HP Pavilion dv6z-7000 (AMD A10-4600M) Trinity Review

Today I picked up the new HP Pavilion dv6z-7000 with AMD Trinity A10-4600M. After using it for the evening, I can say I am more than happy with it. Why? It does what I want it to do, works well, and runs smooth.

My particular model is New Zealand / Australia model, namely the dv6-7002AX
I looked on the shipping tag when sent from HP to the store, it appear that the retail store I brought it from, has had these since 21 April, which is hard to believe.

It is specs are reasonable, and almost has the best of everything, well at least in this region. Here are some brief specs:

AMD A10-4600M
8GB RAM 1600MHz CL11
AMD Radeon 7730M 2GB DDR3
1TB Hard Drive
Blu-Ray Writer Optical Drive
1366x768 Panel
62 watt hours battery
95 watt power adaptor

Look and feel, well if you already have one of the Intel versions, then you would know what to expect. I find this ever similar to the recent HP Envy 4, as far as the general look goes. It is comfortable to use, but feels a little heavy on the back end.

The keyboard is a huge improvement on the old dv6-61XX I have which would be one of the most terrible keyboards ever, even though they are almost the same, it all in how the keyboard rests in the chassis that makes the difference.

Screen it the typical 1366 x 768 affair with the usual poor viewing angles. If you are sitting directly in front of it, which most of us do, it looks fine. I have noticed that this particular screen is very bright, and the whites look great.

Main differences are within the internals, being a AMD chipset, in this there is a A70M/A75M, not certain exactly but is nothing new. AMD and re-used this chipset for the new processor.
Externally, can notice there are 3x USB3 and a single USB2 port. HDMI plus a good old VGA ports are present.

Moving on to the best part, and at this stage the fastest A10 mobile on the block, the A10-4600M. The reason I went for this is due to a bad experience upgrading a Llano processor in last year’s dv6z-6xxx, that in which I brought two faulty CPU's from eBay. This time I aren’t taking no chances and going with the best processor already in the platform. No need to upgrade this time around.
Previous experience here

Those of that don't know the Llano is an excellent processor for what it is worth, and is not crazy fast when compared to Intel, but works well with its IGP. That why moving to the Trinity makes sense, how can you possibly go wrong (only if you are looking to overclock). Trinity for me is excellent, it performs better than I expected. It runs amazingly cool, and the battery life is wicked good. Right now as I am typing this, the notebook is displaying 6 hr 17 min (89%).
Just to add on the battery, I have after writing this, I have been using the laptop for 2 hours and the battery is only down to 80%

Another great thing I have noticed about the processor is it handles multi-tasking very well. Does not matter how many things I have on the go, it just runs incredibly smooth. The user experience is fantastic.

Thermals are excellent, I could not ask for more. Even under load the fan does not spin up much, just running some warm air out the side vent. When under normal basic usage, e.g. browsing or type, watching a movie. The fan is super quiet and the air coming out is very cool. It can be used on your laptop without a laptop cooler or pad, it really is that good

I have not done much overclocking with it yet, but as far as I know only an app called "pscheck" works with the piledriver based processor. Simply just install it and run it, will lock in a turbo speed about stock 2.3GHz at a constant 2.73GHz.

Overclocking the 7730M yields disappointing results; it can barely manage over the stock 575 / 900 clocks. Therefore not worth tweaking, but then again, something is always better than nothing.
Keep in mind that the 7730M is a DDR3 based solution. I would guess HP slashed the model into the DDR3 range to make it not so potent, although the GPU does have new architecture GNC going for it, 28nm die size, and a decent 16 ROPs.
Note the crossfire is supported by disabled. There is no option to switch it on either.

Bottom line is, if you are looking for a processing monster, don't look here, as this CPU is not what that is about. It is awesome if you want a processor that can deliver proven graphics technology as part of an IGP, excellent battery life with very cool thermals.

Given the fact I have seen what Llano is capable of in my own hands, and seeing what Trinity is today, I would rate it 8.5 out 10.


Service Manual:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=5276635&


Btw. Please don’t quote this entire post if replying, thanks.







3dmark06 using the stock IGP


3dmark06 using the stock 7730M clocks of 575 / 900


Blu-Ray Writer (hp BD MLT UJ260), this is a fairly decent type


Loving the low tempertures when web browsing only 33c. The exhaust fan blows out cold air!

 

Just to be clear about Trinity, it cannot be overclocked, and should be expected due to its new architecture. This thread is about simply about an HP notebook with the best new offering from AMD.

