*HP dv6z AMD Llano (6XXX series) Owners Lounge*

As cheap as RAM is, I'd probably go for the Blu-ray over the 8GB, and then replace one of the 2GB with a $15-20 4GB module. Overall, looks like a great price. if I was sold on needing a full HD screen, I'd go for it. Good work.

 

Hello,

I'm looking for a new laptop and I'm considering either the dv6z (A8-3550MX) or dv6t (i5-2450M), both come at about the same price with rebates with only $10 more for the dv6t ($660 vs $670). Both have 8GB RAM, 1080p screen, BT, high capacaity 6cell battery and HD7690m.

I'm still undecided regarding CPU performance, as from what I've read on a couple of sites the A8-3550MX has even less performance than my current CPU, a C2D T9600, not to mention the i5-2450M. What are your experiences? Is the performance difference notable?

I've been an AMD fan, my current laptop is the only Intel computer I've had since my Coppermine Celeron 566, but I want this computer to last me al least 2 years.

A question: the USB3 in the dv6z is integrated into the chipset or uses the NEC Renesas chip?

Edit: I forgot to mention I've been using my wife's Gateway T-1628 with Turion X2 TL-60 @2GHz and RS690M for a week, and it feels lacking a lot in the CPU performance department, even tough I've put my SSD in it. This is the reason I'm worried about the A8-3550MX.

 

I was comparing three laptops recently. One was an i3-380m (older generation, I know, but still decent) dual-core with 3MB L3 at 2.53GHz. Another was an HP G6 series with an A4-3305M (dual-core, 1.9GHz stock, burst to 2.3GHz, 1MB L2). The final was a DV6z which I have kept, and it has an A6-3400m (quad-core, 1.4GHz stock, 4MB L2, and burst to 2.3GHz).

To compare them, I opened up a reference library program I have (Logos Bible Software, which is not all that well optimized for either CPU) and performed several full-library searches. The results popped up almost at the same time between the i3 running @ 2.53 GHz and the A6 @ 1.2-2GHz. The A4 lagged way behind either one. I suspect the performance on your Turion TL-60 might be more comparable to the A4 because of only having 1MB L2 which cripples application load times a good bit.

Normalizing and exporting an MP3 (using something like Audacity) is not nearly as fast on the A4/A6/A8. I tested with the A4 3305M at stock clocks and it took about 3x as long to edit the audio vs. the i3. I have not run the Audacity test on my current A6, but I suspect the i3 would still beat it by about 40-50%. On the other hand, you're comparing a chip running at 2.5GHz stock vs. one running at 2GHz overclocked, so it's still not quite a direct comparison.

As far as web browsing and the like, the A6 is at least on part with the i3 in terms of how speedy it felt to me. Keep in mind the i5 has turbo boost to bump up another 0.5 GHz or so, which may help in some applications, so it would be even faster than the i3 I was using.

I would say if you're willing to overclock/undervolt and want something to play around with, get the A6/A8. If you want faster stock speeds without tinkering, go with the Intel chip.

I was able to overclock from 1.4GHz stock to 2GHz plus drop the voltage a bit on my A6-3400M without any issues. Since it's mostly running at 800Mhz it also helped battery life by maybe +45 minutes. From what I've read in this thread and others, ,ost people could easily go 2.3GHz P0 (top non-boosted CPU state) without much increase in heat/battery drain...I haven't tried that yet. The DV6Z is not going to be Intel-level performance in benchmarks but it is a great machine for tinkering with and should be adequate for most daily use scenarios.

 

AMD laptops, overclocked up to 2.3+ GHz with no mod can compare and even surpass intel I5, plus you gain more battery because of the undervolt. (and have another far more powerful integrated graphics that can do xfire)

 

I guess I'll go with the dv6 then.

Has anyone here had any experience with the dv6z under Linux? I'll be using it most of the time with Linux, and Windows only for gaming.

