I recently purchased a Trinity-powered laptop with an A4-4300M. (For the excruciating details, here)
I mentioned in linked thread above that I wanted to see how this lowest-end A-series performs on my Steam games. I didn't choose the games at random - they are simply the ones in my library that have a built-in benchmark, then I ran Oblivion and Skyrim, too (more on that later).
Some specs for the A4-4300M:
- 1 Piledriver Module (2 cores), 2.5GHz base, 3.0GHz Turbo
- Radeon 7420G: 128 graphics cores
- 35W TDP
- RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) 1333MHZ DDR3.
It only has 1/3 of the cores of an A10, and is paired in this laptop with only 1333Mhz. Whatever results we get here is going to be the worst-case for a modern-day APU.
Without further ado, the benchmarks:
There's something funky about the minimum frame rate, because I re-ran it several times and I really can't pinpoint where it stuttered. An actual playthrough from the very beginning until I defeat the first batch of thugs right after Joker escapes also gave me no stutter. I can't explain where that 1 FPS came from.
Arkham City is far more brutal, as expected. This time, I did notice several occasions of stutter during the benchmark run (they were pretty hard not to notice). What happens if we turn off everything and remove AA?
Well, it helped the average and max FPS a bit, but the minimum dropped. It's probably a CPU-bottleneck scenario that causes the minimums here, so it fluctuates regardless of the graphical settings. It's definitely not going to be as enjoyable to play here as Arkham Asylum.
Is it just me, or does the Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor benchmark really have nothing to do with actual gameplay? It looked like a movie of some sort, whereas the game is pretty much a 3D top-view strategy thing. Average and Max are good, Min is dreadful (this is pretty much a pattern for this APU).
Far Cry 2 is absolutely brutal. I started benching at Medium, but the results were too poor when it came to the Action Scene Playback bench (Ranch was ok, though). I dialed down on the settings until I was at the lowest, but even then the action scene proved brutal. It's possible to enjoy Far Cry 2 on this APU if you are the stealthy type, but a full-on assault with multiple enemies on screen all firing at you will quickly stutter like crazy.
Steam's built-in bench here only provides the average FPS. We know the Source Engine would provide the highest scores here, anyway. No surprise.
Just Cause 2 proves to be very brutal here as well. Like Far Cry 2, I ended up having to dial the settings way down until I ended up with the above. Dark Tower and Desert Sunrise aren't too bad, actually, even on higher settings, but Concrete Jungle simply destroys performance. Given how Just Cause 2 is, I'm not sure there's anyway to say it's playable here unless you avoid all violence and never try to glide with your parachute by hooking into fast-moving vehicles. That's just not how Rico Rodriguez rolls, ladies.
This one is pretty playable, as you would expect from an old title, almost as fast as HL2:LC. I would have preferred the most recent X3 game to bench, but for some reason the built-in benchmark for any of the X3 games are always grayed-out / inactive. Their support forum says that is expected, it's disabled for some reason that isn't totally crazy.
Now, this game is important to me personally because several years back when it was released, I had an 8500GT and of course it wasn't a good experience outdoors (indoors was fine), and it sucks to have it stutter heavily while foraging through the forest or running after deer or something. To solve that problem, I got an 8600GTS (a full-blown 8800GT could not fit in my small case back then), and off I played Oblivion for hours and hours on end. This is the only scenario I've encountered where I didn't upgrade because "it was time", and instead I had to because I wanted to play a game that refused to play sufficiently well on current hardware.
The experience with the A4-4300m is pretty much similar. Now, I don't have numbers for the 8600GTS, but it is certainly no worse than it, at least for Oblivion. So what I can say for sure is that the A4-4300m is definitely way better than an 8500GT, and is at least as good as an 8600GTS, at least for Oblivion.
What about Oblivion's successor?
At the settings above, there is minimal noticeable stutter despite the dips below 30. I ran through the sparse forests, looking at bushes, trees, flowers, the sky, the mountainous horizons, chased a deer, and then in turn got chased by a Mammoth (while at level 1). Although not part of the benchmark results above, I ended up playing Skyrim for real for about 2 hours. I also tried killing the guards at Whitewood. I found even my level 1 hero can take them on, if one at a time. Eventually, they ganged up and did unspeakable things to my poor hero. It was a nice experience overall, though. I completely forgot I was playing on a laptop just to bench the weakest of the A-series on a $300 HP ProBook.
Final thoughts:
If some of you are wondering what kind of performance can be had from a low-end APU, or from a particular laptop with similar specs as this one, here you go. It's not awesome, and some games will simply be unplayable (either due to the limited graphics or limited CPU power), but some will be playable enough. If you aren't buying it for gaming (specifically thinking of laptops here like the ProBook), then it's certainly a welcome bonus that games like Skyrim will be perfectly playable without looking absolutely horrid.
More than anything, I'm just amazed at how our tech continues to improve. I wouldn't want to use this as an everyday gaming rig, that's what my high-end desktop is for when it's not also doing real work, but for the value it presents, I can't help but salute the engineers working on this tech now - Intel, NV, AMD. At least with this kind of capability, I can fire up a game like Skyrim at the airport while waiting to board, or when I'm pretending to listen to some people at a meeting when they are just wasting my time - all on a $300 laptop. That's pretty cool.
