is the card reader, unlockbutton mid way and on the right side moving front to back is 2Xusb, ODD,modem(another useless feature IMO and the kensington lock slot.

now before i bore you with other things you guys probably already know i must say the one thing that really impressed me the most is the build quality.
While it is made of plastic it is hard plastic and i have no qualms of holding it one handed from the front left or right corner, pretty good Acer!

Not only that but i was expecting the color of the back lcd bezel to be a very light blue, in fact it is a dark navy and looks professional
( though that thing has got me wiping it down all the time and if you are OCD like me you probably wont like how it attracts fingerprints like flies on...well you get the point.

i wasn't happy at all with it having ONLY a 500gb 5400rpm HDD 5400RPM!!!! so i switched it out for a ocz vertex the same night i got it LOL
and the flimsy feel of the Back LCD bezel when i clean it( don't ever accidently sit on this baby!) especially since the base was so sturdy

here are the specs and the WEI


as you can see it other than the memory score it rates pretty high according to WEI (FYI the stock drive rated as 5.8)

now to some game results, I only have WoW currently installed but CODMW2 will soon be on too.

this shows you my resolution settings:
if you notice its in windowed mode at 1080p and I am getting 33fps ( goes from25-80 depending where in dalaran you are)

this shows you with game settings to ultra and fps can be seen at the top right again in dalaran North bank on a horde dominated server:


it shows at 19 and went from 15-50fps in Dal on ultra again quite playable,

I usually turn shadows and weather to the lowest and here:


im getting about 35 and it went from 30 to 70+ depending where i was at in dalaran. i forgot to take screens during Ony but i will do it for ICC10 on sunday and add it here

FYI gaming/test was done with all stock drivers and processes running


Im summary, this laptop is surprisingly quite competent for something that costs below 800cdn. If you don't use any of those missing ports, and are looking at this laptop already,
i would say jump onboard! You wont be disappointed!

Having newer cpu and gpu and getting rid of the frills makes this one a catch.

I paid just under 885cdn after taxes in Vancouver, Canada and it was worth every penny.

I will be adding pics in the near future and slowly installing different games i have for testing.

updated temp pics---this was on battery on balanced power settings during the course of a 2.5-3 hour workshop
*battery life is not bad on balanced setting lasting me the whole session of a powerpoint and through a long workshop which was 3 hours long and at the end i still had about 1.5 hours left on battery *
this ss was taken about 1.25 hours into the workshop:

one hour later:


*requested* Cinebench r10



i don't know Cinebench so if there's something i should do or settings LMK in any case are the scores good?

Sandra Benches(ill clean it up after i put everything in)

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Aggregate Arithmetic Performance : 30.5GOPS
Dhrystone iSSE4.2 : 37GIPS
Whetstone iSSE3 : 24GFLOPS
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Windows Experience Index
Current Processor(s) : 6.7
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Speed
Aggregate Arithmetic Performance : 12.74MOPS/MHz
Dhrystone iSSE4.2 : 15.42MIPS/MHz
Whetstone iSSE3 : 10.06MFLOPS/MHz
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Power
Processor(s) Power : 25.00W
Aggregate Arithmetic Performance : 1219.64MOPS/W
Dhrystone iSSE4.2 : 1476.40MIPS/W
Whetstone iSSE3 : 962.92MFLOPS/W
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Result ID : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz (2C, HT, 2.4GHz 5% OC, Turbo, 1.73GHz IMC, 2x 256kB L2, 3MB L3)
Platform Compliance : x64
NUMA Support : No
SMP (Multi-Processor) Benchmark : Yes
Total Test Threads : 4
Multi-Core Test : Yes
Cores per Processor : 2
SMT (Multi-Threaded) Benchmark : Yes
Threads per Core : 2
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0 P0C1T0 P0C0T1 P0C1T1
System Timer : 2.2MHz
Number of Runs : 64000 / 640

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz
URL : http://www.intel.com
Speed : 2.4GHz
OverClock Factor : 5%
Peak Processing Performance (PPP) : 19.15GFLOPS
Adjusted Peak Performance (APP) : 5.75WG
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Dual-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 2x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 256kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L3 On-board Cache : 3MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 12-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 4 threads sharing

Memory Controller
Integrated in Processor : Yes
Speed : 1.73GHz

Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : Yes
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : Yes
SSE4.1 Technology : Yes
SSE4.2 Technology : Yes
AVX - Advanced Vector eXtensions : No
FMA - Fused Multiply/Add eXtensions : No
SSE4A Technology : No
FMA4 - 4 Operands Fused Multiply/Add eXtensions : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : Yes

