AMD Phenom II x3 n850...did I make a mistake?

TangoDown

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2010
2
0
18,510
I was browsing laptops and settled on the HP g62t with i5 m460 with 4gb DDR3, 320 7200RPM HD, and ATI 5470 because it seemed like the best bang for the buck at $634 before tax and shipping...until the day I was going to buy. On Saturday, I stumbled upon the HP DV6Z, and after configuring it, I ended up with the AMD Phenom II x3 n850 alongside 4gb DDR3 RAM, but what sold me was the ATI 5650 1GB card and free upgrade to a 500gb 7200RPM HD, all for $700 (when I entered a $20 coupon).

I purchased the DV6Z, and it is expected to get here sometime next week or the week afterwards. Yet, I've been hearing that the AMD X3 n850 is not only slower than all Intel mobile processors released in the last two years, but it's only comparable to low-end Core 2 Duos, and has extremely low benchmarks when compared to chipsets like the I3 3xx series.

My question is; did I make a mistake by going with the AMD processor so that I could get the great graphics card and larger hard drive on the cheap? Will there be a massive reduction in performance, or will it be evened out by the 4gb of DDR3 and 7200RPM HD, when it comes to multitasking and playing games?

If anybody owns a laptop with an n830 or n850, could you tell me how you've felt about it? And finally, I've heard that a forth core can be unlocked. Will I be able to do this with the n850, because I don't know of any 4 core processors clocked at 2.2ghz...so I have some doubt about that.

What I'll be doing with the laptop? Internet browsing, movie watching, some light multitasking...maybe some video editing, and some occasional game playing (which is why I went with the ATI 5650)

Thanks for your time.
 

stanisawesome

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2010
1
0
18,510
I just bought a HP dv7-4170us with an Phenom II X3 N850, ATI Radeon HD 5470 and 4gb DDR3 RAM and I love it. I do some photoshop and some after effects which takes and need speed and good video card. I think its just perfect. I mean it's compatable with everything in the market. I can even play COD Black Ops on this.

But other than that I can really answer your other question.
 

amdfangirl

Expert
Ambassador
That's not true, the AMD Phenom x3 n850 is essentially an Athlon II X3 on the desktop. It's quite a fast and decent CPU, often beating or tying with Core i3 mobile CPUs, most noticbly with multi-tasking. I'd say your buy is a better one if you're going for performance, Intel just tends to have better battery life.

The HD 5470 is significantly slower than the HD 5650. You did the right thing I think...
 

TangoDown

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2010
2
0
18,510


So you're saying that in actuality I'm going to get good performance out of it? Then why are its benchmarks so low? Are they not taking advantage of its 3 cores?