 

What are you using it for? In general the i5 will be faster for gaming (even if the A8 is overclocked) but an overclocked A8 will be faster in video encoding/other stuff that uses 4 cores. Though I doubt you'll see much difference with either.

 

4 cores vs 2 really does makes a difference in battlefield 3, AMD pretty much wins in everything when overclocked to an i5 but not to an i7 (gaming is not exception).

 

Linux may be troublesome with this configuration of AMD xfire, I think I've heard that integrated graphics work but not so much the dedicated ones.

Edit, the USB 3.0 is embedded into the chipset, although as far as I know they acquired the license for using the desing of renesas inside the chipset.

Just to make myself clear , you can surpass an i5 by little margin when overclocking, in their stock form they are not so powerful in the single threat department.

 

No, it really doesn't. Intel's i3-2500 wins against the Phenom II X4 even when the Phenoms have a clock speed advantage. Not to mention that Phenom II is faster per clock than Llano. With 20% clock speed advantage over an A8-3550 overclocked to 2.4ghz, the i5 is going to easily win in gaming.

 

LLano doesn't uses quite the same architecture on a Phenom II X4, the llanos use a stars+ while the Phenom II x4 uses stars (withouth +, which stands for enhanced), Bulldozer are the successor of the phenoms and so does for Llanos, but llanos is the true step between both of them.

So, the comparison is not quite correct. (is even less correct considering you are comparing phenom on desktops, no llanos on desktops which also can do xfire and overclock like hell)

 

Hey eveyone. Long time stalker of this thread, enjoying the discussions.

My laptop is the 3510mx version with the 6750. My fan is already half broken.
(extremely loud and vibrates the whole machine)

Has anyone had to replace the fan? Is it upgrade-able with an OEM-like version?

 

For a new fan HWingNut once ordered one, he unfortunately had to order the whole block (pipes and fins) because the fan is included in it and not sold separately. But I would try to adapt another one, as long as the plastic case is intact, it should be possible.

 

hmm. gross. I see just the fans for sale on ebay, but I'm guessing that's a ripoff. They don't really look legit. The whole pieces on there don't look legit either.

Ugh. I'm gonna open it up and clean it up as much as possible. Then I'm going to stare at it with a very disappointed face.

 

Have you looked at any benchmarks? Llano is marginally faster than Athlon II (6% faster, as claimed by AMD), which in turn is slower than Phenom II.

And what does "llanos is the true step between both of them" meant? Llano is just an optimized Athlon II with a iGPU slapped on. Bulldozer is a completely different architecture. Phenom II would be more closer to Bulldozer because they both have a L3 cache whereas Llano and Athlon II lack it. But it's ridiculous to say that any one of them is a "true step" closer to Bulldozer... PII is like 1% more similar to BD than AII and Llano are.

Also, the benchmarks were done with the Phenom II and i3 processors at similar clock speeds (within .2ghz). Yeah you can overclock like crazy on mobile but at 2.4ghz you'd still be .4ghz (15%) slower than the mobile i5. So in fact the difference would be even greater than in the first Anandtech review I linked. And if you look at the Anantech Llano review I linked, Llano loses every time by a significant amount even when it's only clocked 7% lower.

Maybe with crossfire it will be faster but 1. that is not a measure of CPU performance and 2. it microstutters like crazy, runs hot, etc. etc.

 

I have the same exact setup. I would just get it fixed on warranty through HP. Or if you're in the 21 day window just get an exchange.

It takes a bit to get your laptop back but it's less hassle and you don't have to track down a fan and open your laptop.

 

Ehm... no, you should look at the architectures chart in past posts to find out why is not an athlon processor with a GPU slapped in it.

You're just being meanie to AMD because as past posts have shown, you fully support intel above all. There are also a lot of scores given by 3dmark11 with our overclocked processors that shows clearly where we stand in, which is > i5 and < i7.