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Aggregate Multi-Media Performance : 59MPixel/s
Multi-Media Int x16 iSSE4.1 : 67.37MPixel/s
Multi-Media Float x8 iSSE2 : 50.78MPixel/s
Multi-Media Double x4 iSSE2 : 27.5MPixel/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Windows Experience Index
Current Processor(s) : 6.7
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Speed
Aggregate Multi-Media Performance : 24.68kPixels/s/MHz
Multi-Media Int x16 iSSE4.1 : 28.14kPixels/s/MHz
Multi-Media Float x8 iSSE2 : 21.21kPixels/s/MHz
Multi-Media Double x4 iSSE2 : 11.49kPixels/s/MHz
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Power
Processor(s) Power : 25.00W
Aggregate Multi-Media Performance : 2363.08kPixels/s/W
Multi-Media Int x16 iSSE4.1 : 2694.88kPixels/s/W
Multi-Media Float x8 iSSE2 : 2031.28kPixels/s/W
Multi-Media Double x4 iSSE2 : 1100.12kPixels/s/W
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Result ID : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz (2C, HT, 2.4GHz 5% OC, Turbo, 1.73GHz IMC, 2x 256kB L2, 3MB L3)
Platform Compliance : x64
NUMA Support : No
SMP (Multi-Processor) Benchmark : Yes
Total Test Threads : 4
Multi-Core Test : Yes
Cores per Processor : 2
SMT (Multi-Threaded) Benchmark : Yes
Threads per Core : 2
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0 P0C1T0 P0C0T1 P0C1T1
System Timer : 2.2MHz
Rendered Image Size : 1920x1080

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz
URL : http://www.intel.com
Speed : 2.4GHz
OverClock Factor : 5%
Peak Processing Performance (PPP) : 19.15GFLOPS
Adjusted Peak Performance (APP) : 5.75WG
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Dual-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 2x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 256kB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
L3 On-board Cache : 3MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 12-way, Exclusive, 64 byte line size, 4 threads sharing

 

Thanks for the review. I ordered one today and I hope it will arrive in a few days. My configuration has the same CPU and memory but it has the slower Radeon HD5470 and the larger 640 GB hard drive. Since I don't play videogames on the notebook, I don't mind the slower GPU.

The modem is a useful feature to me. As old school as it sounds, I wouldn't mind a S-Video out, too. On the other hand, I never used the PCMCIA/ExpressCard slot or the Firewire port on my previous notebooks so I doubt I'll miss those features this time around.

How are the temperatures and the battery life under light usage (reading PDF and such)?

 

Pretty surprising to me that you've managed such a decent frame rates in 1080p with stock GPU freqs.
You may want to check out AMD GPU Clock and overclock 5650 to at least 650/800- the level of HD5730- as this card has some great overclocking potential.
Gentleman from Spain managed to get 8600 3D Marks06 (1280x768) out of it and that was with Core i3 starting from default value of 7000 3D Marks06.

Thanks for input- you are another person very pleased with the quality of the laptop and I'm very glad to hear that as I think I'm gonna buy me one in a few days.

 

Hi!
I have Acer Aspire AS5942G ( very similar to 5740G) but when I press the Backup shortcut button - it just blinks few times and does nothing.

What happends when you press it?

Am I missing some software ?

 

@mordin added temps pics for somewhta medium usage

@downloads - you and me both, i was pleasantly surprised at the great rates i was getting in WoW(though wow is more cpu reliant) i believe the SSD had a lot to do with it, in any case i definately recommended this laptop for its versatility(home/office/gaming) and price point. I do like to OC but i don't think i will on this puppy as it was only supposed to be my "temp" laptop, and im more than happy with the performance atm,though as the days go by i might just keep this and tinker!

@vazmuten the "backup" button opens up "Acer Backup Manager" program for me, might wanna see that if you make the app disc, if it shows up on there?

