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

SSD or Seagate Momentus XT would be a good upgrade from the slow stock hard drive.

 

Just keep an eye out for deals on the Kingston V+ 96GB which you can frequently buy for $100 with rebate. And periodically find the WD SiliconEdge Blue 256GB for $250. I got the WD SE Blue for $200 on a firesale from Newegg. Not the fastest drive but better than any HDD. Otherwise a Momentus XT would be a good alternative, 500GB 7200RPM with 4GB SSD "smart read cache" for $100-120.

 

Okay I was a little squeamish using K10STAT and the mountains of reading did not help

Found this kid on you tube who goes through the entire process and damn i got it

How To Overclock/Undervolt AMD Llano A-Series APU/FUSION CPU ( A4, A6, A8 ) A6-3400M HD 6520g - YouTube

There are things he does not cover but if like me you need to see it work this video does that

 

Where in the world actually sells AMD mobile processors? I can't even find a place that is selling just the A6-3410MX CPU/APU. Really just wanting to find a ballpark for how much that particular upgrade would cost.

 

+1. heckuva drive. silent as death, low power consumption, wicked fast for a 7200, cool.
i'm waiting for the hybrid prices to wane a tad also... that should be candy

 

put a persistent search in Ebay. they come and go fast

 

Anyone know what the battery life is on this thing? I see roughly 4-5 hours but that's what's shown on the store's website. What's the real battery life under:
- heavy load (games or something similar)
- light load (web browsing, ...)
- idle

And if you can include any relevant settings such as screen brightness, wifi on/off, etc.

 

I think someone reported like 10-12 hours idle? That was with undervolting though. You'd have to read through the forum to double-check that, but I believe its within the first 20 pages. Might also include figures for light browsing (again, undervolted).

 

Do you by chance have any info about not undervolted (just because I'm getting it for my mom and I don't want any extra stuff running to confuse her)? I'll keep looking through the thread and post back if I can find anything.

 

Nobody is going to get 10-12 hours on idle especially with a 6-cell battery. It's proabably a 54WHr battery and would have to consume < 5W to exceed 10 hours. If you're lucky you can get it to consume only 9W, that would mean 6 hours, and idle only at lowest screen brightness with wifi off. With undervolting at best you're knocking off 2W, and that's at peak. At idle you're looking at maybe saving 0.5W-0.75W at best.

The one I had would run 4-5 idle or light use, but realistically 3.5-4 hrs. It barely exceeded 2 hours when running netflix.

 

Are you talking about the DV6 in your sig or did you also have the Asus? Never mind, I see the K53 link.

 

In any case, doesn't matter. Even a netbook won't see 5W on idle, at least not with the screen and wifi on.

 

I'm probably mistaken HT, you definitely know this system better than I. I just seem to recall someone posting something that seemed pretty high for idle times way back near the beginning of this thread.

I haven't really used my laptop much since I got it but plan to use it over the next few days now that my finals are over. I'll try to remember and post some numbers.

 

First post here, please don't crucify me!

I am wanting a laptop for school, and stumbled upon this link from the Asus laptop comment box on the bestbuy site.

I'm debating between this Asus and the other Asus with i5
ASUS - Laptop / Intel® Core™ i5 Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Brown Suit - K53E-BBR9


I am not a gamer, but obviously I'd be interested in enhancing the performance of the A6.

A few questions:

Is overclocking/undervolting easy to learn for a newbie?

Would this computer still be preferred if I wasn't a gamer, but just looking for a good speed? Would the I5 be just as fast?

I am interested in doing some music production, and HD video editing in the future. Would this laptop still be something recommended?

What are your thoughts on the Asus I5 link I posted?

Thanks, and sorry for the simple questions. I was overwhelmed with the 97+ pages of this thread.

 

Not the same laptop. The K53E is junk, K53TA is what you want.

 

yes that's normal. it's supposed to be choppy.

for school, you don't even need anything above an intel B940.

that asus i5 is just a stripped laptop with a powerful cpu. it plays many games competently on low settings. but everything else is stripped. Doesn't even have usb 3

idle, undervolted by 0.03 volts, with screen off most of the time, wifi on, I get 8 hours with 10% juice left.

that being baseline, if you capped the cpu at 1ghz, set lcd to dimmest, you could probably get 6 hours light load.

 

How is the K53E junk? If you don't game the i5 is a great CPU and is faster than the stock clocked A6.

 

Little advice from you who are more savvy with the program?