P.D. if not overclocked more than 2.3 ghz we don't need cooling mods and heat is relatively good. On the other side i5s run quite hot but still bearable on stock conditions.

 

Erm, what? Why would I have an AMD Llano notebook over an Intel one if I support Intel above all?

I just give credit where credit is due. No more, no less. I've provided benchmarks where desktop Llano consistently loses to a desktop i3 in gaming. You've provided nothing. And last time I checked, 3dmark is a synthetic benchmark, not a game. Like I said, Llano would come out on top with programs that fully utilize all 4 cores. But the reality is that the vast majority of games don't use more than 2... Which is why mobile Llano performs worse than an mobile i5 in games. I run my 3510mx at 2.4ghz and I hit high 80s without crossfire.. but that would still be 15% slower than the i5 and I doubt an i5 would be much hotter than that.

I don't know how I can be any clearer. But then you're the guy who said I was spreading misinformation when I said an i7 was faster than Llano so I guess that's to be expected.

 

Not really, I have always said that i7 is unbeatable, but we can reach i5. all my 200+ relate to investigation about this laptop and its potential, and as far as I'm aware, I haven't said anything that hasn't been tested on this very thread by a lot of users.

I remember you however, because indeed while you still have this AMD machine for some reason you always describe it as not very good for anything comparable as the i5 series.

This is easier to see if you check all my post using the search function and then all your post in this thread using the very same search function.

P.D: In my first mod you can see my 3dmark scores, but they are pretty much non valid since I use mods. There are other users however that have put them without mods.

 

Bad things? I said the CPU is worse for gaming. Which is true. I've said Intel is worse for fully multithreaded programs. What's worse, telling people the flaws of the product or trying to cover them up?

And you completely sidestepped my point. I never said anything about 3dmark. I corrected you and said an i5 would be faster for gaming and slower for fully threaded programs and provided benchmarks from a very well respected tech site. Instead of refuting my evidence you bring up irrelevant stuff and call me a fanboy.

Maybe you should step back a bit and look at this objectively. Do you still think Llano is a faster CPU for gaming?

 

2.8Ghz llano is around top end i5
where normal 2.3-2.4 is low-mid i5

That is looking at pi/prime benchs.

One thing that push a lower clock llano near i5 is that it is a true quad vs HT'd dual core.
so that desktop i3 is more similar to mobile i5 then desktop i5 .

 

llano is probably slower for most games, but as long as it doesn't bottleneck your GPU then it doesn't matter.

 

Pretty much, I have quite an extensive list of games that I've tested with my signature setup, overall, I'm pretty satisfied that my humble 3410mx runs really great Battlefield 3 (and this is the hell of a game).

i5 2410m... seems overclocked, video description says 2.7??? (according to this http://ark.intel.com/products/52224 normal speed is 2.3Ghz while turbo is 2.9) (battlefield 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDElr0h6bvI

a8 3500m stock settings (no overclock, 1.5 Ghz 2.4 turbo): (battlefield 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IZOHqurnoo

I think I'm not lying with those videos... also, check HWingNut benchmarks, he has done far more tests than I, with graphs and everything.

Edit: Bai just had given a bullseye, "as long as it doesn't bottleneck the gpu..."

 

So you're saying Llano is faster because you played a bunch of games on it and it "runs really great" in Battlefield 3 (which has no actual benchmark). And you're using that to try to refute actual benchmarks which show otherwise. Great.

 

See the videos, they have actual footage of gameplay plus fps, and check HWingNut benchmarks please.

Oh, but alright, if you wanna hear "intel beats anytime llano" so be it, I know my very own results very well as most of the users in this threat.

 

Videos of different levels using different settings with different computers that have different graphics cards? You sure proved me wrong. There isn't even even FPS in the second one. All you have is the guy saying it runs at 30fps. And the first one is with a 2410m not a 2450m.

So your videos are so good that you don't even have to compare it with an i5 using the same setup. You just know that Llano better. I mean, who needs actual gaming benchmarks with actual comparisons, right?