Overclocking the 7730M and forcing A10-4600M turbo
Can overclock the the 7730M and force turbo on the A10-4600M. I don't have much software to benchmark with it this time, or the time it takes. Although even if 3dmark06 is old, I have done mutliple runs, to make sure what I got was correct. Seem that I cannot get Vantage or 3dmark11 to run yet and just crashes

The 7730M is strange card to overclock. It will not take much more than the stock clocks, but will remain stable. If it is overclocked just a tiny bit (~5MHz) to high it will cause artifacts and then cause a BSOD, then the keyboard does not work after a forced power off. That results in turning on and forcing off a few times before it works again (weird).

I found the maximum overclock from the stock 575 / 900 that I can use to do the 3dmark06 benchs was 590 / 980. Even that clock is to close to the absolute before BSOD. If I want to go 595 / 990 then can almost certainly expect a BSOD.

I really want to break 10K with the 7730M, but could not, no matter how many runs, or if I tried to disable stuff (which I never otherwise bother doing). However I did break 10K, by using PSCheck to force turbo. I verify the results at stock clocks, to make sure the gain was coming from the forced turbo, and it was

With the 7730M overclocked during the mutliple runs, the temperture maxed at 62c

One weird thing to point out about the 7730M graphics when enabled (at stock or overclocked). It makes actual noise! I mean noise you can heard with your own ears. It's a kind a buzzing, scratchy clicking like noise, and it is fairly loud, louder than the cooling fan suttle air flow sound. The loudness of the noise, and various speed of the noise, is variable to the changes to the frames per second on the screen

3DMark06 (stock CPU) and overclocked 7730M @ 590 /980


3DMark06 (forced turbo CPU) and overclocked 7730M @ 590 / 975 = 10K



I tested it using Cinebench R11.5 to also see if locking in the the turbo will increase performance.
And it seem ok to me, and it works here to. Up from 1.99 stock to 2.26 turbo forced.
Just for fun I put a bench from my Q9550 quad core desktop processor. I still use that and it is sweet, coming close to that means it is good enough for me.

A10-4600M with turbo forced


Overclocking the replacement dv6z-71XX with 7730M
Due to the first machine being faulty, I now have a replacement. I like the way the entire machine stay super cool under load, even when both the processor and the dGPU are loaded. Therefore I have a new 7730M to test, and this one is not a dud

Start with adding some 3dmark11 scores, that I did not get around to posting.

7730M stock clocks of 575 / 900


7730M overclocked to 675 / 1080



Photos of the 1920x1080 panel
This thing has some very sweet viewing angles. Seriously looks like an IPS panel, as it can be viewed for any angle!

With the lid tilted fully back, and at eye level of the keyboard


From side on. If you are to view the screen from the top down, it looks like this also.


Check out page 20 for the high res photos
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...-a10-4600m-trinity-review-20.html#post8719993

 

Can u benchmark with Vantage or/and 3DMark11 please?

 

Yes, please bench those, on the dGPU as well. This is the first look we have at a 77xxM laptop.

 

Yeah I will do those, posting the results soon.

 

I'm only interested in crossfire 3dmark11 score, and subjective realworld gaming experience with crossfire.
Make sure all the hp and norton bloatware is uninstalled or disabled under the Windows Services and run some tests.

Some games like batman and resident evil have built-in benchmarks you can run.

See if there is any microstutter, and see if it supports dx9

I remember reading in one of the driver notes that Trinity is supposed to support dx9 crossfire.

All I know is that when I play max payne 3 with crossfire dx11, the stutter is unbearable. 6650m alone runs very smooth. crossfire sucks.



I think you might like the A10 because you never had a proper Llano experience.
But for me, coming from a Llano, I don't feel much difference.
I could probably even use an Bobcat and not feel a difference. But I know that through overclocking, the llano has the grunt I need for multithread.

My a8-4500m shouldn't be much different from your A10. I am locked at 2.3ghz, and you are locked at 2.7ghz.

that high turbo boost number is just complete bogus.

 

Actually, the 7660G and the 7730M can't crossfire because the IGP is VLIW-4 while the dGPU is GCN.
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^^^ oh damn. that sucks !

then there's really no point. The cpu is slower than most Intels, and the graphics card is slower than GT650m

 

They should have paired it with a 7690M XT.

 

Trinity seems to get hot easily.

I start out at 41c idle, and running just single thread cinebench gets it up to 65c.

I have coolsense uninstalled.