Completely stable but I would like to try for more

 

knock yourself out

 

Yeah, it's not like the K53E is just junk, but for a machine with a core i or AMD A series CPU, you can spend much less and get as good of a machine. For instance HP G4-1117dx is $379 and has an A4 at bestbuy. MicroCenter has Toshiba C655Ds with AMD E series APU/CPUs for $279 or so.

The K53E is just too expensive for what you get.

Also, an AMD A4 or A6 can actually game ok on things like Crysis with lowest settings and resolutions, while the core i GPU will be doing a slideshow on crysis.

 

$380 for an A4 is too much
the graphics are further gimped, and only on par with intel HD3000.
the dual core cpu is also weak. I wouldn't even mention the A4 in the same sentence as the i5 or the i3.

for that price, you can get a core i3 sandy at Fry's.

 

Can we replace the A6 with an A8 ? ? ?

 

What do you mean the K53E is "junk?" It seems like you're so easily throwing that term out there. The K53E is a nice computer. It has a nice, fast, second gen i5 processor. Of course, no dedicated graphics, so it would not be good for gaming.

ClaritySeeker, this is basically the same thing as the TA but with a second gen i5 instead and NO dedicated graphics.

 

and no high speed ports.

if you ever get a portable ssd, have fun with usb 2.0.

 

Why would you have a portable SSD? Cost prohibitive.

 

I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you want to use animated wallpapers on your Asus, seriously look at MatthiasmVideos's 3d animation work on youtube. He does some awesome particle animations that are truly beautiful art.

Asus K53TA Particle Video Wallpaper - YouTube

 

Does anyone know where to get one right now? My macbook pro is 2 years old and I want to go back to a windows laptop with graphics and this is a perfect buy. Thanks!

 

^^^Go to Best Buy and make them order one for you... Otherwise you won't be able to get one since it seems like Best Buy doesn't have any in stock at most stores.

 

Sounds like the definition of junk to me. Overpriced junk. I guess some people like paying more for less?

 

Haha! Amazing how this Asus has shifted our price:quality expectations . When I was looking for a laptop less than a month ago, $450 was about the minimum you could find a new, decent quality i5 laptop for. Granted, NONE of those would include game playing graphics solutions/dedicated gpus. After finding this (can I say epic?) deal, it's hard to justify paying that much for anything that DOESN'T have dedicated graphics now. The next best thing I could find when buying this one was a Dell laptop with i5 2410 and nvidia geforce graphics used on ebay for $500, which I would've bought otherwise. Gotta say the Asus looks way cooler/sexier than the Dells.

 

are any of you still bothered by the grainyness on certain shades of colors ?

i plan to go to best buy one day and check out the other K53e laptops, which have the same chimei screen, and see if they have grainyness on this page- http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

i just sent asus another email begging them to fix the vbios to eliminate grain

 

The black color problem is actually more irritating than I thought it would be before I got this top. Also, i still get the screen tearing that people said was fixed in the latest bio patch (note that it only happens on 2.3 OC after running it for a few hours).

 

I went to bestbuy and apparently it is discontinued from Asus. I'm in california and it seems the nearest bestbuy with it is an hour away.

Thank you for the reply. While I do want a laptop for school, I am also interested in doing some music production and HD video editing in the future with whichever laptop I get. So I'm still looking for the best laptop I can get in the $550 and lower price range.

So the Toshiba C655Ds AMD E series is comparable to the Asus i5 (K53E) in your opinion?

Thanks for your reply. One thing that confused me.. an employee at Best Buy last night told me the K53E was second gen i5, then today two employees at Best Buy told me the K53E was first gen.

Basically they said an orange sticker shows its second gen, and a blue sticker shows first gen according to them, but that they were all out of 2nd gens. So that obviously left me confused.

On another note, I hear the second gen i3 is comparable to the first gen i5?

 

I would gladly drive an hour right now to get one. I bought one for my brother and now I'm wishing I'd gotten one for myself. Here's hoping the K43TA shows up someday.

No, the A6 is about even with a 2nd gen i3, an A8 can just about equal a 2nd gen i5 and both handily beat the HD3000 IGP of the 2nd gen core i CPUs. However, an A4 is about 60 to 70% as fast as a 2nd gen i3, and about 50% as fast as a 2nd gen i5. It's no match in raw CPU horsepower. However, for things like flash playback, web browsing and regular usage it's fine. It really depends on what you want your machine to do tho. As a gamin machine the A4 is just too weak really.

The E series is even slower than the A series, but uses less power. They're just examples of decent, inexpensive machines that can do what most folks want for way less than the K53E.