I mentioned in linked thread above that I wanted to see how this lowest-end A-series performs on my Steam games. I didn't choose the games at random - they are simply the ones in my library that have a built-in benchmark, then I ran Oblivion and Skyrim, too (more on that later).
Some specs for the A4-4300M:
- 1 Piledriver Module (2 cores), 2.5GHz base, 3.0GHz Turbo
- Radeon 7420G: 128 graphics cores
- 35W TDP
- RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) 1333MHZ DDR3.
It only has 1/3 of the cores of an A10, and is paired in this laptop with only 1333Mhz. Whatever results we get here is going to be the worst-case for a modern-day APU.
Without further ado, the benchmarks:
There's something funky about the minimum frame rate, because I re-ran it several times and I really can't pinpoint where it stuttered. An actual playthrough from the very beginning until I defeat the first batch of thugs right after Joker escapes also gave me no stutter. I can't explain where that 1 FPS came from.
Arkham City is far more brutal, as expected. This time, I did notice several occasions of stutter during the benchmark run (they were pretty hard not to notice). What happens if we turn off everything and remove AA?
Well, it helped the average and max FPS a bit, but the minimum dropped. It's probably a CPU-bottleneck scenario that causes the minimums here, so it fluctuates regardless of the graphical settings. It's definitely not going to be as enjoyable to play here as Arkham Asylum.
Is it just me, or does the Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor benchmark really have nothing to do with actual gameplay? It looked like a movie of some sort, whereas the game is pretty much a 3D top-view strategy thing. Average and Max are good, Min is dreadful (this is pretty much a pattern for this APU).
Far Cry 2 is absolutely brutal. I started benching at Medium, but the results were too poor when it came to the Action Scene Playback bench (Ranch was ok, though). I dialed down on the settings until I was at the lowest, but even then the action scene proved brutal. It's possible to enjoy Far Cry 2 on this APU if you are the stealthy type, but a full-on assault with multiple enemies on screen all firing at you will quickly stutter like crazy.
Steam's built-in bench here only provides the average FPS. We know the Source Engine would provide the highest scores here, anyway. No surprise.
Just Cause 2 proves to be very brutal here as well. Like Far Cry 2, I ended up having to dial the settings way down until I ended up with the above. Dark Tower and Desert Sunrise aren't too bad, actually, even on higher settings, but Concrete Jungle simply destroys performance. Given how Just Cause 2 is, I'm not sure there's anyway to say it's playable here unless you avoid all violence and never try to glide with your parachute by hooking into fast-moving vehicles. That's just not how Rico Rodriguez rolls, ladies.
This one is pretty playable, as you would expect from an old title, almost as fast as HL2:LC. I would have preferred the most recent X3 game to bench, but for some reason the built-in benchmark for any of the X3 games are always grayed-out / inactive. Their support forum says that is expected, it's disabled for some reason that isn't totally crazy.
Now, this game is important to me personally because several years back when it was released, I had an 8500GT and of course it wasn't a good experience outdoors (indoors was fine), and it sucks to have it stutter heavily while foraging through the forest or running after deer or something. To solve that problem, I got an 8600GTS (a full-blown 8800GT could not fit in my small case back then), and off I played Oblivion for hours and hours on end. This is the only scenario I've encountered where I didn't upgrade because "it was time", and instead I had to because I wanted to play a game that refused to play sufficiently well on current hardware.
The experience with the A4-4300m is pretty much similar. Now, I don't have numbers for the 8600GTS, but it is certainly no worse than it, at least for Oblivion. So what I can say for sure is that the A4-4300m is definitely way better than an 8500GT, and is at least as good as an 8600GTS, at least for Oblivion.
What about Oblivion's successor?
At the settings above, there is minimal noticeable stutter despite the dips below 30. I ran through the sparse forests, looking at bushes, trees, flowers, the sky, the mountainous horizons, chased a deer, and then in turn got chased by a Mammoth (while at level 1). Although not part of the benchmark results above, I ended up playing Skyrim for real for about 2 hours. I also tried killing the guards at Whitewood. I found even my level 1 hero can take them on, if one at a time. Eventually, they ganged up and did unspeakable things to my poor hero. It was a nice experience overall, though. I completely forgot I was playing on a laptop just to bench the weakest of the A-series on a $300 HP ProBook.
Final thoughts:
If some of you are wondering what kind of performance can be had from a low-end APU, or from a particular laptop with similar specs as this one, here you go. It's not awesome, and some games will simply be unplayable (either due to the limited graphics or limited CPU power), but some will be playable enough. If you aren't buying it for gaming (specifically thinking of laptops here like the ProBook), then it's certainly a welcome bonus that games like Skyrim will be perfectly playable without looking absolutely horrid.
More than anything, I'm just amazed at how our tech continues to improve. I wouldn't want to use this as an everyday gaming rig, that's what my high-end desktop is for when it's not also doing real work, but for the value it presents, I can't help but salute the engineers working on this tech now - Intel, NV, AMD. At least with this kind of capability, I can fire up a game like Skyrim at the airport while waiting to board, or when I'm pretending to listen to some people at a meeting when they are just wasting my time - all on a $300 laptop. That's pretty cool.
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