Yeah, you caught me, I work for Intel, which is why I said Llano would win in highly threaded scenarios.

Which is what I said 2 pages back, but you still decided to spout out wrong information and call me an Intel fanboy?

 

If I had an i5 DV6 I'd be happy to compare, I'd be curious at least. It depends on the game, but from my experience 2.4-2.6GHz is comparable to i5-2430m. I don't have links or evidence on hand at the moment, but just from my perusing and benching I'd say it's comparable. Quick look at Passmark A6-3400m (which is likely clocked at 2.2GHz from all the K53TA's out there) scores 3297, i5-2430m scores 3472, and very similar to the A8-3510/3530MX. I believe games like BF3 that love four cores the A6/A8's will excel above i5.

In any case, it's comparable as I don't see severe discrepancies in any direction.

 

BF3 doesn't scale past 2 cores on an Intel CPU, in the campaign at least.

There won't be a noticeable difference for most games, but there are some (e.g. SupCom2, Skyrim pre-1.4/post 1.4 to a lesser degree) where the difference is noticeable. Even in games that take advantage of quads (e.g. Civ 5) an Intel dual still beats a higher clocked AMD quad, because no game can be as perfectly multithreaded like a synthetic benchmark can.

So I would say, GPU bottleneck considered, Intel and AMD tie 90% of the time and Intel wins 10% of the time. Or as I said two pages ago,
"In general the i5 will be faster for gaming (even if the A8 is overclocked) but an overclocked A8 will be faster in video encoding/other stuff that uses 4 cores. Though I doubt you'll see much difference with either."

edit: @HT: what does you in case of troll button do?

 

I just received my intel 6300, gonna see how it do compare to Ralink.

Thinking maybe mod a 3rd antenna to where the HP-logo light is.

 

If you decide to make the mod I look forward to it

 

That's still more or less even... i5 is definitely a powerful CPU, but the A8 isn't far off most instances.

Single player perhaps it doesn't matter much, but turn off two cores of your A8 or turn off hyperthreading on your i5 and see how well a 64-player game fares.

To be honest, all things equal if I can get a fast i5 vs. AMD A8-3550MX for same price, I'd probably go for the i5. At the time I bought my system the DV6z was at least $200 cheaper, and I'll admit, it's been an interesting ride, glad I opted for it. What I love most is the iGPU performance, and really interested in what Trinity can do.

The troll button doesn't work in Chrome, and you have to turn on your sound.

 

using in SSIDer, my home network went from 55 to 49 , not a phenomenal increase but something.

 

Ordered TYCO antenna off ebay, hopefully it fit. Opening up laptop for 2 buck antenna to check fitting seem silly. Worse case scenario i upgrade my mom desktop from g to n with my old card ~~

 

Nah, I say... try to repaste too, that way would not be in vain opening the whole laptop.

 

I'll agree with that. I'd be fine with someone saying Llano is generally the same CPU-wise as an i5 for gaming. I'd be fine with someone saying an i5 is slightly better for gaming. But I wouldn't be fine with someone saying that Llano is better than an i5 for gaming because that's just false.

And given the choice again I'd probably get the dv6z again because it seems to me that the Intel/AMD driver combo is pretty bad. I play BF3 with my friend with a DV6tqe and he crashes all the time. Not to mention the hassles with preserving switchable graphics while updating drivers.

If Trinity is priced aggressively I might buy it for my next notebook but otherwise I'll probably just go Intel to avoid being CPU limited in games. But then again kepler isn't shaping up to be very good so if it's intel with amd graphics I dunno .

 

Well, to put it bluntly, llano is simply better, why? because back then it was 200 dollars cheaper. But seriously, seeing how your post tend to pass for edit after edit even when there are already comments below of it, I think indeed you're hired by Intel.