 

I recommend you spend some time reading reviews and articles at Tomshardware:
Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews
Don't trust Best Buy to have up-to-date, correct information. The salespeople do not do independent research; they are taught highlights about some tech features from Best Buy's Corporate office and sometimes from the manufacturers.

The short answer is that the sandy bridge processors outperform the amd A series in computing. If you aren't going to do any gaming, the intel is a good machine and is by no means "junk." I do not recommend an e-series processor, period.

 

Amen!

When I got this machine the sales guy asked "so is there a reason you wanted the K53TA specifically?"

I told him I had read reviews and really like the idea the cpu would clock from 1.5 to 2.6 Ghz and the fact it was radeon cross fired.

"O no that machine does not do that you must have heard wrong here let me show you........."

He tries to lead me to a machine tagged at 1200 bucks.

"Can I see a manager?"

"Sure but I am sure I can help if we discussed it more?"

He calls a manager I say:

"Is this machine (I pull out several printed papers on the K53TA) in your store?"

Manager digs it from the back and I never saw the original blunder head again.

 

Have We Confirmed We Can Put An A8 In Here

 

You need the latest asus chipset drivers. Was getting tearing before I updated. Others also reported tearing is fixed with the new drivers. I really don't think I've ever noticed the black grain thing you guys are talking about.

As far as benchmarks go, the asus with A6 processor rivals, and sometimes beats, the i5 in multithreaded tasks. Mileage with this computer is mainly determined by the multithreaded support in the programs you run. Single core performance in this machine lags, but when its able to use two or more cores for programs it flies. When overclocked, the A6 is still slower than an i5 in video encoding though, such as with windows movie maker. But I guarantee you as computer software continues to develop, a lower clocked quad core will become increasingly more useful/powerful than a speedy dual core. And if you multitask like I do, a quad core is the only way to go without having to limit yourself with open programs .

 

Thanks for the reply,

What do you think of this Toshiba L755D (A6) for the same $449 price as the K53TA:

Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / AMD A-Series Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive - Matrix Silver
Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / AMD A-Series Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive - Matrix Silver - L755D-S5218

 

Dude at best buy asked me the same thing why I decided on the machine, I bs'ed and said it was for my wife and I already had one, he then goes on to say that you know females and you better buy the protection plan from them lol, he then tried to sell me everything under the sun

 

LMAO. Geez! What an a-hole. My local bestbuy was fortunate to have a really cool, knowledgable dude working in their computer dept. (and trust me, all the rest of them were lame brain Neanderthals). I had called the store earlier in the day to reserve the asus (just hours after learning about it on the net the first day it came out, lol), and when I got there to look at the other computers they had as a final check, he actually directed me straight for the asus when I mentioned my needs, and seemed pretty hyped about it too.

 

Hopefully this is the new future trend: Llano notebooks with iGPU and dedicated graphics for under $500.

Can't wait to see what AMD does with the 7000 mobile series + 2nd gen Llano based CPU's with 7000 series iGPU's. The 6970m and 6990m already destroy all of Nvidia's high end mobile gpu's in terms of performance/$, and I really think they can take the low end and mid range gaming laptop market by storm with awesome, beefier machines in the vein of the K53TA.

I'll never buy another Intel-based laptop with crappy integrated graphics again, and thankfully AMD is rewarding me for that decision.

 

looking at this

NEW AMD A8-Series A8-3500M AM3500DDX43GX 4M 1.5GHz | eBay

 

I thought most CPU on laptops are soldered...?

 

Not usually. GPU's typically are, mainly because there's fewer options than CPU's.

 

Personally, I'd only bother upgrading to an mx APU. Yea, the A8 3500m has a better integrated gpu, but the real performance gains over an a6 in more general use will only come from being able to use the 1600mhz ram, which is only possible on mx llano APUs. The faster ram will make the whole system faster (more significantly in gaming because of iGPU bandwidth), but the clocking potential of a 3400m and 3500m are the same.

 

AMD Quad-Core Laptop CPU 1.9GHz FS1 uPGA A8-3530MX | eBay

but can it use it?

 

I WANT TO KNOW, ONE RUNS 35W THE MX 45W

 

for music and hd, definitely get the i5.

it's well within your budget.

 

It's annoying, yes. I'm not terribly bothered by it, though, at least not enough to make me want to return the system or anything. If it'll help, I'd be happy to send a message to Asus. I would also suggest making a post on their forums if that has not been done so already.