General Computer Thread

[Santaman]

CPU: no internal graphics controller, AMD puts rather strong and usually modern graphics cores inside the CPU which they then call Accelerated Processing Unit aka APU, AMD's chips are quite smart when it comes to shoving stuff to the graphics cores, programs which supports having stuff calculated by the graphics core will get a boost in speed and also it leaves the CPU bit to handle other stuff.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

CPU: no internal graphics controller, AMD puts rather strong and usually modern graphics cores inside the CPU which they then call Accelerated Processing Unit aka APU, AMD's chips are quite smart when it comes to shoving stuff to the graphics cores, programs which supports having stuff calculated by the graphics core will get a boost in speed and also it leaves the CPU bit to handle other stuff.

OK that's interesting. Where would you use an APU and what kind of motherboard?

I mean you couldn't do a game like Wolfenstein The New Order or such with an APU could you? What sort of power would you get with that?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

OK that's interesting. Where would you use an APU and what kind of motherboard?

You would need an FM2-socket motherboard to use an APU. For more specific details, you would need to look at the requirements for the specific APU you are looking at buying.

I mean you couldn't do a game like Wolfenstein The New Order or such with an APU could you? What sort of power would you get with that?

Current APUs are markedly inferior to discrete graphics cards.

That said, AMD is coming out with Ryzen-based APUs that are supposed to have good performance--probably somewhere near the midrange of what you could get in a dedicated card. They aren't out yet so I guess we'll have to see.

 

[Santaman]

At the moment you've got FM2+ for Godavari, these use DDR3 RAM, there's also Bristol Ridge which uses AM4 and can be used on Ryzen compatible boards, the chips are nearly identical but Bristol Ridge uses DDR4, Like Mr Ghost mentioned, there are Ryzen + Vega APU's on the way which might indeed be quite powerful.

The FM2+ chips and the refresh AM4 chips are pretty nice for standard desktop use and simple games, they're not particulary fast or powerful but they're good jack of all trades sort of chips.

 

[Marc]

You would need an FM2-socket motherboard to use an APU. For more specific details, you would need to look at the requirements for the specific APU you are looking at buying.



Current APUs are markedly inferior to discrete graphics cards.

That said, AMD is coming out with Ryzen-based APUs that are supposed to have good performance--probably somewhere near the midrange of what you could get in a dedicated card. They aren't out yet so I guess we'll have to see.

Shouldn't be too far away.

Anadtech had an article on the mobile versions up last week.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1196...md-apus-for-laptops-with-vega-and-updated-zen

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

OMG today shock of my life.........


The Windows calendar and contacts app on my phone is now syncing with my PC..... I don't know what happened but they're both playing nice together....

I know it won't last but it's good now while it lasts.

 

[Random_Spock]

Finally got the chance to reboot my router and thankfully that fixed the issue with not being able to see the router page.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

I’m in need of some help. I need to buy a Windows laptop. It needs to be pretty powerful, I’m looking at some gaming laptops but I have no idea about quality and performance. I’ve been Mac for a long time now and haven’t looked at a Windows PC in like forever.

I’m thinking about purchasing this laptop,
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sto...8mgd90wpkghx/6h4p?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Alienware 15 R3 AW15R3-7003SLV-PUS Gaming Laptop
15.6-inch Full HD display • Intel Core i7-7700HQ • 16GB memory/1TB HDD + 256GB SSD • VR-ready NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics

It looks like a really good value but I’m wondering if I should hold out until Black Friday to see if there would be some better deals.

Anyone have some advice about higher end laptops? Recommendation on brands? The stats I posted for the Alienware are really the minimum I’m looking for.

 

[Santaman]

The Alienware would be fine, looks like its a nice machine.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/AORUS_X5_V7-KL3K3D/
That is a rather powerful one, also there are Asus machines that are in the same range and performance.

As for other high end non gaming laptops, there are plenty of high end business laptops around from HP, DELL, Lenovo Toshiba, they have portable workstations which are well made and quite fast, no thrills and frills though and they usually have a non gaming graphics card.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Waiting for Black Friday/Cyber Monday is probably best at this point. They aren't that far away.

