confused in Canada about new acer released?! help on specs please?

ok, found this newly released acer:

Acer Aspire 5742G-7220 15.6" Notebook - Core i5 i5-460M 2.53 GHz 1366 x 768 WXGA Display - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD - DVD-Writer - nVIDIA GeForce GT 425M - Webcam - Windows 7 Home Premium - 3 Hour Battery - HDMI

now I checked the acer canada specs and it said that the nVIDIA GeForce GT 425M was a dedicated card but at 2GB, can that be right? seems pretty good if thats the case, would gaming be any better? I wonder if this model is again exclusive to canada, lol.....any thoughts guys or gals?

 

We only get 5742G with GT420M in Malaysia, but with i5 560M...

 

Where did you see that? Link?

 

Nothing spectacular about GT 425M in most benchmarks it's behind ATI HD5650 but at least it's competitive. You can probably hope for some gains thanks to driver optimizations but so far it looks like GT240M against HD4650- nVidia released their card more than six months after ATI and still failed to deliver.

That said at least it's competitive but buying a notebook because it has one make no sense.
Some benchmarks to compare Geforce GT 425M, GT 420M and ATI HD5650 (take note that HP, Sony and Toshiba tend to undeclock ATI so don't look at average score)

 

here ya go:

1 retailer, there are a couple: LX.R8B02.002 | Acer Aspire 5742G-7220 Notebook | Canada's best price

here are the specs from acer canada: Products

just go the configurations tab and check the model, it says 2 gb vram!!

 

Thanks for the link.

What's even more impressive is the ~40 GB of turbocache and ~30 GB of shared memory.

Seems it might have been typed in a hurry. :laugh: Doesn't answer your question but makes the specs suspect.

 

Not sure if it's typed in a hurry, but vRAM amount tends to be less and less of a predictor of GPU performance. It's the vRAM speed that counts more.
I'd rather have 512MB of GDDR3 over 2GB of DDR2 any old day of the week.
The GT 425M is at least equipped with DDR3, but I betcha the card would be faster if it's packaged with GDDR5.

 

So you don't think having 30GB of shared memory on a system that supports up to 8GB of system RAM max is a typo?

The Technical specs seem to suggest a 420M with 1GB. idk, wait until they get it sorted out.

 

yes must be a mistake, lol

 

I think TehSuigi is right- they probably used the old trick of showing how much memory could the controller address (in theory).
Keep in mind that it's not the simple typo- 3GB is 3072MB so 30717MB is an unlikely typo just like 4GB is 4096MB so 40956MB requires two mistakes/typos in each value.

 

Well, according to Acer Canada's own product catalogue, the 5742G does indeed have a GeForce GT 425M 2GB DDR3. There's also a 1GB variant that can be found in the Aspire 5745G and 5745DG, and the product page for those models also include the ridiculous 30GB/40GB numbers.

Me personally, I'd look at the Aspire 5553G; Phenom II Quad-core 2 GHz, Radeon HD 5650, 6GB RAM, and only $50 more than the 5742G.

 

thanks, do you think the 5553G would be better gaming?

 

actually now I'm more confused, I checked a couple sites and for the 5553G model they have listed it says 4gb ram, can you give me the link for the model with 6gb ram and only like $50 more?? thanks!!

 

It's in the product catalogue I linked to: AS5553G-5221 is the model.
It'd be a close match in terms of gaming power - I can't speak to how strong the GT 425M is.

I'd just want it for the quad-core CPU: imagine what that'd do for my video encoding!

Oh, and in case anyone else doubts the 2GB GT 425M thing: Dell just announced one too, including a 3GB GT 445M.

 

I just purchased the 5742g-7220 in canada, and I confirm - THEY LIED! It only has a GT420M GPU core, even though everywhere the specs say 425M.

Really disappointed...

 

Don't be too disappointed, jerg. The GT 425M is just a faster-clocked GT 420M - no extra features or shaders or anything.
If you overclock the core by 60 MHz and the shaders by 120 MHz, voila! You've got a GeForce GT 425M!
(and those amounts are nothing when it comes to overclocking - my 9500M GS is overclocked by 160 MHz on its core when I'm gaming)

 

Oww, I thought that TehSuigi had confirmed 425m & 2GB VRAM.

jerg, or anyone else with 5742G-7220, would you please post GPU-z screen shot to bring some clarification to this thread, thanks.

