How Good are these Pentium Quads?

[gmaster456]

Currently looking at a laptop to replace my aging TX2. The laptop I'm looking at has a Pentium Quad Core N3530 . The reason I'm looking towards the low end is because I'm on a budget and don't demand a lot of my laptops. Usually.

I know my way around hardware pretty good and used to stay on top of things more than I do but I'm a bit out of the loop as far as these Bay Trail chips go. From what I can tell, these Pentiums are just higher binned Atoms when you get right down to it. Am I correct in this? And if so, how well do they handle things like:

Tabbed browsing with 10+ tabs
Netflix, Youtube etc.
Lighter games like Minecraft, Trine, Torchlight etc. Not really a huge gamer and can't remember the last time I played them but would like the option to.
Light video editing for Youtube. Nothing heavy. Just short 5-10 minute videos shot in 1080p.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yes they are atoms. I would avoid them (as well as kabini) like the plague in a laptop. If you shop carefully, you should be able to get a big core (real) pentium laptop for 300 ish, or an i3 for around 350.

If you want to do light gaming, you might want an AMD apu, but again be careful you are getting a Richland or Kaveri big core apu, not Kabini.

 

[Burpo]

Or an I5 for $399..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...34&ignorebbr=1

 

[crashtech]

I just bought my MIL a T540p with an i5 for $550. There are good machines out there with real CPUs, you just have to look for them

 

[Abwx]

Yes they are atoms. I would avoid them (as well as kabini)

Kabini or Beema are not Baytrails, there s a noticeable difference in GPUs.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-15-g005ng-Notebook-Review.126027.0.html

 

[AtenRa]

This ACER with a Kaveri A8-7100 Quad Core for its price is exceptional for office, browsing and light gaming. You also get a free game.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314554

Later on replace the HDD with a SSD and it will fly.

Edit: wrong link

 

[frozentundra123456]

Kabini or Beema are not Baytrails, there s a noticeable difference in GPUs.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-15-g005ng-Notebook-Review.126027.0.html

Yes, and they both suck as cpus.

 

[AtenRa]

Yes, and they both suck as cpus.

Honestly now, have you ever used a new Kabini/Beema or Pentium ATOM based APU ???

 

[frozentundra123456]

This ACER with a Kaveri A8-7100 Quad Core for its price is exceptional for office, browsing and light gaming. You also get a free game.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314554

Later on replace the HDD with a SSD and it will fly.

A refurbished Beema for 335.00??? Seriously???

 

[AtenRa]

A refurbished Beema for 335.00??? Seriously???

heh, wrong link. fixed it

 

[Yuriman]

Unfortunately AtenRa's suggested laptop only gets around 3 hours of battery life, new, on a full charge, with casual use. You're looking at 10+ with the Atom.

I'd prefer a Haswell chip personally, but you can get some solid Atom notebooks for <$150. Any more than that and you should be getting a Haswell Celeron, at least. The GPU is a lot faster and two fast cores will fare MUCH better in the games you mentioned.

EDIT: His second link should be closer to 5 hours of battery life.

 

[Phynaz]

You said you were on a budget but didn't say just what it is. You may also want to have this moved to the laptop forum.

 

[Abwx]

Yes, and they both suck as cpus.

The Beema i linked has comparisons charts, CPU wise the score, in CB though, is the same as a core i3 4030U, yet you brand it as sucking and are recomending the i3 without even checking the numbers, that s what i call usualy advices born out of urban legends...

i3 has a HD4400, yet fps are about the same in TRaider as well as the 3D Mark Icestorm scores.

 

[Abwx]

This ACER with a Kaveri A8-7100 Quad Core for its price is exceptional for office, browsing and light gaming. You also get a free game.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314554

Later on replace the HDD with a SSD and it will fly.

Edit: wrong link

In the US there is much better deals than in Europe, an HP with a Beema should be sold for considerably less there.

https://geizhals.at/eu/hp-pavilion-13-a051ng-x360-silber-k0w16ea-a1156209.html

13.3", 2x USB3, the rest is ultra standard, curiously the 14" and 15"6 are cheaper overall :

https://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=nb&xf=29_AMD+A8-6#xf_top

 

[VirtualLarry]

Honestly now, have you ever used a new Kabini/Beema or Pentium ATOM based APU ???

Yes, and I would rather use a 2.41Ghz Bay Trail-M CPU, than a 1.4Ghz Kabini. Although both of them do suck badly.

 

[AtenRa]

Yes, and I would rather use a 2.41Ghz Bay Trail-M CPU, than a 1.4Ghz Kabini. Although both of them do suck badly.

And im sure you would rather use a 2GHz Quad Core Beema with SSD than 1GHz 3-5W TDP Broadwell as well.

I have used a Quad core Kabini 1.6/2GHz with an SSD and it was incredibly fast for office and home use. Also a 2.4GHz ATOM Baytrail is also exceptional for those tasks when used with an SSD.