 

[Marc]

I’m in need of some help. I need to buy a Windows laptop. It needs to be pretty powerful, I’m looking at some gaming laptops but I have no idea about quality and performance. I’ve been Mac for a long time now and haven’t looked at a Windows PC in like forever.

I’m thinking about purchasing this laptop,
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/alienware-15-r3-aw15r3-gaming-laptop/8mgd90wpkghx/6h4p?activetab=pivotverviewtab

Alienware 15 R3 AW15R3-7003SLV-PUS Gaming Laptop
15.6-inch Full HD display • Intel Core i7-7700HQ • 16GB memory/1TB HDD + 256GB SSD • VR-ready NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics

It looks like a really good value but I’m wondering if I should hold out until Black Friday to see if there would be some better deals.

Anyone have some advice about higher end laptops? Recommendation on brands? The stats I posted for the Alienware are really the minimum I’m looking for.

If you're doing it for video editing colour accuracy going to be a factor (I know it can be photo editing) because you might want to look a colour calibration.

Also a number of brands have just released or getting ready to release some new models with the Coffee Lake refresh.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11996/asus-launches-rog-g703-17-inch-144-hz-7820hk-gtx1080

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11948/gigabyte-launches-the-aorus-x9-gaming-laptop

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11916/clevo-announces-p870tm-laptop-coffee-lake-dtr

Lots of oomph, lots of $$$$ and lots of weight

 

[Santaman]

GNGHHH.. I had a working GTX 780, nice card, fast enough and so on but it died on me so now to figure out a card which doesn't cost a fortune and isn't much slower than the GTX 780.. also I'm a pirate not a milionaire.. best option so far seems to be the GTX 1060..

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I've had bad luck with Lenovos and good luck with Dell laptops.

I do prefer a larger model that has a proper numeric keypad and obviously a larger screen.

My Dell is an older model (Latitude E6520) that I put a new SSD and 16GB of RAM into when I bought it off ebay a couple years ago.

 

[Marc]

I do prefer a larger model that has a proper numeric keypad and obviously a larger screen.

Thought it seems that the emphasis these days is on smaller screens with the 17" screens being harder to find outside of the desktop replacement & high end gaming markets with 15.4" being the norm.

At the same time they are going to smaller screens the are bumping up the resolution. With my eyesight its probably close the point where I couldn't use a lot of modern laptops. I get buy with a 24" at 1920x1080 but that size on a 13" screen would be impossible for me.

 

[John Clark]

Thought it seems that the emphasis these days is on smaller screens with the 17" screens being harder to find outside of the desktop replacement & high end gaming markets with 15.4" being the norm.

At the same time they are going to smaller screens the are bumping up the resolution. With my eyesight its probably close the point where I couldn't use a lot of modern laptops. I get buy with a 24" at 1920x1080 but that size on a 13" screen would be impossible for me.

Yeah, our work laptops are 1920*1080 on a 13 inch screen and it is a bit of a pain. On the other hand, we typically have a monitor to go with it (and those are a bit long in the tooth) - but unless you get an upgrade, they're limited to 1280*1024

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

At work and at home, I have laptops docked pretty much all of the time.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Thanks for the replies and all the information. A large Laptop is preferential then carrying around my 27" iMac, which is what I have been doing. So any of these Laptops will be better. I think I'm going to go with the Alienware.

 

[Santaman]

Meh.. gaming isn't really possible on a Geforce 315.. There's a large gaping hole where the GTX 780 used to be the GF 315 looks lost in there.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

For those that might be interested a search on youtube for gaming laptops produced some varying results

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gaming+laptops+2017

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Anyone with some Microsoft Surface Experience?

We’re having some Issues where the screen goes black. If you touch on the screen or a key, you’re back at the login screen. It’s happening intermittently. I just updated all the drivers, screen savers and power saver is off. I’m not familiar enough with it, thought someone could help out.