radeon 5650 , how is it good for a moderate gamer?

by moderate gamer i mean someone who don't game everyday but will certainly play gta4 @ some decent grafix and any call of duty that will come up in the future
i want to buy the hp dv6 3140 , it's well within my price range and i need to check the video card

 

I would wait since that the new DV6 is going to be launched, and it comes with a much better gpu, and some SB goodness.

The possible candidates for the refresh are the 6600 series and the 6700 series.

The 5650 is now rebranded as a 6500, so by the numbers alone you can guess that the performance is going to be much better.

Having said that, the 5650 has about the same performance as the 4670m which is the one I have, and yes I can play most games on high, medium if the game is pretty demanding (like BCB2), at the 1366*768 res, which I believe is the one that comes equipped in the DV6 that you are looking for.

 

Most games run great at medium to high settings @ 720p resolution.

 

short replies and straight to the point
thanks guys
did anyone try gta 4 on it ?

 

An ATI Radeon 5650 will do just fine for most games. Especially if you keep the resolution relatively low (1280x720 or 1366x768).

GTA4 is one of the rare games that depends quite a bit on the CPU. So in addition to the Radeon 5650, you'll need a relatively beefy CPU to run it as well. To give you an idea of the performacne you'd get, most Alienware M11x owners (Core i5 Ultra-Low Voltage CPU, and nVidia 335M (slightly slower than Radeon 5650), 1366x768 resolution) get around 30fps running at medium game settings. You can probably expect slightly higher numbers out of your laptop, because you will be running a more powerful regular mobile CPU (not a ULV CPU)

 

Check the link in my sig corresponding to the GPU ... but also add some fpses to the ones in the benchmark here & there since that was with the card launch & now drivers are better ... also watch out which HD 5650 you are getting since the cores are clocked differently from 450 to 600 in the deviltech & so far only the deviltech as far as I know ... make sure you get one clocked like 550 or something ...

I also have to admit the overclockability on that little bugger is amazing ... it differs from one GPU to the other but everyone can squeeze a little out of it

 

The minimum requirement for modern games will soon be a desktop 8800 GT, a chip which is now considered low-tier, for desktops. "Midrange" notebook GPUs are losing ground, and quickly.

 

FYI, it's been confirmed that the GDDR5 6770M will be used in the dv6. However, since they're trying to clear out some old stock right now (they just put the "old" SB Quad Edition from January back on the site, rather the redesign), the new model won't be released for another two weeks to a month. However, it's worth it, since it's theoretically 60% faster than the 5650 (assuming stock speeds).

 

that is actually good news! I just hope that the cooling is up to it.

Does anyone know the TDP of the chip or only notebookcheck? And how much is the power draw?

And if that is true, Nvidia is going to loose more ground in the mid range

 

There aren't any reviews yet, unfortunately, so I don't know anything about power consumption.

 

I think the AMD P840 1.9GHz Triple Core on the 3140 will be a bottleneck if you play GTA4 .

 

its going to be the bottleneck in any games. just check some anandtech reviews of the phenom II mobile line, those are terrible chips.

 

lol, right Maybe you should look at them yourself.

 

A core i5 and 5650 would do most games currently in 720p fine and may have 1-2 years of them in medium graphics.

A SAndy Bridge dual core and 6500+ / Nvidia 540m+ would probably do a little better and have more CPU room left in case more CPU games like GTA4 / SC2 come out

 

there is a clear difference in any games, I seriously dont understand what you are trying to imply. I have better performance with a P7350 and a 4670m than what you have with your DV6

 

I have a dv6 3050us and can happily say that it performs on par if not better then my g60vx (p7450 with 260m). In addition i have an Aspire 5552-5898 with a 4200 radeon with N830 and it doesn't choke at all on COD Black ops.

Heck if it had a 5650 in it would trounce my g60. Just because AMD is not top dog doesn't mean they don't offer great performance for the price.

-Npc1978

 

the difference in performance between the gtx 260m to the 5650 is huge.

 

I'm not saying that it isn't but COD blackops is very cpu intensive. Even with the latest patches I still get jerkiness on my p7450 (2.3 x2 Oc) vs N830 (2.1 x3) or N930 (2.0 x4.) As far as processors go its a great value for the price.

There are virtually no slowdowns at all when I play on the AMD counterparts.

-Npc1978

 

I'm implying that you're exaggerating that the Phenom II mobile line is "terrible" after you suggested I check the Anandtech Reviews. If the difference of 3-8 fps, in say... BC2 being the best case, between a AMD P920 4x1.6GHz and any core i5/i7 with the 5650 where all run greater than 30fps on Anandtech's Benches makes the Phenom II terrible, then you win though I'll still disagree. And please show the performance numbers comparing the N930 and P7350. I'm genuinely curious since I haven't found a site that's reviewed my specific CPU.

 

I play most games on high/max settings with it.

 

Including Bulletstorm, a game that was just released last week. I've got it on high (not max) with some tweaking to the StormEngine.ini.

 

thanks for all your replies guys
so i guess it's a good card
i will buy the HP dv6 3140 , it's for 820$ here in the UAE.
i don't think there's a laptop with a better video card for the same price , gaming laptops are usually expensive . so if anyone have a better suggestion please tell me ( i will not be buying this laptop before 30 days at least anyway ) if not thank you all for your help .

 

There is the vaio C series, they have launched in the EU, and in the most price abusive there (UK) it retails around 1000 pounds, specs are:

Screen: 14'' 1366*768 (same res as the DV6, but 1'' less)
CPU: SB equipped (the 1000 pounds is for the i7 2620m, which is a 2.7ghz with TB of 3.4ghz)
GPU: up to 6630m (which is going to be faster than the 5650/6550)

I also dig the SB which is lightweight and 13'' with the same config

 

Really? I'd endorse Acer TimelineX against equivalently specc'd HP any day of the week. It's about the same price (maybe cheaper actually), now has the 6550 (higher volted newer gen of 5650) and i5 480M. It's cooler and has a higher mA capacity battery.

 

That'd certainly be the better purchase if they have it in the UAE.

 

i have looked for acer in uae on the internet
they have the timelinex with a readeon 5650 and core i5 (same specs to those of the HP i am looking) , but is the cooling thing enough reason to drop the bigger brand with better reputation and better internet support ?

 

i bought an acer i5 460M (couldn't find a 480m) but with the radeon 6550
thank you for that post , and the price was the same to that HP i was going to buy , and the pad is way better than the hp

 

Good luck! Wow that's an excellent laptop.. Just needs a better screen.