 

OC is part of the game in case of this laptop. It's 25% power for free and adds some 5-6*C to the GPU temperature (stays at around 70*C OCed).
Also quick look on the TDP of this card conforms that it's not limited by temperatures but by voltages.
That said- if you don't need it- just don't do it. It's not really needed for testing as I've already seen many cases of overclocked Aspire 5740G and I know what can be done.
My post was more of an information for you as you may need some more fps for 1080p than a request for a test.
I'm glad you like the laptop- especially quality wise.
I will make a purchase as soon as I finish a project (new toy doesn't help with work that has to be done you know )

 

According to the Acer's web site my Acer Aspire 5942 notebook should have a list of Application software on it:

* Acer Arcade™ Deluxe featuring Cinema, Album, Music, Acer HomeMedia
* Acer InstantOn Arcade
* Acer Bio-Protection
(only on models with fingerprint reader)
* Acer Crystal Eye
* Acer GridVista™
* Acer Launch Manager
* Acer Backup Manager
* Acer PowerSmart Manager
* Acer Recovery Management
* Acer GameZone
* Acer Video Conference Manager featuring Video Quality Enhancement (VQE)
* McAfee Internet Security Suite 60-day trial version
* Adobe® Reader®
* NTI Media Maker™
* Microsoft® Works 9.0 with Office Home and Student 2007 Trial

The software should also be on the Application/Driver CD - but there are only drivers there. I contacted the Acer support team and they said I should wait until they put all the Application software on their download section. Currently only Launch Manager and ePower software are there.


Would You please send it to me or provide me a link to the Acer Backup Manager or AppCD ?

 

You can modify the backup button to launch other programs
If you want the backup to function as usually you have to install the backup application.

 

How could I modify it?
Ok, but where to download the software that should come with my Notebook from ? It's not on the Acer's support site.

 

Thanks mk1, really useful additions to your review. The battery life is very good for this category of notebook. It would be great if you could had some SiSoft Sandra 2010 and Cinebench R10 scores to your review.

 

Regedit
It should be in the launch manager registry entry if you are on 64bit then you have to check in the 32bit to 64 bit compatibility entry.
If you want the recovery software it should be in the recovery partition.

 

Yes, I found the registry Entry: It's in the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Compal\LManager] hive and I fixed it.

No, there is NO recovery partition. It's AS5942G but no recovery partition. That's why I'm asking for the applications listed on the Web Site.

 

looking for my copy of sandra....its somewhere LOL....
i will also try to find Cinebench will post soon

 

Passmark PerformanceTest (30 days trial) has some good synthetic benchmarks as well. I'm running benchmarks right now on my current notebook and desktop to see how they compare with this one.

 

cinebench is up though i don't know anything about it :/

which sandra benches you want up?

 

Thank you for the Cinebench results! For the sake of comparison, my current notebook with a Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2 GHz) takes 3:06 (versus 2:01) minutes to complete the multithreaded test and scores 4737 (versus 7287) points. It's a very nice 53% speedup, especially when considering my notebook was significantly more expensive than this one when I bought it two years ago. Cinebench is an interesting benchmark because it also shows the speedup when moving from a single thread to multiple threads. My processor has a speedup of 1.83x, versus 2.21x of the new Core i5 processor. This is partly due to the HT technology which allows the processor to keep itself busy when waiting for memory accesses to complete.

It would be nice to include the following Sandra benchmarks:
- Processor arithmetic (integer and floating point)
- Processor multimedia
- Multicore efficiency
- Memory bandwidth
- Memory latency
- .NET Arithmetic
- .NET Multimedia

 

added a couple benches though ill finish it off later as it 530 am and i need sleep LOL and i forgot i had my lcd plugged in so ill do it disconnected tomorrow >_<

 

Don't worry about the connected LCD, it shouldn't make any difference since they are all CPU benchmarks (except the Cinebench OpenGL test).

Here is a comparison between the Core 2 Duo T7500 and the Core i5 430M in Sandra. The new architecture really shines in these tests, with a speedup varying from 43% to 89%. Very nice improvement, I didn't except such a large difference.

 

Any (subjective) comments on how much noise the laptop is making while in operation?

 

Just a quick note on the Windows Experience Index. The memory score is 5.9 because Windows 7 limits the score to 5.9 when less than 4 GB of memory are installed, regardless of the memory speed. On this notebook Windows can use only 3,86 GB. Probably there is a BIOS setting to let the operating system see all the 4 GB of memory. This will likely raise the memory score to the 7.1-7.2 range.

 

Can you please verify if the notebook supports Intel VT (Virtualization Technology)? It's supported by all the new processors, but it has to be supported in the BIOS, too. Unfortuantely software like CPU-Z just checks if it's supported by the CPU and don't check BIOS support.

To see if the computer supports VT you have to install a virtualization software of your choice and see if it can be activated.
1) VirutalBox: create virtual machine, select it, click settings -> system -> accelaration and see if you can enable VT-x.
2) Virtual PC 2007: look under File -> Settings -> Hardware Virtualization.
3) Windows VirtualPC: I think it doesn't install at all if VT is not supported.

