jaguarskx said:
So what was actually bad about the A6-4455m APU? Not enough computational performance? No enough graphics performance? Both?
If the computation performance is not enough, then getting a laptop with an Intel CPU would be better. At the same clockspeed Intel CPUs are more powerful than AMD's APUs and CPUs. AMD CPUs are more powerful than AMD's APUs.
The A6-4455m is considered an ultra low voltage (ULV) APU from AMD. ULV APUs and CPUs from AMD/Intel have lower clockspeeds for both the CPU core and GPU core to conserve power. Therefore, they are a little less powerful than your average mobile APU/CPU. Intel's Ivy Bridge ULV CPUs will be more powerful than AMD's ULV APUs though.
From a graphics point of view the Radeon HD 7500G is likely less powerful than Intel's HD 4000 in a ULV Ivy Bridge CPU and definitely less powerful than the Intel HD 4000 graphic core "normal" Ivy Bridge CPU. AMD uses different graphic cores in their Trinity/Llano APU line up. More powerful APUs will have more powerful graphic cores with different model names (HD 7500G, HD 7620G, HD 7660G, etc.).
All Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs simply have the Intel HD 4000; period. However, they can have different clock rates and I think there is a total of around 6 different clock rates. Minor differences really, like 100MHz - 350MHz differences between the "type" of Intel HD 4000 you are getting. The lowest performing Intel HD 4000 is found in the "Y" series Ivy Bridge which are known as Extreme ULV (EULV) CPUs which can consume as little as 7w of power I think. They are not in your budget since it is a limited production run only. Intel's ULV Ivy Bridge has the next slowest Intel HD 4000 graphic core. Their mobile quad core i7 CPUs will have the fastest version of the HD 4000. The remaining dual core i3/i5/i7 mobile CPUs will have the "average" HD 4000 graphic core.
My suggestion is just to look for a laptop with an Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU with the "M" designation. "U" refers to ULV. If you want more graphics performance than Intel can provide then look at AMD's A10-4600m (Radeon HD 7660g; fastest integrated graphics), or perhaps the A8-4500m (Radeon HD 7640g).
I learned a bit of this while I was looking around last night, I actually had no idea that ULV meant anything besides the fact that it was intended for laptops. Nor did I realize the 7500g would actually perform worse than intel HD 4000.
After looking around I started realizing that all smaller form factor laptops use ULV processors for the most part, and the price point typically just isn't what I'm looking for mostly due to SSD.
So I'm looking mostly into a10-4600m cpus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... and i5 3210m cpus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
As for what was wrong with the a6? honestly it's the CPU. It seems like for something that's clocked at 2.1 ghz it chugs along happily slower than that.
Thanks for all your info. I did learn a lot about laptops from that post, I'm honestly completely unaware of what goes into a notebook, seeing as I've always used a desktop.
So my last question would mostly be aside from the ones I've posted, which I'm looking into as we speak (trying to juggle this between doing homework and working right now, so I don't have all that much time to look up models unfortunately) are there any decent A10-4600m or i5 3210m laptops, refurbished most likely, around the 600 price point?
Also, I'm wondering what would clock better? the A10 has a better onboard GPU and a quad core processor (true quad core? Or AMD 'quad core') and the i5 3210m is a dual core with hyperthreading, but intel cpus routinely outperform their AMD counterparts at equivilant specs for various reasons.
I think intel HD 4000 would be sufficient, and I typically swear by intel when I have the money to spend, but really at this point it's whatever gets the most gaming performance per dollar at this range. I'm relatively sure either will do fine for note taking and any other usage I have for it in class.
Thanks again.