And still, my a6 3410mx smokes a lot of i5s at 2.9 Ghz. (and doesn't even heat or even feels hot it in the palmrest with my mods) plus the xfire, because intel is never gonna get xfire with AMD using their infamous "energy efficient" (because amd is VERY energy efficient) but low capable integrated graphics.

And let me repeat again, *MY* A6 3410mx at 2.9 GHz eats Intel I5s for breakfast. Now now... let's be objective, I still can't reach i7s, but for a fraction of the price I still eat breakfast.

 

I thought id give this intel 6230 another shot by downloading the HP intel bluetooth drivers for the dv6-6169us but that didnt fix the usb device unknown nor get bluetooth to work.

 

Another aspect of the llano is that I literally have 2 GPU. so i do GPU render video on iGPU and game on dGPU @ same time in dynamic mode. If I do both on 1 GPU, my video will drop frame from time to time. I dont care as much if my game stutter for 1sec (single player non FPS stuffs)
Throttle mad with cool & quiet on though.(Ofc I had it off ~~)

 

No it wasn't. A DV6t with an i5 was about 35$ cheaper, but without blu-ray and a 500gb HDD instead of 640gb. With the same configs, the dv6t would have been ~25-35$ more expensive. I would know, I ordered both. So once again, you have no idea what you're talking about and you're wrong.

You seem to be thinking that I'm trying to say Llano always loses and i5 always wins. I'm not. I'm saying an i5 is a better CPU for games. For some reason you keep trying to insinuate that I hate Llano or something, even though in my original post I said the difference would mostly be unnoticeable and Llano is better for some other stuff.

I edited my post to respond to you after you edited your post. I don't see how that's unreasonable. Should I have made a new post to address the stuff you added in your edit? Or should I just ignore all your edits from now on? And you did the exact same thing. You edited your post at 5:23 after I posted at 5:22. Such a hypocrite. /s

And how much time/effort did you spend on mods? You have unsightly wires coming out of your computer and a voided warranty. Somehow I don't think this is the typical case for Llano owners.

Awesome. Since when were we talking about xfire?

Bulldozer. Still irrelevant though, I was talking about CPU gaming performance. Once again, I am not saying an i5 is always better than Llano. I am saying it is a better CPU for games. I didn't even say it's a lot better. I said it's slightly better. Get that through your thick skull.

So you were recommending Llano over an i5 to Glock24 and saying "AMD pretty much wins in everything when overclocked to an i5 but not to an i7 (gaming is not exception)." without mentioning that you're results are not typical at all and require heavy modification? That's not biased at all.

Funny thing is, even at 2.9ghz you'll still lose to an i5-2450m in gaming. Adjust the benchmarks for the frequency difference, a dual core Intel still comes out on top over Llano.

I'm providing actual proof. You're providing your preconceived notions on what Llano is and isn't. So either provide some proof or stop spouting irrelevant information and nonsense?

 

Linux runs well on my 6145CA. No major issues. If you install AMD binary drivers,
You can select integrated only which should be enough for most cases (I think the switch worked temps were probably lower but not 100% sure)

Fan works , sleep didnt work but what the hell it doesnt work on many laptops anyway.

 

I am glad I bought the DV6z, no regrets.

Regarding that link to Anandtech, to be fair, those are desktop CPU's A8-3850m @ 2.9GHz vs i3-2100 @ 3.1 GHz. The article even states: " Note that heavily-threaded applications actually favor the A8-3850 to the Core i3 2100 thanks to its four cores." So heavily threaded apps work in its favor, single or two threaded apps seem to favor the Intel. But in both cases, a trivial amount.

That being said, Intel still has a solid product with their dual cores. I'm not taking sides either way, only that I feel the AMD product is a better value for the money, primarily because of the iGPU, Crossfire potential, and end product cost. The i5 laptops did get cheaper, but I do know at the time I bought my DV6z the i5 same equipped was about $200 more expensive.

