HP-Costco website - Vague laptop specification sux
 

Early last month, when my old laptop finally bit the dust, I took a trip over to Costco and picked up a new laptop, no problem. Decent enough unit, an HP Dv7-6143cl.

Let's see.. 750gb hdd, 8bg ram quad core, dvd burner, check, check, check... not too shabby... video.. Radeon HD 6770M s... no mention of the video ram.. "switchable graphics" hmmm...

In any case, that's what I picked up.


Few days later, my mother calls. We'd discussed the new laptop. She found a different laptop. Same price.

Blu-Ray. Sahweet.
1GB Video "Ultra fast" RAM. Sahweeeet.

Same everything else, it seems. But a Blu-ray and a seemingly higher end graphic processor.

I'm unable to find anything about the video RAM on the one I purchased. HP's site is very vague about it, and I figure it's pigy-backed off the system RAM.

She offers to buy it on her CC so Costco will extend the warranty. I can return the other one, and give her the cash for it,

Cool, says I.


New laptop comes today. I find some info about the video proc that suggests a max of 512mb. Strange.:confused:

Then I do a different search and find a comparison. And some actual data. that I think is new enough that it wasn't published before.

Turns out, the "higher end" laptop with the nifty blu-ray player "superfast" 1gb graphic ram and blah blah ... has a LOW END graphic processor.
40% slower.. 800mhz vs 1600mhz for memory speed, ..:eek:
AMD Radeon HD 6490M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6770M.43955.0.html

But no direct comparisons...


Thanks' HP and Costo, for being overly vague, and working it to seem liek a higher end laptop.

I'm about to run both laptops through some 3DMark testing.

Blah.

Sucks about the hassle.

No secret I'm a fanboy but I do need to buy non fruit PC's now and then. I never enjoy the purchase experience. By the time I pull the trigger I have a headache and am pissed off from trying to compare boxes to maximize value.

Just finished two different versions of 3DMark on both laptops.

The one I purchased TROUNCED the new one. By miles.

New one going back. Bummer, I kinda wanted the Blu-Ray. And the extended warranty, which Costco didn't do because I didn't buy it on a CC that they accepted.

for all of the trouples sweat and mouse clicking anxiety attack you gave yourself was it worth your bottom end price point?

ALL DEPENDS ON YOUR ALLPICATOIN FOR THE MACHINE.

GAMER, MOVIES, EMAILING MOMS CHOC-CHIP COOKIE RECIPE..............85% OF THE SOFTWARE OUT THERE DOESN'T NEED CUTTING EDGE $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ BUCKS TO RUN IT.

But as you seemed concerned about video ram, them boost it or get a different machine. Seems silly to me and I'm a IT tech guy.

1st off, when shopping 98% of people are looking for the best deal...........errrrrr.........for the deal they know knothing abobbout it. BUT IT"S HALF PRIsE!!!!!!!!!!

how about deifine your expertaions and wants then go buy them..................GASP a concept from the over-loard or yack.

actuall do your foot worlk, reseasrce, compare, scrutuiniy between brands and then wallaaaaaaaaaaaa new machine comes into your life as youd like.k enjoy and it meets your needs.

or got gown to Waldos Sqwuid van at the end of the alley and say 'i got $400 what youo got?


roll your changes. walmartoblotto even better.

This.

People get all worked up about specs to build a machine that won't do anything more stressful than play Farmville.

Had a guy at work that insisted he needed more memory, so I told him I'd do it when we went home, as I was staying late anyway. I did some registry cleanup, bumped up his swap partition, turned off some of his dancing baloney, then removed half of his RAM. The next day we was amazed at how much better it ran.

To answer a few of your specific questions:

The amount of VRAM doesn't have to track to the power of the GPU. You can have a slower GPU with more, faster with less, or even faster with shared RAM and no dedicated VRAM. And less but faster VRAM can be either faster or slower depending on frame buffer size. Which one is best depends on the app you are interested in accelerating.

"switchable graphics" probably refers to AMD's version of NVIDIA's "Optimus" which means it came with an onboard Intel GPU along with a faster but more power hungry AMD GPU and it switches based on task.
AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics (PowerXPress 4.0 / BACON) vs. Nvidia Optimus - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

I stress my computers pretty hard....at least, I think so. Video processing, gaming, multitrack audio recording, and yes, even gaming. I run various realtime guitar FX programs too, which can get processor intensive when doing recording as well. My CPU is usually pegged around 90% usage.

My mother, on the other hand, needs the latest and greatest to check her email, suf the web, and store pictures. :confused:

HP gave me a call today, and even the guy that I spoke to was initially very confused over the card performance, until he started looking deeper into the specs, and only then agreed that it was much less powerful graphics processor. Looking at the site, he agreed that it was confusing, and stated that they didn't list the older laptop's card RAM because they only offer that card in 1GB, vs. the 1 or 2GB for the less powerful, slower cards.

If that's the case, I think a laptop may not be the right choice.

My home desktop is a 3.2Ghz dual quad-core with 32Gb of RAM, but the most stress it sees is the wife playing Frontierville.

My regular desktop is a dual core 3ghz Intel, 4gb ram, and a whopping 9800GTX card for it's day. I built it on a semi-budget to play a game that came out in.. 2007 or '08.
But, I am thinking of beefing it up a bit... the quads are quite nice, but were very expensive when I built it.