Sorry to bother you, but it is a critical feature to me. Thanks in advance.

 

I got the notebook and it does support Intel VT.

 

Sorry, been busy with taking the family to the olympic clsing festivities downtown. Glad it does support VT and hope you enjoy your new lappy

 

How is the keyboard for typing on for long periods?

I'm a student and was looking at an asus k52f for $780, but for $800 I may as well get one of these (core i5, vs i3 and a proper video card) provided the keyboard is decent and the build quality is good. Had any issues? (ie: will it stand up to being carried around in a backpack every day?)
I'd mainly be using the laptop for classwork, but it would be nice to get something with some performance since it's similar money.

Thanks

 

I was looking at the k52jr (i5 model of the k52 series) as well but because the acer came with a better gpu(and dedicated mem to boot) I ended up getting this one

As i said the build quality of the base is quite sturdy, and there is little(if any) keyboard flex ....d'\[obgaO0ki28op=l;8usp';1h\bt61":<b v012D\B435EF374G1b\4
ebfLdz;\ma kba \\ ....that was my way of mashing and checking LOL

and typing for long periods is fine as long as you have the correct posture
i like the style of the keyboard also as i can take a air duster at the end of the day and blow everything out
there is a little play on the lcd cover (top of the laptop) but it will stand up to being in the bag with the books ...as long as you don't step or sit on the laptop your golden...but then again who would let that happen? XD

 

hey, is it possible to uppgrade the RAM on the computer?

 

as with any laptop yes it is provided you are using the same ram (DDR3)
it can take up to 2x4gb ddr3 sodimms

sorry for the late reply but this laptop is very quiet and then fans are quiet even at full speed compared to some.

 

why is only 3.86GB out of 4GB of memory usable? is there a bios option to enable full access, as mordin alluded to?

 

yeah thats an issue i would like to hear more on, I'm waiting on my 7740 with the exact same specs but a 17.3" display. I ended up playing $780 shipped for it, i wanted the 5470 but newegg wants $800 + tax + shipping, so close to $900 for it. Hopefully the $120 in savings is worth it.. i get a 1600x900 screen at the cost of size and weight .. i'm just praying this thing will fit in my bag.

 

drksun,

let us know about the RAM issue as this seems to be the only thing hampering an otherwise awesome mid range machine.

 

Hey thank you for the review, very well done.
Would it be too much to ask for someone who has one of these to take some pictures of it? mostly of the sides and keyboard and such.

I have one of these coming to me as my Acer 5672 was stolen and it was pretty much perfect in every way in regards to plug and key placement (heh im more picky about that than the specs inside >_<) So id just like to see what im getting into.

Thanks

 

sorry i forgot the pics :/

i took some quick ones with my blackberry at work and uploaded them!


CHeers!

 

Thanks Mk1freak for the thorough review
As you can see this is my first post and specifically registered to reply to this thread
I have been strongly considering purchasing this notebook as well

Just today I was at BestBuy in London, Ontario and the salesperson there saw I was looking at the Acer they have currently on sale - not the same model as this but similar (larger screen, weaker graphics card) and he commented to me that Acer tends to use cheap motherboards which he said is the part of a notebook most likely to need replacement (and the screen). Any way to verify the quality of the motherboard on a notebook?

 

without taking it apart no, but from what i've been able to see of the internals its looks like any other motherboard LOL i really feel as though i'm holding their flagship(mainstream) 15.6 laptop and i say buy it, you wont be sorry


i tend to ignore the salesnubs at bestbuy and take what they say with a grain of salt. They are more about selling "disposable" units IMO.
Truth to tell, for a laptop thats less than 900 and more than capable as a desktop replacement, i'm not too worried if the mobo or screen dies especially while its under warranty!

On another note:

What i really like is when i have the hdmi connected and i start the laptop (and close the lid) it automatically starts the laptop on the external screen, whereas my high end gaming laptops would take a lil while after the laptop had booted. Not too sure if this is to do with the ati (mostly nividia user here) gpu but i really like it as i can press the power button and close the lid.

I've also ordered an intel 5100 wifi card(halfsize) and will be updating the wifi card, I've also found the antennae to be somewhat weaker than my other laptops when i set it up in the same location, anyone one else notice or can tell me if they have the same issue?

 

Not the first time i've heard that about Acer motherboards, in fact I believe they use ECS boards which normally I would not touch with a 50' clown pole so if anyone can confirm or deny that please do.

