K53TA.. The best deal ever... could be!

Wow, it looks like the Asus is no loner available for ordering on the website at all. They don't even have the reviews up anymore. I'm really curious if they plan to do limited releases like that normally, or if they're doing it because of some of the issues the laptop has had?

 

I'm more inclined to believe that Best Buy wasn't making enough money on these machines. I bet we'll see a new version of this notebook on their shelves in the near future with lower specifications at the same price point or similar specs but priced higher, maybe in the $500-550 range. The pricing of the HP dv6-6135dx (A8-3500M CPU), has been all over the place. It launched at $679.99, went up to $699, then to $749, down to $649 last week, and now it's back at $699.

 

ask your store if they can transfer the laptop from 100+ miles away.

I know they can do inter-store transfers, but you have to book it at your local store first. They might be willing to ship. doesn't hurt to ask.

looks like they didn't allocate enough to the great lakes. NYC and miami have too many. Check out zip code 33133 !@!#

 

Find a best buy with one in stock (call verify) go to your local best buy tell them this store (best buy) has the one you want. Then tell them you could possibly order it online, at this point ask if this store can do a deal with the store in stock?

I have done the above purchasing a 2005 Chevy Colorado and a 2005 trailblazer, the dealer I wanted to do business with got both trucks from the other dealers

 

With Street Fighter IV Arcade I get 3951 as the benchmark score with 45fps average on MAX settings (with 2xAA). Pretty damn good .

 

Im getting playable performance in just cause 2 and Modern warfare.

Settings cut down I can even play crysis 2

Older games pre 2009-2010 blaze

 

With street fighter it's more gpu intensive, and according to the in game benchmark thing you want to get at least 60 fps average (for an A score). I easily got that simply by turning AA off, everything else on max. I'd probably get another boost just by running it in window mode, if I could... Can't say enough how much I love this computer, lol.

 

Agreed I am even calling it a mid range gaming machine, I needed an excuse to buy another game so I just got COD MW 2 on steam. Probably wont be playing that on the laptop but I will have it for my desktop game rig

 

Anyone have any idea if the K53 board supports the 3500M A8? I'm not too interested in spending another $100 on this right now, but I'm sure over the next 6 months I could easily score one on eBay for $50.

The reason being that the ability to run 1600MHz RAM and the fully unlocked shader cores of the 6620g would improve crossfire dramatically. If you look at the Notebookcheck benchmarks, you'll see that the 6740g2 (6620+6650) beats both the 6720g2 and the supposedly higher 6755g2. The reason being that the two cards involved in the 6740 are much closer matched in memory access speed and shader counts than the other two dual graphics combos.

 

I think it's the A8/A6-mx APUs that support 1600 ram, isn't it?

*EDIT* Nvm, it looks like the 3500m supports 1600 ram. Hmm... Upgrading to that APU would be extremely appealing then. Either that or an A6-3410mx. How does one go about replacing a cpu... in a laptop?

 

yeah, i read that about hybrid crossfire. If it were possible to use software to cut the 6650m shaders down to 320, I wonder if we would get better performance.

however, it would still use alternate frame rendering, which sucks no matter what card combo because of stutter.

with all their genius, I wonder why they can't do split frame render like they did in the old days of SLI- Give 1/3 of the screen to the 6520g, and 2/3 to the 6650m, and have parallel processing rather than alternating serial processing.

 

Once you get the case apart it isn't much different than a desktop. Pop the heatsink off and swap. There's a disassembly guide back in this thread, but it's not for the faint of heart or clumsy of fingers. Still, it would be a worthy improvement down the road if you got the CPU cheap enough.

 

Does ship to store mean that best buy can get it? I have two friends mad to get one Gurnee Illinois still has "a few" in stock.

 

Well I am impressed!

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer - YouTube

 

If that's your video, it would help if you posted what in-game detail settings you used.

 

+1 to this, I'd be interested in putting the 3500M A8 in as well, especially if it's cheap and gives a performance boost + allows me to use 1600 Mhz RAM.

Edit: There's A8 3500m's on ebay for as low as $90.

 

It's odd, but since I turned off triple buffering and vsync, I don't get any stutter in Crossfire anymore in Deus Ex HR. The worst thing I get is that when loading big new scenes, the FPS will drop for a second as it's cached into VRAM. Other than that, buttery smooth.