So unless people are referring to High-End Gaming or High-End professional work, i dont really understand why they claim those APUs suck without even ever used one.

 

[AtenRa]

In the US there is much better deals than in Europe, an HP with a Beema should be sold for considerably less there.

https://geizhals.at/eu/hp-pavilion-13-a051ng-x360-silber-k0w16ea-a1156209.html

13.3", 2x USB3, the rest is ultra standard, curiously the 14" and 15"6 are cheaper overall :

https://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=nb&xf=29_AMD+A8-6#xf_top

Personally i find Kabini/Beema laptops too expensive here in EU and US. On the other hand 20W TDP Kaveri Laptops are starting to pop up at very attractive prices both here and the US.

 

[VirtualLarry]

i dont really understand why they claim those APUs suck without even ever used one.

And I don't really understand why you are being so disingenious, by claiming we've never used those CPUs, when I was speaking from plain experience, owning and using both of them.

They DO suck. Only Bay Trail sucks slightly less. Both of them are running Win 8.1 64-bit.

 

[AtenRa]

And I don't really understand why you are being so disingenious, by claiming we've never used those CPUs, when I was speaking from plain experience, owning and using both of them.

They DO suck. Only Bay Trail sucks slightly less. Both of them are running Win 8.1 64-bit.

I wasn't speaking about you, i was referring to those that havent.

Also, a 2.4GHz Baytrail is almost as fast as a 2GHz Kabini in CPU performance and way slower in iGPU. Not only that, both of them are way better than 1GHz Dual core 3-5W TDP Broadwell.
But as you can see i havent recommended him a Kabini/Beema or ATOM but a quad core Kaveri at an exceptional price for the performance and features that it has.

 

[evident]

Honestly now, have you ever used a new Kabini/Beema or Pentium ATOM based APU ???

a quick glance at any benchmark is enough to know to stay the hell away if i want to keep my sanity. for a few bucks more you can get an i3.

 

[Abwx]

a quick glance at any benchmark is enough to know to stay the hell away if i want to keep my sanity. for a few bucks more you can get an i3.

That really must be a very quick, not to say infinitisemal glance...

The Beema i linked has comparisons charts, CPU wise the score, in CB though, is the same as a core i3 4030U, yet you brand it as sucking and are recomending the i3 without even checking the numbers, that s what i call usualy advices born out of urban legends...

i3 has a HD4400, yet fps are about the same in TRaider as well as the 3D Mark Icestorm scores.

You can check the link if you wants more clues than said glance..

 

[Abwx]

Yes, and I would rather use a 2.41Ghz Bay Trail-M CPU, than a 1.4Ghz Kabini. Although both of them do suck badly.

Seems that they started running badly since this thread was opened..

I recently purchased an HP Stream 7 tablet. (Very nice little thing, BTW).

It's one of the first of the "$99 Windows 8.1 Atom x86 tablets".

It has a Bay Trail-T Atom Z3735G (F?), quad-core, 1.33Ghz with some turbo, and Windows 8.1 w/BING 32-bit. 1GB RAM, 32GB eMMC.

It runs great. I put Firefox (32-bit) 33.1 on there, and the newest Flash Player.

A 1.4 Kabini is what, 30% faster than a BT at 1.33, but nevermind, it has no right to run as great as a 25% slower CPU...

 

[coercitiv]

And I don't really understand why you are being so disingenious, by claiming we've never used those CPUs, when I was speaking from plain experience, owning and using both of them.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but isn't your experience limited to using only dual core Kabini @ 1.4Ghz and dual core Bay Trail? My info is based on this thread, you may have had other opportunities since then.

As I stated in your own thread, I own and use a 4c Kabini HTPC and it works just fine. It boots fast and does a good job at browsing, office work, playing high definition content. All one needs to do is add a decent SSD.

Is it a good platform for light gaming? Definitely not, at least not in my opinion. But when it comes to office work, home file storage & backup, multimedia content consumption... it's perfectly capable of doing these tasks all at once.

 

[AtenRa]

a quick glance at any benchmark is enough to know to stay the hell away if i want to keep my sanity. for a few bucks more you can get an i3.

Yeap, you are going to spend more for almost the same performance as a 2GHz Quad Core Beema.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-15-g005ng-Notebook-Review.126027.0.html

 

[Abwx]

Yeap, you are going to spend more for almost the same performance as a 2GHz Quad Core Beema.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-15-g005ng-Notebook-Review.126027.0.html

And less graphic perf than the Beema...

So let s summarize the thread, first an i3 that perform not as well globaly as a Beema is to be prefered to the latter because said Beema sucks while being better, then it is assumed, on the basis of experience on a 2C 1.4 Kabini, that a 4C 1.4 Kabini sucks, but , also based on the same experience, that a 25% slower BT works great...

Is this actualy a tech forum.?..