However in my many years of experience as a technician I have seen VERY few failed Acer laptops and even then it usually was not the motherboard.
HP however...wow

 

mk1freak,

can you confirm if you can access all 4gb ram through a bios setting? otherwise i don't see much point in the laptop being upgradeable to 8gb if we are capped at 3.86GB.

 

BIOS reports full 4GB. It's windows that reports 3.86GB usable.

Not a good choice- Intel 5100 is notorious for causing problems. It would be better to buy Intel 5300 even without the third antenna.
My 5740G has Atheros card and reception is better than with my previous laptop (Broadcom card)

 

And now time for some benchmarks.
All test run with card OCed from default 550/750 to 670/900.
At this freqs card is perfectly stable and doesn't get too hot.
I see no reason not to overclock it as HD5730 is nothing more but factory OCed HD5650.
All tests run with Catalyst 10.3 Beta with default settings under Win 7 HP 64bit.

Crysis
1280x720, all details set to HIGH, 64bit, DX10, 30fps

With the same settings with only shadows set to MEDIUM framerate has increased to 35fps

3DMark06
1280x768, default settings


GTA IV
Custom settings
1366x768,
Texture quality: HIGH
Reflection resolution: MEDIUM
Water quality: HIGH
Shadow quality: OFF
Texture filter quality: LOW
View distance: 24, Detail distance:36, Vehicle density:22
Shadow density:0 (dynamic shadows are disabled- only static are on- just like in console versions)
Definition: ON, Vsync: ON

Game banchmark: 38fps
In reality framerate measured with FRAPS is similar (a bit higher though).
No slowdowns during car chases and such. You can probably improve on my settings and still achieve smooth playback- it's not really finetuned.
I decided to switch off dynamic shadows because I don't really pay attention to them during car chases. Similar thing with view distance and detail distance- you can't really see that far in the city so there is no point in keeping these values too high.

 

Hi,

Great contributions so far. I used GPU-z 0.3.9 to spec the 5650 but it reported 16 ROPs, can someone run this version of GPU-z and confirm this?

I'm thinking it's a bug as it should have 8 ROPs. Unless... they've used a high end variant but forgot to disable the ROPs which would be so awesome!

Cheers

 

You are right- it should be 8 ROPs, but mine shows 16 too.

 

Is there a fillrate test in the 3dmarks suites to confirm this?

Cheers

 

No need for that- there is no ATI core with 16 ROPs and 400 streams. Desktop model HD5670 is based on the same core that Mobility HD5650 and has 8 ROPs. It is just a typo.
There are fillrate test in 3DMark 06- if you want I can report the scores.

 

Yea, that'd be great. I don't have access to the laptop. Thanks for the Crysis benchies, now I can finally play it, haha.

Do you have any UT3 engine games you could bench, like batman, etc? Thanks

 

Fillrate single texturing 2598 Mtexels
Fillrate multi texturing 10490 Mtexels
(default freqs- no OC)
Now find something to compare it to

I hope Batman demo has a built-in benchmark like the full version does. It's on its way now but it's quite a big download.

 

Thanks for the data . What's the pixel fillrate (ie. Gpixels/s)?

 

No idea- 3D Mark 06 doesn't measure that in any test AFAIK.

EDIT:

Batman Arkham Asylum demo doesn't inslude a benchmarking tool so I've played a bit with FRAPS enabled.
With native resolution and everything set to high VSYNC was the limit- meaning 60fps most of the time.
Some 50fps during fights with multiple oponents.
Not my type of game but I gotta admit it has a great engine- looks great and doesn't require that much from a GPU.
It's possible that it gets more demanding at later stages but it should be pefectly playable at high settings anyway.
Again I tested with card overclocked to 670/900 (max temeperature 67*C)

 

yea i've actually change the order to the centrino 6200 halfcard afterwards

i have the atheros card as well wanna see how the new card performs

 

Right, then there must be some reason why the OS is not seeing the full 4GB, which is especially weird since the laptop is loaded with a 64-bit OS.

So I guess there is no BIOS option that allows the OS access to the full 4gb then?

 

I could be wrong but maybe this 3.86 usable issue could be related to the acer/ati system where it essentially doubles the ram of the card by using sytem mem?
I'm going to take a closer look at this sytem and what processes are being used, and if there is a way to disable it.
In any case, its worth a look.

 

possibly.....but even on my laptop, which uses x3100 integrated graphics, device manager still reports all the RAM usable.