Also, setting affinity to one core does not allow turbo to hit 2.8ghz on the A8.

it only rarely hits 2.8ghz when there's very little load.

 

65C aint bad.

 

Haven't got around to running any other benchmarks just yet, but will do soon.
I am more interested in how it runs at this stage. Installing some games and just seeing how playable they are, with the thermals and heat output while gaming.
For an example, I have being playing Max Payne 3 for over 30 mintues with the laptop directly on my lap, without it overheating and burning my legs. And it plays very smooth. Although after about 40 mintues it was warming up enough to throw a thin logitech lapdesk n315 under it, just for comfort reasons. At no times was the fan loud. Comparing that with any of my other laptops, it is by far the coolest running, that includes any other game I play on it.

 

yeah. i just played max payne 3 on the a8, and the fan wasn't loud either. But I only have igp.

putting all the settings on normal, it ran pretty smooth. Putting them on high, the 7640g can't handle it.

with coolsense removed, the laptop is still pretty quiet

 

How many FPS were you guys getting in MP3 and on what settings? DX10 or DX11?

 

Not sure about the actual fps, was the first time I played it last night, so was more keen on enjoying the game, I did not see a benchmark option in the menus.
I played it on the default settings which is a mixture of high / very high and dx11. Said that it was almost using 800MB of memory.
Every time I start any game it defaults to the 7730M, until I change it through the switchable graphics menu.
Can't see much reason why I would want to play new games (depending on the requirements) on the IGP as the 7730M will always be much better. I use the IGP for older games that don't need the power of the 7730M.
A good easy to see list of A10-4600M game benchmarks can be seen at the link below. Not much point me doing benchmarks on the IGP as they has already been done, and there will be minimal difference at best. MP3 is in this list and does poorly, I am yet to see for myself.
Trinity in Review: AMD A10-4600M APU - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Update on the IGP
I have just set the game to play it on the IGP (power saver setting), and this while running on battery (maximum battery setting) in the PowerPlay settings.
With the CPU running stock and the above slower power saving settings, the A10-4600M could run the night club scene very playable, there is some slow down but not enough to make it unbearable.
In MP3 the options are on high settings, as when I have run it before as on the 7730M

btw. Does anyone know how I can enable the inbulit fps counter in the game?


Edit:
I have added some 3DMark06 overclock scores for the 7730M, and a turbo forced Cinebench R11.5 benchmark. Check the second post on the first page for details.

 

has anybody thought of hooking up this notebook to a external monitor with a resolution of 2560x1440 ?
i know it doesn't have dvi or a displayport, but i am thinking that the trinity
should handle monitors of that resolution.
i was thinking of getting a dvi to hdmi adapter so that i can order one of those
extra large monitors 2560x1440

 

Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for the excellent info here T2050, rep'd. It's too bad about the overclocking not being possible, but I think for 90% of buyers it's going to be the price erformance ratio that attracts them to the dv6z over dv6t. That said, mind me asking what you ended up paying for this?

 

Thanks. Yeah to bad about that part, but it is overall a very strong APU, and is designed to be different. Good news is turbo can be forced on, so somewhat there is an overclock. As standard, turbo will does not max out all the time, therefore limited to 2.3GHz. By forcing turbo, then an increase of 400MHz can be obtained and held at 2.7GHz, I have tested this and it does work, using third party software e.g. PSCheck

Price is a big issue here in New Zealand, we don't have much choice here but to pay extremely inflated prices. I brought mine with 30% off, and it still works out to be around $999 USD if you like to put it that way. Even with that, I did get 8GB RAM, and extra GPU, large 1TB hard drive, and Blu-ray writer. Hence it was a high end model from HP for the retail store comsumer market. It was the best I could buy here in NZ.

 

So, to force semi turbo, you have to delete all the p-states?
too bad you can't force 3.2ghz.

2.7ghz trinity is about the same as a 2.0ghz llano in full load quad core work.

but it should be a little faster in h264 encoding.

 

Yeah you have to remove all the p-states except for the second highest turbo states. As in the second I posted on the first page.

I have tried to force turbo on the fastest p-state but the entire notebook slows down to a crawl.

I have also tried looking for may be a hidden p-state, if was to be one, but could not find anything else. Also tried modifiy the northbridge states but nothing happens, and if something does happen then it is a BSOD

One positive thing about forcing turbo at 2.7GHz, it didn't get hot at all, and there is room to undervolt the processor, meaning further temperture and power savings while forcing it.