It's not about winning or losing, it's about getting a solid product that offers performance for the money, IMHO.

 

Seems I started a flame war with my questions

I didn't mean that.

I guess I'll still go for the dv6z becuase of the drivers. I suppose it'll work better to have dual AMD graphics than Intel/AMD graphics, specially under Linux.

The dv6 seems to me like the perfect laptop, except it has no eSATA, which is a shame (previous model did have it).

The other option I considered was the Lenovo y470p, which goes about the same price but with an i7, but the mediocre screen (1366x768, bad contrast, bad viewing angles) let me down.

 

Only with Trinity and beyond are we going to see what AMD can really do with a notebook. Nobody else is going to bring CrossFire to them, and we won't see SLI probably ever. I'm convinced that AMD is going to be tops in portable performance, and for a very long time.

Agreed about the eSATA; the switch to a buggy USB 3.0 isn't much of an acceptable substitute, especially now that my external drve's fast speed is completely invalidated. I'm going to have to buy a USB 3.0 case and transfer the internal drive. Not happy about that at all.

The problem with 1366x768 screens seems to be ubiquitous, regardless of manufacturer. It's not resolution, it's crappy quality. Frankly, HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc, should be furious with their OEM supplier.

 

Yeah, whatever LCD manufacturer that is putting this crappy LCDs where you can actually see vertical lines if you are close enough... well, no words for it but as clarkkent57 has pointed out, it's generic for other brands too.

My brother bought an ASUS k53t-me1 and it has exactly the same crappy screen than mine.... and that is ASUS.

 

Agreed. Though I recall you configuring the dv6t with a quad core i7 because you didn't want to get a dual core for BF3. A quick google turned up this post and I'm assuming you got the dv6z for around $800 because that's how much it cost me and I ordered around the same time as you did.

For the record, I never tried to turn this into AMD or Intel winning or losing. I was just trying to answer some guy's question on the difference between the CPUs. I said that the i5 would be slightly better for gaming and Llano would be slightly better for heavily multithreaded programs and from all the evidence I have seen that is an accurate answer. In fact, the CPU argument has (almost) happened before, but I chose not to bite that time.

 

It was $767. I called HP to complain, can't remember reason, they gave me $50 credit. Plus they screwed up my eBates and got 3x the money back, or about $120, even after bringing it up to them they didn't care. of course you could still get that $50 back and eBates for the DV6t as well.

Yeah, I guess I was pining for a quad i7, but knowing what I know now, it's not that huge of difference between the dual core i5 and quad A8. My biggest concern was BF3, which I knew BFBC2 loved the quad cores, so assumed same for BF3, and is more or less the case, but i5 seems to handle it fairly well with hyperthreading. I'm happy with AMD decision though.

 

I think you'll be happy with the dv6z. Those Lenovos also only get about 3.5 hrs battery life, from what I've heard...and if you're doing basic stuff (web surfing, word processing, even multitasking) you should be able to easily get 4:15-4:30, maybe longer if you underclock the dv6z a little. At least I'm getting around that range on mine.

 

I think the $50 was from hp dropping the base price of the dv6z by $50 after we ordered it. Now that you brought it up, I think I got the $50 refund too, haha.

 

Spider silk conducts heat as well as metals

Spider-Man might be the best computer bench tech when installing heat-sinks. Ever.

 

No, that was first time, second time it was the hassle with returning my laptop because of overheating, and the processed it as a return not an exchange, so I had to jump through hoops to get it at the same price, but funny thing was a few days later a new coupon came through that made it cheaper, but they credited me $50 for my trouble after they cancelled my second order.

 

Unless you really HAVE to buy a laptop *soon*, I'd wait for the trinity. The mfg's are really putting a lot of work into their next set of lappies, and with the market starting to wind down.. the price competition looks to be very promising. Plus, from what I've seen so far, you will need a benchmarking suite to see the difference between ivy and sandy bridge, other than the price tag that is...

seer