Are you suggesting a 420 will overclock as high as an overcloked 425?

 

Dufus,

It's definitely a GT420M, I did check it with GPU-Z among other software, and also updated NVidia driver recognizes it as 420M. (edit: never mind here's the GPUz ss at bottom of post after the NVIDIAinspector ss).

As for overclocking, I'd say it's definitely binned MUCH lower than GT4 35M, since I've seen GT435Ms OC'd to ~750MHZ core clock while staying stable; with this GT420M OCing to 700MHZ core clock locks the computer up a few minutes into Crysis (tested several times lol).

Not sure about how it does against a GT425M. All I know is overclocking the GT420M up to 650MHZ core / 900 MHZ memory (same core clock as stock GT435M plus +100MHZ memory OC), on this laptop, is completely stable, thermal-wise and game-wise...stays well under 80 C even after 2~3 hours of nonstop action.

Still, think of it this way: the stock clock of GT425M vs GT420M is 60MHZ different. I've done extensive overclocking with my laptop so far, and boosting 60 MHZ in core clock (in stable ranges) will only boost fps in Crysis by maybe 0.5~1 fps. Say 600MHZ core clock vs 660MHZ core clock, the fps range goes from 18-35 fps, to maybe 18-37 fps. Absolutely negligible.



Edit:

Here's an NvidiaInspector screenshot, just as good:


Here's GPUz ss:

 

Thanks jerg, for the ss. I'm not doubting you but it should clearly show other perspective buyers what they might be getting. I did even suggest

I suppose it's also possible that they might have some with 425 and others with 420 with perhaps a "specification subject to change" clause as a get out of jail free card.


I have an idea how you might feel with the bad taste of feeling cheated left in your mouth. A similar thing happened to me and many others some time ago with a different brand laptop that was advertised by shops, internet and brochures as having a 9300m gpu when infact it was a 9200m. To make things worse it came with DDR2 instead of DDR3. Not that it was advertised as having DDR3 but instead they didn't bother mentioning what type of VRAM it was while competitors at the time with DDR3 did. I didn't return it and am still using it today having pretty much resigned myself to the same attitude as yourself.

 

Yeah trust me, I raged a LOT, when I was happily unboxing the damn thing a week ago, and the specs on the outer box saying GT425M suddenly changes to GT420M on the inside box lol.

Somehow I doubt there are GT425M ones out there; mainly it's because you know those clear plastic "here's what this computer's specs are" sticker on the inside of the laptop beside its touchpad? It clearly states that the laptop is a 7220, and that it contains a GT420M graphics card. Also, the metallic NVIDIA sticker beside that says "NVIDIA geforce (c) GT 420M CUDA 2GB".

It seems the error lies in Acer.ca website specs of this laptop, and basically all the Canadian retailers copy-pasted that wrong spec.

Really, this is exactly a 5742G-7200 laptop lol (a US-only one with EXACTLY same specs except there it is labeled as having GT420M on online specs).




edit:

Oh boy wish I'd seen TehSuigi's post before I bought this -,- that 5553G is such a sweet deal. And it'd cost me only $10 more vs what I paid for the 5742G since I shelled ~$30 on shipping for that, and ground shipping is free for this.

 

Following up on that, I've just decided to RMA the 5742G and buy the 5553G instead. The retailer for the 5742G was very reasonable and agreed to refund me without restocking fee because it's them that listed the GPU wrong. Crossing fingers hope for the best lol.

Edit: bahh never mind, too much procedure and risk of RMA rejected and the thing sent back to me, which would be very bad if I already bought the 5553G. I lose this one. :/

 

Hi; New guy here. I just purchased acer 7745-5782, and found discrepancies between the retailers tag and what specs sticker on the laptop says too. Retailer says, Intel Core i3-330m, sticker says, Intel Core i3-350M. Retailer says, GMA 4500MHD graphics adapter, sticker says, GMA5700MHD. All I can think is they left a tag up for an older model, not realizing the changes had occurred. Moral of the story, you can't judge a "book" by it's cover.

 

I take my words back. Haven't been able to sleep well last 2 days, and in the end (around 3am last night) I said "@#$%^&* it" and reformatted my 5742G for return merchandize, and bought the 5553G online.

The 5742G pickup was done earlier today and expecting the 5553G to arrive hopefully next monday. At least now I can sleep better, especially with final exams coming up lol.