Envy 15 Help

I plan to buy an Envy 15 with the following specs:

-Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
-Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-430M processor (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.53 GHz
-Memory: 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
-Hard drive: 320GB 7200RPM SATA
-Graphics card: 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5830 Graphics

My question is will this handle games like modern warfare 2 crysis left for dead in med settings? I dont buy this laptop only for gaming because I have a gaming rig but I like to know that I can play some games on my laptop. Also is the GPU the one with the GDDR5 memory or GDDR3?

 

You may max out the settings in MW 2 and L4D2 and medium settings in Crysis [:

 

Thanks for the info I am getting it.

 

I cant wait to receive mine too...

 

The sad thing is that if I order it today it will ship 23 of February

 

BTW, the 5830 can't do GDDR5. GDDR3 only.

 

Ok thanks for the info. Do you guys know any benchmark with the 5830 to know where this card stands?

 

Slight better than 4830 and equivalent to GTX 240,thats what my friend told me today.
My friend bought mine at an outlet in San Diego,I am not sure if it's exact my config. Now I gotta wait for it to ship to my country

 

Nobody has an Envy with a HD screen yet, so no 3DMark tests at full res yet. That said, the 4830M is listed between the GeForce 160M/260M GTS and the 150M on Notebookcheck:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4830.14954.0.html

Faster than an 8800MGTS at least

The 5830 should be faster than the 4830, given that it has many of the same specs but 160 more stream processors and other resources. Right now the drivers are still very new, so there could be some fair performance boosts just in software in the near future. But we'll just have to wait and see on that.

 

I believe 5830 is going to be very close to 260m gtx

 

Also I would like to ask if I will see a great boost in gaming with the i7 because as I know games now started to use more than 2 cores and the virtual HT cores dont get used in games. So does it worth to give 250$ more for the i7-720QM.

 

That's a very good question Depends on what games you're playing. You probably won't see a huge boost in many games though... mostly in productivity apps and stuff like video transcoding.

 

I know that Call of duty games (the 2 latest ones) use as much real cores the system has (no HT cores, I know that because I have a AMD phenom II X4 and all the cores are used). Also another question is how much temp deference will be from the i5-430M to i7-720QM because I think that the turbo boost works only if the tempratures are low, so if the i7 gets hot really fast there is no point cause it will stay at 1.6 to 2.0 Ghz all the time. Another question I have is that if I get the i5 model will I be able to choose the intergated GPU for less power consuption?

 

The 430 to the 720 will be pretty big. If you're looking at an i5, I'd suggest going with a higher-clocked one. They all run in a 35W envelope. The i7's are 45W, so they'll get hotter, period. There is almost certainly no graphics switching with the i5, so you get all 35W for the cores and none is shared from the GPU Basically, if battery life isn't an issue to you, I'd go with the i7. You'll probably see more performance from it, as well as having USB3 and 4 RAM slots instead of 2, so future expansion will be easy. I got the i5 because I was hoping it'd have switchable graphics (oh well), and because it's lower power so I can use it easier while traveling and such. And most of my loads are lightly threaded, so a higher clock rate in the 540M will serve me better than having to pay $450 or so more to get a quad core that'll clock as high.

 

If I get the i5 model I dont get USB 3.0 and I cant expand up to 12gb of ram?

 

True. At the moment at least.
Well, the RAM might be possible if you bought two 6 GB sticks... but nah.

 

Actually you can't run dx11 games with a 260mgtx, so we can say better

 

The fact that with the i7 will come with USB 3.0 and 4 memory slots got me to thinking of getting the i7 with 250$ more.

 

I dicided to get the i7 but I have one last question, I heard that there is a problem with the multiplyer when you use the laptop with the battery thats ok for me, BUT is there any problem when I plug the laptop to the wall? I mean will I have the full potential of the i7 I buy?

 

Yup. You'll have the full potential when it's plugged in. It's just that the Lithium-Polymer batteries can't discharge fast enough to properly power the machine at full power on battery, not like a Lithium-Ion one does. The power brick has more than enough juice.

Don't forget that your Envy will not just have a USB3 port, but it has a powered SATA port as well. Since I have the i5, it's my only offboard high-speed option, but it's all I need.

 

Just wondering, what kind of battery life are you guys getting. I'm trying to decide between the i5 and the i7.

 

My last question is if I get the i7 model will this laptop surve me for the next 4 years and will it be capable of running application like CATIA, MATLAB and other apps like this?

 

CATIA is a joke for the i7. Matlab should be no problem.

I run CATIA, and it takes less than 30 seconds to fully boot up, at uni it can take up to 3 minutes...

4 years I am not sure, at the rate technology goes. I mean, it won't be top-notch anymore, but more than capable. Even Core Duos will be enough in 4 years (for regular users).

 

it has no CD drive correct?
so beautiful either way with great specs as well