 

i just forced semiturbo. A8 at 2.3ghz.
cinebench 1.92. up from 1.76

temps jumped to 20c to 74c. Higher than usual. But this can go to 100c like the llano, so it's ok.

 

^Cool

Yeah it will not do the top turbo with all four cores, fairly sure that is only for single core turbo.

I like it when I see my battery life telling me this, although I know this is not true.

 

even single core won't reach top turbo for me.

when i see it reach 2.8ghz, it is when there is no load. And even then, it's for 1/10 of a second.

thanks for reminding me to test the battery. I'm going to time it, and drain it down to 1%

 

Yeah I have to agree, I rarely see it turbo past 2.7GHz to what is stated to do 3.2GHz, which is disleading by AMD if what we are seeing is true. Putting on an extra 500MHz for the max turbo is bit cheeky, to enable higher sales.

Just want to remind anyone whos reading here. That AMD have changed their name scheme. This can also be disleading if you are in the market for and of the new Trinity processors. Basically there is no real performance comparision as they are totally different to each other.

Trinity A10 (quads) = Llano A8 (quads)
Trinity A8 (quads) = Llano A6 (quads)
Trinity A6 (duals) = Llano A4 (duals)

As what I have already said above. It not so much performance equals performance, its what AMD will be charging for each group. Just beware that if you buy a Trinity A6 you will not be getting a quad core as you would with the old Llano A6's

 

I have tested the battery for 2 hours, and according to hwinfo sensors, while leaving the screen on all the time at dimmest setting, and leaving it idle, with no wireless internet connection, the battery discharge rate is between 5.9 to 6.6 watts per hour.

so, with the 62whr battery, I can get about 10 hours leaving it idle + lcd on.

turn wifi on, and doing nothing, the discharge rate increases to 7.1w/h. giving you under 9 hours of uselessness.


With wifi, lcd dimmest setting, usb laser mouse, and constant browsing non-flash websites, discharge rate increases to 11-12w.
so that cuts a 62whr battery down to about 5.6 hours. Less than 6 hours.


This would be a good reference to compare with undervolted llanos. Check hwinfo sensors and see how fast your llano discharges.

 

I tried out some undervoltage on the A10-4600M today, there is not much in it. I was able to reduce the voltage no more than 0.1v at fairly much all the p-states.
Different p-states responded better that others, therefore 0.1v was too much and the laptop locked up.

I found when using prime95 the temp with turbo forced at 2.7GHz / 1.15v (stock voltage) was 85c
Reduced voltage down to 1.075v the temperture dropped to 75c
Dropping the voltage to 1.05v the temperture dropped 71c, but crashed the laptop quick after about 2 mintues

At the bottom speed of 1400MHz / 0.8875v, I could safely drop the voltage to 0.7875v, but there was nothing to really test.

There is some saving to be had, but nothing amasing.

All in all, there is no real point unvolting (maybe I need to test it some more), the gains seemed minimal, and I am sure just running PSCheck at the low speed was making it run hotter even with undervoltage when at idle.
Likely be better off keeping the voltage at stock, the power management is pretty good on the Trinity A10-4600M as it is.

 

^
So is 1400MHZ the lowest the A10-4600M will be clocked at? Seems kinda high for idle.

My A8-3500M can go down as low as 800MHz at Idle in "Balanced" Power Plan and 800MHz all the time on "Battery Saver," and lower if I so choose to by using FusionTweaker/PSCheck.

 

it runs 1400 at the lowest, but it runs cool and doesn't hog power.

if you insist, you can underclock trinity even more with pscheck.

 

Like link626 said it does not cause any issues, and can go lower if needed.

Trinity already has excellent power optimisations, and really with the performance per clock being kind of low, 1400MHz is about as low as you would want to go.

But... Something somewhat of interest. When you go lower, the voltage can go under 0.7v, I managed to get this screenshot of it running at 0.688v, although soon after ~5 minutes it locked up.
Could be good to lower the speed and voltage, when idle off and on, while running on battery e.g. watching tv and using the laptop at the same time (neither here or there, relaxing).

800MHz @ 0.688v

 

So, how much total battery life did you end up getting?

 

Thanks! That's what I wanted confirmed.

I find it amazing that Trinity mobile idles at almost twice the MHz of that of Llano but is actually getting better battery life. I guess I just got used to Llano by now. I'm assuming this has to do with the new Piledriver architecture somehow which has been like you said, optimized for power consumption (greater battery life).

Maybe you need just a little more voltage so that it doesn't lock up? Maybe battery is extended a little more but by how much?