 

According to CPU-world, you do need an MX for 1600MHz DDR3. So I was just going to go with the 3530MX since it's the highest end, so even though the core will be the same as all the others, it will be the best testing units so better overclock/undervolt. The 3530s are only $110-120.

If the 6740g2 is actually significantly better as the benchmarks seem to show, I would spend $150-200 a year from now for the 3530 and 8GB of 1600 DDR3. Too bad teardown is such a pain.

 

Disassembly guide here

http://gentechpcforums.com/Images/Manuals/K53 Series Guide Chapter 02-v1.0.pdf

here's another guide, with a more hands on approach

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/disassemble-asus-k-series-notebook/

I may open this bad boy sooner than later, want to re-paste my cpu. Have some Arctic Silver 5, but was told MX-4, may have to grab some...

 

Yeah, according to Anandtech the A8-35**MX and A6-34**MX models are the only ones to support 1600Mhz while the A4-33**MX still only supports 1333Mhz.

 

The link you posted is identical in data to the link at hp; they are a match.
Explain to the group your comment that the G4-1117dx has no GPU.

 

I'd be interested in what your average frame rate is with and without xfire.

the 6650m alone should play it smoothly

 

New competition for the K53TA:
Gateway NV55S02u Laptop Computer With 156 LED Backlit Screen AMD Quad Core A6 3400M Accelerated Processor White by Office Depot

limited time offer. $399

 

No dedicated GPU though.

 

After some study I think I understand this. Apparently Crossfire has a forced buffering built into the drivers that attempts to match the two frames as well as possible. Enabling Vsync on top of that adds an additional buffer and triple-buffering another. These don't match up well and cause the two GPU cores to post the screens at very different rates causing the 'super' micro-stutter.

BTW I finished DX last night. Kind of lame Fallout 3 style slideshow ending (what did CG suddenly become too expensive for the last 10 minutes of game?), but a fantastic game overall.

 

It has no dedicated GPU, the GPU is built into the CPU on the same die. So it is an additional core on the CPU chip, making it technically a quinta-core. It features no dedicated GPU (as in having it's own memory blocks) like the K53TA's hd6650.

 

No discreet GPU. The 1117, as well as the Gateway you posted, both have their GPUs built onto the processor. The K53TA has an integrated GPU and a separate, discreet one.

Beaten to the punch by HTWingNut and ryanlecocq.

 

To further explain things. A discrete GPU will not only have its own memory, it will have vram, or dual port RAM. this is ram that the GPU can access on its own bus WHILE the CPU accesses it via its own bus. For an Intgrated GPU, which is what the HP g4-1117dx has, there is only one memory bus and it is shared between CPU and GPU, thus halving it's performance right there.

HP may advertise the G4-1117dx as having a discrete class GPU, it is not a discrete GPU with its own memory.

 

1366x768
Anti Aliasing 2x
Refresh rate 60Hz
Shadows yes
Specular map yes
Depth of field yes
Soften smoke edges yes
Ragdoll yes
Bullet impact yes
Textures automatic

 

Oh nice! Those are way better than the one I would have posted. I used the second method. It's a little different than the K53 model in the guide, but same concept. Your heatsink will also look different because it covers the CPU and the discreet GPU cores (no GPU in the model shown). I might actually upgrade to the 3530MX sooner rather than later and be the guinea pig for that swap. When I do, I'll put Arctic MX-4 on it. The 3530MX is a 45watt TDP processor vs. the stock 3400M's 35.

EDIT: I wonder if you can upgrade the hd6650?

 

And no USB3.0, and quite an ugly design/color imo . I saw that in the store when I was looking for a laptop, and I just couldn't get down with it appearance wise.

 

But it can be had for $350 after office max $50 coupon. For $350, it makes a good beater laptop for most people.

did you take apart your laptop already?

does it have 2 separate heatpipes for the cpu and gpu ?

 

here is a picture of a k53 motherboard but as ryanlecocq stated, it's missing the heatsink for the gpu.

Here's the pic we're referring to

 

nevermind .

 

it might have a heatsink....

$50 for a usb 3.0 port [assuming it works] is appropriate pricing, imho.
all these models will be history in a very few months with ivy bridge and bulldozer hitting.

 

I'm getting this laptop tomorrow. I'd love to overclock it a little, but I never done or don't know anything about overclocking. Anyone here has some link to a quick guide I could do on this laptop to get better performance?

