The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    thinking about returning my dv7-4070us. advice needed...

    Discussion in 'HP' started by IVILyric, Aug 24, 2010.

  1. IVILyric

    IVILyric Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I have recently bought a Dv7-4070us from Fry's Electronics and I'm thinking about returning it. It dont seem to be getting the performance I was expecting. Would there be a big performance difference if I went with the i7 version instead? I would like a laptop that I can game on where I don't have to worry about tweaking settings too much to get a decent framerate and that doesnt break the bank. I also would perferably want to but it at a store as opposed to online. Please let me know if this post would be better off in a different section. Thanks in advance!
     
  2. Bullit

    Bullit Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    122
    Messages:
    864
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    31
    If it is game performance you are after the CPU isn't the bottleneck but the graphic card. You have to get an high end one, with HD5650 for the most demanding games have to go to medium quality settings.
    Just to be sure if something isn't off with your system you should be expecting this performance: Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

    A typical gaming laptop is for example an Asus G73.
     
  3. bchreng

    bchreng Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    492
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Like Bullit mentioned, the GPU is bottlenecking your system more than the CPU. What sort of games are you trying to play? Older and less demanding games run just fine on my DV7 on medium-to-high settings. (Source games, SC2, and Torchlight)
     
  4. R4000

    R4000 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    736
    Messages:
    2,762
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    The HD5650 is the highest graphics card available on the dv7, so going to the quad is not going to give you any real jump in framrerates unless it is one of the few cpu-intensive games like GTA IV.

    For any gpu faster than the HD5650 in the 17" size, you'd have to go with an Envy 17 (which has an HD5850).
     
  5. IVILyric

    IVILyric Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I've Starcraft 2 and things seemed a bit laggy on medium settings at the default resolution (1600x900 i think). I tried GRID on High settings (with AA off) and was only able to get about 15-20 FPS. Haven't tried a first person shooter yet so I've yet to see what kind of performance I can get in that.
     
  6. bchreng

    bchreng Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    14
    Messages:
    492
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    For 1v1 and 2v2 multiplayer games, these settings suit me just fine in SC2:

    1280x720
    VSync: Off

    Textures: Ultra
    Shaders: High
    Lighting: High
    Shadows: Medium
    Terrain: High
    Reflections: Off
    Effects: High
    Post Processing: Medium
    Phyiscs: High
    Models: Low
    Portraits: 3D
    Movies: High

    For the SP campaign, it does lag a bit on these settings. I'll usually have to tick the settings down a bit from 'High' to 'Medium' or 'Low'