 

battery life is pretty good.

certainly many times better than Turions of yesteryear.

out of a 62whr battery, doing nonstop internet browsing, you're eating battery at 11-12watts. So you get about 6 hours. If you undervolt a little, you might squeeze out a little more. If you just leave it there idle, it can stay on for 10 hours with lcd dimmed down.

 

My pre-built laptop can now be configured exactly the same on HP's USA website. It cost $1029.99

As these specs:
• AMD Quad-Core A10-4600M Accelerated Processor (3.2GHz/2.3GHz, 4MB L2 Cache)
• 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 2GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7730M Graphics
• 1TB 5400RPM Hard Drive
• No additional security software
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366x768)
• Microsoft(R) Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word/Excel(R) only, No PowerPoint(R)/Outlook(R)
• Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone + HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)
• Standard Keyboard

 

The new DV6Z seems nice in terms of battery life and features. The backlit keyboard option is very much needed.

It is too bad that the performance seems to actually be behind the previous generation DV6Z.

This was your max 3d06 score with overclock, 7730m + A10-4600m (from first page) :



This is the score I got with 3530mx @ 2.6ghz and 6750m @ 800/1000 OC

 

The Dv6z can be optioned with a 7670M, which should be faster in DX10/11 programs with dual graphics.

 

According to wikipedia the 7730 is faster than the 7650.

What's the max system memory you can install?

 

7730M is faster than the 7670M, but the 7670M's Xfire makes up for it.

 

10085 was the best score I could do with 3dmark06. It is on the first page, bit hard to see as it inside a larger screenshot.

Keep in mind that the 7730M can only overclock 15MHz above stock to just 590MHz. So not much of an overclock at/if all.
The processor was not overclocked either, rather forced turbo.

Yes is a shame that cannot crossfire with the 7730M, I did not know that at the time going in, till I had brought the thing. Even if crossfire did work, there how may be no point to crossfire the A10/7730M, if 8 of the 16 ROPs are used from the 7730M and the low clock speed?

I am not totally sure how good a 7670M will be in crossfire. I question if it will be smooth enough to play games without stuttering?
The 7730M has 16 ROPs without being in crossfire, but slow clock speed and DDR3 are not in favour, although it does have GNC.
What concerns me is about the A10 and 7670M are in crossfire, then you will still have 16 ROPs working together. Therefore will be trusting the increase of speed and stream processors in the A10/7670M combo to make the difference. Again, you will need the crossfire not to impacted on the way the game plays.

 

Don't suppose there's any hope for an HP laptop with the 7970M? Probably creates too much heat with it's TDP of 75W

 

ROP's aren't everything. Xfire worked well performance wise with the 6750M, it was the microstutters that were the problem. The 7670M and 7660G are much closer matched cards that the 6620G and 6750M were, so it might be better.

 

Hybrid xfire is garbage. Just assume it doesn't exist when the comparing the cards. If only the a10 were unlocked and hp used the 7750 gddr5 instead of the 7730. This could have been a monster budget gaming notebook.

 

Looks like the best A10-4600M gaming laptop will be the MSI GX60 with the 7970M but won't be budget, more like $1500.

If it's like the GT70 it will probably be 1.77" thick and weigh 7.7 lbs (2 hard drives and a dvd burner)

 

I would agree with this statement.

I still don't understand why HP would use DDR3 card over DDR5 based card, is there a cost difference between the two types of memory, if so then how much?
I would guess the 7750M chips could be higher binned (e.g. my 7730M will not overclock even close to the 7750M stock speed), and maybe AMD is charging more for the next step up?

 

More likely they're in short supply cause they would just pass the cost to the consumer anyway.

 

T2050, could you zip and upload your HP Recovery manager program folder to mediafire.com ?

I need to restore this laptop

 

Power on laptop and press F11, that will get you in to the recovery without the windows application.

Pressings ESC at power up let you see and holds all the function key actions

 

Do you mean the asynchronous xfire with APUs and discrete GPUs? Or is hybrid something else?

 

Yeah, asynchronous xfire, dual graphic, whatever else people call it, etc.

 

3DMark11 scores. Both of these are done at stock. Appears with this benchmark, the 7660G is the almost the same as the 7730M. This might be because of clock speed differences. Don't worry about the GPU name in the second benchmark screenshot, due to the switchable graphics it never picks it up as a 7730M, even though it is on this particular GPU.


3DMark11 with IGP 7660G



3DMark11 with 7730M

 

That's well within the margin of error, and much higher for the 7660G than I've seen before. Are you sure you were in the IGP?