 

right.
If you can't R&R the graphics engine, its not distinct or discrete - in other words, you're married to it until you replace the APU [in this case].
The better distinction is the absence of dedicated VRAM, and there are significant diffs in how such vram is implemented, given your 'shotgun wedding'.

so that the average joe can distinguish, I'm attaching a side by side comparison.

 

Hey there, I've been reading over this thread for the last few hours and researching the K53TA and it looks like what I want at the price point I want. Whether or not I'm too late to actually get my hands on one is another story, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, I am under the impression that this laptop actually doesn't have a discrete GPU. That it, in fact, has two integrated GPU's on the same die as the CPU and, kind of like how Optimus works with an actual discrete NVidia card, the technology in this laptop runs the first integrated GPU until more horsepower is needed then enables the second integrated GPU, which runs in "Crossfire" mode or whatever it's called.

Am I understanding things more or less correctly? If not, can someone point out where this physically separate AMD 6650 actually is?

Please forgive me for being dense, guys.

 

The 6650 is on the motherboard, with it's own dedicated 1G of memory. It is not integrated. The 6520 IS on the same die as the CPU and is integrated and shares memory with the A6 CPU.

 

incorrect. if you're looking at the pictures, you will be misled. the k53 is a huge line. some with discrete, some with integrated.

the k53ta is both, and you can select the 6650m independently when playing games.
the 6650m chip sits a few inches away from the cpu.

 

These things are either selling like hotcakes or have really low distribution... the only one left in my area is in Kokomo!

And I've been experimenting with the Dolphin wii emulator. Able to to play Xenoblade at a pretty good clip, but not full speed. I may try increasing the speed past 2.2, but it starts getting finicky for me. Anyone else tried using the emulator?

Also, is anyone getting flex underneath the numpad?

 

Thank you for the prompt replies, Sxooter and Link626!

 

Download K10Stat (the latest version, allows you to overclock/undervolt), download CPU-Z (to monitor and make sure the clock speeds and voltages are correctly running), and follow the guide on the first post of the thread. Literally, if you mimic the profile in k10stat that's in the picture in that post, your laptop will be overclocked and undervolted like a champ. It may require some tweaking though, depending on how your laptop turns out.

Additionally, if you discover that your clock speeds aren't changing after you've enabled k10stat to change clock speeds, try uninstalling AMD Vision Engine Control Center, setting up the k10stat task to begin at start-up, then reinstalling the Control Center. Then, do not touch the CPU clock speeds in Control Center, or it could override your k10stat profile.

 

some units have it more than others.

but i asked about this, and you can remove the kb from the top, and apply a few pieces of sekisui frag tape to eliminate flex.
don't put too much frag tape, or else it will be hard to remove kb in the future. just enough to anchor the kb.

 

I've been meaning to try out dolphin. I've been playing with jpcsp java based psp emulator since day one of having this laptop, and I've been getting very playable results with Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. The emulator is already poorly constructed and acts as a cpu hog (as most emulators do, they're just not nearly as optimized as the actual game systems), especially with the game being one of the most difficult to emulate. Most computers really can't run it. It also relies solely on the integrated graphics or whatever reason, while I have only single channel ram running with 4gb. Despite all that, the Asus runs it smoothly enough to play and enjoy, and that means down to 10fps in heavy battles, up to 60fps in cutscenes.

I believe dolphin is more attuned to computer performance, and makes better use of 4 cores as well. As such, it should play pretty well on this system. But I haven't been able to test it yet.

 

It can only use 2 cores, meaning it only hits about 50% usage (a little more because audio is separate.) That does mean though that the quad doesn't help and the turbo doesn't kick in.... It is playable, but the cpu is holding it back. But this is the most advanced console emulator out there, so I guess that makes sense.


So does anyone know how to take the keyboard off?

 

I wonder if boosting the speed of 2 of the cores to 3.0Ghz or more while keeping the other two cores at low speed, and without high temperatures/instability is possible. You could increase emulator performance by locking the program into using the two sped up cores.

 

has anyone clean installed windows 7 on this ?

I'm trying to determine if there is a slic table in this so I can preactivate.

I have the windows 7 disc, but I don't want to go through telephone activation and crap

 

Yes, it has a 2.1 SLIC. Install away.

 

Well I did get KSTAT working then wound up with a 700mhz cpu a little gun shy now but will continue reading

Playing games last night the heat it was blowing out began to concern me and I thought to myself, "only if this thing had air flow across". Then the dvd door popped into my head, sure enough running with the door open made the machine run cooler